Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[Yosharian]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

Because it's not a very good game, and neither was Pillars 1

I guarantee most people who played Pillars 1 gave up about halfway or earlier due to absolute boredom

 

[2house2fly]

Buggy launch of a direct sequel to a game with niche appeal, pretty much covers it.

I finally got to fight the Guardian of Ukaizo (previously the water dragon got rid of him) and what do you know, its actually a pretty nice bossfight. Didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised.

The water dragon/Guardian interaction is another really bizarre decision. The Guardian has a boss fight and story content, but the only way to see it is to kill the dragon, something the game gives you no reason to want to do. I'd have had had the Guardian's head wash up on Ukaizo or something so storygamers, the only people who care what it has to say, would still be able to talk with it

 

[luj1]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

Because the first game sucked.

 

[Removal]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

The people who might have bought PoE2 all died of boredom playing PoE1

 

[Tigranes]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

Because it's not a very good game, and neither was Pillars 1

I guarantee most people who played Pillars 1 gave up about halfway or earlier due to absolute boredom

Most people who play any video game give up halfway or earlier, though. At least in the Steam era.

I can imagine a thousand reasons why a game like POE2 wouldn't sell well. It's not a difficult mental exercise. But then, if DOS1 sold 10% of what it did, we would also be able to think of a hundred reasons why it didn't sell well. (Turn-based! Writing!)

There are tons of games that have sub-par thematic cohesion or stilted delivery of key characters, for example. So it's obviously true POE2 suffers from those issues, but I don't know if they conclusively explain why the game sold badly. And yeah sure "hurr durr game sux so it doesnt sell well", yet plenty of games suck ass by Codex standards and sell just fine. Doesn't really clear it up.

Possibly more plausible is that POE1's effort at doing a more sombre kind of fantasy world - lots of history nerd type vibes, pretty gloomy atmosphere early on in the game, etc. - didn't excite a lot of people.

 

[Desiderius]

lots of history nerd type vibes

I'm a history nerd. I've even read all the books in Skyrim. I couldn't be bothered to read half the lore dumps in PoE/Deadfire. There's no there there. It's exhausted performative nihilism.

 

[Yosharian]

Possibly more plausible is that POE1's effort at doing a more sombre kind of fantasy world - lots of history nerd type vibes, pretty gloomy atmosphere early on in the game, etc. - didn't excite a lot of people.

And yet the Witcher series has been phenomenally successful with precisely that kind of gloomy, gritty atmosphere

 

[NJClaw]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

I guarantee most people who played Pillars 1 gave up about halfway or earlier due to absolute boredom

But that's also true for D:OS 1 and 2.

lots of history nerd type vibes

I'm a history nerd. I've even read all the books in Skyrim. [...]

 

[Lacrymas]

We have a whole thread about why PoE2 didn't do well financially, go read that. The gist of it is that PoE1 failed to create many fans and PoE2 is not good enough to start a word-of-mouth craze.

 

[Haplo]

Buggy launch of a direct sequel to a game with niche appeal, pretty much covers it.

I finally got to fight the Guardian of Ukaizo (previously the water dragon got rid of him) and what do you know, its actually a pretty nice bossfight. Didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised.

The water dragon/Guardian interaction is another really bizarre decision. The Guardian has a boss fight and story content, but the only way to see it is to kill the dragon, something the game gives you no reason to want to do. I'd have had had the Guardian's head wash up on Ukaizo or something so storygamers, the only people who care what it has to say, would still be able to talk with it

Or skip the Watershaper's Guild, like I did this time.

In general I agree, the fact that you can easily skip the Guardian entirely (without even a conscious choice in the matter), massively adds to the feeling that the main game ending was rushed, undercooked and ultimately dissapointing.

When you don't even fight the Guardian, there are only 2 encounters at Ukaizo, rather easy ones at this stage, too. Nothing to explore either (but annoyingly area transitions and loading screens aplenty).
And then you can't even "save the world" or defeat the "big bad" (not really that bad, but still).

 

[Tigranes]

Possibly more plausible is that POE1's effort at doing a more sombre kind of fantasy world - lots of history nerd type vibes, pretty gloomy atmosphere early on in the game, etc. - didn't excite a lot of people.

And yet the Witcher series has been phenomenally successful with precisely that kind of gloomy, gritty atmosphere

Ehhhhhh. Especially in TW2/3, the Witcher could sport really spectacular epic fantasy scenes full of kingdom regalia and grand armies, and of course the sex doesn't hurt. It could also do it in top notch graphics and voice acting. TW1 is much closer comparison, but I would say it is still aesthetically more accessible.

Consider POE1's companions - I've talked at length before about how quite a few of them seem to consciously eschew melodrama for more understated kinds of expressions, stories, and scenes. And while I really liked that, a lot of people found that boring or uninteresting. They're a far cry from the theatrical flourishes of the Witcher cast.

 

[Lacrymas]

Witcher is a 3rd person action game. There is no comparison. And it's not because of the "gloomy atmosphere".

