Game News Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Announced and Live on Fig

[Sensuki]

Anyway Ivan if you actually give a shit (I assume not): it starts from about here

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...e-mod-pros-and-cons.98258/page-6#post-3845190

 

[Roguey]

So you just called yourself a goon? Because I remember you praising PoE highly after finally playing it. This is refreshingly candid of you for a change.

1.0 was made for goons. 3.0 was made for a more sophisticated audience, though goons could still have their fun with the story time and easy difficulties.

so HOW, and WHEN, did Sensuki become embittered?

He played a reviewer build and dropped it in act 2 because the writing disappointed him. He didn't truly lose his mind about it until Prime Junta wrote a third review (technically fourth if you count vd/grunker's), which is when he gained his cuck tag. http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...pillars-of-eternity-propaganda-review.100012/

 

[Sensuki]

dropped it in act 2 because the content disappointed him.

Minor adjustment.

 

[ArchAngel]

So you just called yourself a goon? Because I remember you praising PoE highly after finally playing it. This is refreshingly candid of you for a change.

1.0 was made for goons. 3.0 was made for a more sophisticated audience, though goons could still have their fun with the story time and easy difficulties.

Ah here is the Roguey we all know and love. Being candid for one post was enough for you for 1 year at least.

 

[Sensuki]

I'm too sophisticated for 3.0

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm too butthurt for 3.0

Minor adjustment.

 

[almondblight]

The money pledged is now more than Wasteland 3 (though the "Fig funds" amount is a lot less).

 

[DrDigej]

1.0 was made for goons. 3.0 was made for a more sophisticated audience, though goons could still have their fun with the story time and easy difficulties.

I thought Roguey was an autistic grog like Popeamole and knew how to play these vidya because of his tldr reviews which I didnt read but since its so many letters I assumed competence.
I was wrong.
I cant imagine how 1.0 looked but 3.0 plays exactly how people describe 1.0. Banal shit boring.

 

[Invictus]

Forgive my ignorance but how exactly is 3.0 somehow worse than the first release versions?
The combat AI is better, they polished the combat, reworked encounters, added AI packages to followers so you dont have to micromanage everything, added more "choose your own adventure" options, better loot (including some decent starter magic items) and it even runs a whole lot better without chugging the framerate for apparently no reason
All in all the release version felt to me that it needed at least 3 months of patching and fixing before actual release and that was pretty much it for 2.0 but the current version really changed my views on the game enormously
The core problems still exist with trash mobs, no prebuffs or counters in combat, lore dumps and so so equipment but overall it fells a whole lot better and the combat AI does help a whole lot to alleviate issues with combat and trash mobs since you can give a couple of orders and then AI can deal with it so that makes things go smoother
I understand Sensuki's frustration but in the end he became too involved with it and it ended up burning him up... sometimes it happens but you have to take a step back and give it another try latter

 

[throwaway]

You fuckers are going to make me read all the 999 reviews right now since I forgot to do it when the whole drama blew up.

 

[DrDigej]

I am not saying 3 is worse than 1. I havent touched Pillars till all the expansions were released.

 

[Ivan]

Anyway Ivan if you actually give a shit (I assume not): it starts from about here

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...e-mod-pros-and-cons.98258/page-6#post-3845190

thanks! I actually DO care. I liked the interview you did with Whalenought. And I remember you being passionate about PoE. Thanks for sharing your story.

 

[Roguey]

I thought Roguey was an autistic grog like Popeamole and knew how to play these vidya because of his tldr reviews which I didnt read but since its so many letters I assumed competence.
I was wrong.
I cant imagine how 1.0 looked but 3.0 plays exactly how people describe 1.0. Banal shit boring.

My completion of all the D&D Infinity Engine games makes me extremely competent.

I'm not a master, nor do I want to be. Outskilling most games doesn't seem like it'd be very fun.

 

[Nihiliste]

I actually quite liked 3.0

But Carrie Patel's purple faux hawk alone make me not want to fund this.

Might make more sense to wait for it to come out, be patched a few times, and wait for a sale.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Are you kidding?

I may have been stupid enough to back the original and was blind to the inevitable outcome, but at least I have some capacity to learn from my mistakes.

I think it will be a better game for sure, and a new lead designer and lead system designer presents an opportunity for some change, but there's no fucking way I'm backing another Obsidian (or inXile) project. In fact I highly doubt I'll participate in another crowd funding project again.

come on join the fun

Aw. I really miss Ryan Davis (no relation).

 

[Nihiliste]

Tyranny was also so bad that I can't give these guys a penny until they show that they've redeemed themselves. If that's the type of writing this game has, I won't be playing it.

 

[agris]

I wish OE would try to make smaller, more focused games. A way to train new people by having them work with the company vets. Several games on the scale, and of the scope of, Dungeon Rats would go a long way towards honing their employees skills in a specific aspect of game making.

I can't think of an OE cRPG with well designed (i.e. challenging) combat encounters. Never played NWN2 though.

 

[Tigranes]

I wish OE would try to make smaller, more focused games. A way to train new people by having them work with the company vets. Several games on the scale, and of the scope of, Dungeon Rats would go a long way towards honing their employees skills in a specific aspect of game making.

I can't think of an OE cRPG with well designed (i.e. challenging) combat encounters. Never played NWN2 though.

I agree, and I think right now they're trying to figure out just what kind of scale they're playing at. To an extent, they did (by necessity) turn away from big AAA productions when they embraced more modest design goals (DS3) and smaller budget old school titles (POE). Tyranny is also demonstrably lower budget and smaller team size than AAA, and POE2 will be as well.

The issue is that they're still trying to handle huge volumes of game content (30+, 40+ hours, whatever goes for 'big' these days), and the recognition that comes with being a prime time RPG maker rather than B-grade or indie. The problem is that it's not all up to them, it's also up to buyer expectations. When you have people whining POE2 should be as big as BG2 or they just loooove 100 hour games...

I wonder if one of the big issues is that they're not sure what kind of viability model will come out of being a 20-30 man studio making halfway scale games.

 

[Lurker King]

I wish OE would try to make smaller, more focused games. A way to train new people by having them work with the company vets. Several games on the scale, and of the scope of, Dungeon Rats would go a long way towards honing their employees skills in a specific aspect of game making.

I can't think of an OE cRPG with well designed (i.e. challenging) combat encounters. Never played NWN2 though.

It’s not enough. If they don’t put the effort to design in a more principled manner, it will be just a bland compilation of shitty mechanics. Vault Dweller knows and has passion for what he is doing. Obsidian developers don’t give a shit. It's not that they are ignorant, they just don't give a shit and they understood that if they keep doing the same effortless shallow games, they will sell. Did you see the story of PoE 2