 

[AliceAlcina]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

Because it's not a very good game, and neither was Pillars 1

I guarantee most people who played Pillars 1 gave up about halfway or earlier due to absolute boredom

Most people who play any video game give up halfway or earlier, though. At least in the Steam era.

I can imagine a thousand reasons why a game like POE2 wouldn't sell well. It's not a difficult mental exercise. But then, if DOS1 sold 10% of what it did, we would also be able to think of a hundred reasons why it didn't sell well. (Turn-based! Writing!)

There are tons of games that have sub-par thematic cohesion or stilted delivery of key characters, for example. So it's obviously true POE2 suffers from those issues, but I don't know if they conclusively explain why the game sold badly. And yeah sure "hurr durr game sux so it doesnt sell well", yet plenty of games suck ass by Codex standards and sell just fine. Doesn't really clear it up.

Possibly more plausible is that POE1's effort at doing a more sombre kind of fantasy world - lots of history nerd type vibes, pretty gloomy atmosphere early on in the game, etc. - didn't excite a lot of people.

Which reminds me of fact that kickstarter of POE2 was extreme failure, and after word got out about poor sales people didn't want to buy this after release... and it's not beyond the fact that obsidian boosting his kickstarter wasn't confidence either...
and I believe part of this extreme failure might be pirate setting as well POE1.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

The game was too high class for the masses. The quality exposition, the large cast of major and minor characters with their intersecting motivations were too much for the casual crowd.

The complex web of story-affecting choices and consequence was confusing to RPG players who are used to linearity, illusion of choice and only differing ending slides.

It bombed not because it was bad, but because it was too good and misunderstood.

 

[Daidre]

Which reminds me of fact that kickstarter of POE2 was extreme failure, and after word got out about poor sales people didn't want to buy this after release... and it's not beyond the fact that obsidian boosting his kickstarter wasn't confidence either...
and I believe part of this extreme failure might be pirate setting as well POE1.

Deadfire was not on Kickstarter, but on FIG and gathered quite decent money there - 2.15 KK from backers and 2.25 from investors (https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire). Actually judging by amount of money gathered it is very surprising how bad it sold initially.

 

[AliceAlcina]

Which reminds me of fact that kickstarter of POE2 was extreme failure, and after word got out about poor sales people didn't want to buy this after release... and it's not beyond the fact that obsidian boosting his kickstarter wasn't confidence either...
and I believe part of this extreme failure might be pirate setting as well POE1.

Deadfire was not on Kickstarter, but on FIG and gathered quite decent money there - 2.15 KK from backers and 2.25 from investors (https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire). Actually judging by amount of money gathered it is very surprising how bad it sold initially.

Kickstarter = Fig

 

[MajorMace]

The game bombed but it's still good. Too time-consuming because of the silly navigation system and the long loading times though.

 

[Haplo]

Eh, other games have other "time sinks". Like Kingdom management in Kingmaker.

The cannonfire minigame isn't that great, but in general I have enjoyed the exploration and bounty hunting, including naval bounties.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Has anybody concluded why such poor sales of POE2?

Because it was so fucking bad and stupid. Generic story, stupid pirate setting, stupid tribal quests, stupid and broken ship battles, stupid story which goes nowhere, stupid and boring exploration, awful companions (and fucking Aloth again), stupid and boring bossfights, basically everything about this fucking game sucks and hurts my feelings as a sentient human being.

 

[NJClaw]

The "ship management" in Deadfire is fairly less invasive than the kingdom management in Kingmaker. After you grab enough sailors and high-tier cannons (both long and short range are fine, but the second ones are quicker), the minigame lasts less than a minute each time and it still doesn't occur that often. While in Kingmaker you have a set amount of time that in each playthrough you have to waste clicking on cards, talking to advisors and staring at the screen while advisors level up or while the game loads the screen that you have to stare at while the advisors level up. Even just two options to let the advisors do whatever the fuck they want instead of asking your opinion every single time and to immediately skip those "whoosh whoosh whoosh" during advisors' level ups would be enough to significantly cut idle times in Kingmaker.

Still, I can't force myself to go through a second playthrough of Deadfire and, at the same time, I can't wait to play Kingmaker once again.

 

[Haplo]

Well, to be honest, the Kingdom Management does feel both more involved and more rewarding to me.
But it also actually consumes significantly more time, so...

 

[AwesomeButton]

Good games do not need timesinks.

 

[Desiderius]

Arcomage is a time sink; KM is the whole point, though mostly potential unrealized mechanically if not thematically. The writing/plot of the KM is quite good.

 

[MajorMace]

But I'm not talking about timesinks even. I skipped all the boat content in both my playthroughs, it's an optional feature, and a non issue.
I was talking about the time it takes to load or go from A to B (despite the shortcuts on map travel for instance). The game wastes an absurd amount of time.
Even with fast forward on, sailing is stupid boring, and I'm surprised that despite the modularity of the game, you can't skip this big nothing.

 

[Haplo]

Guess that's due to sea events? Not that they are particularly important or impactful, once you've explored the map.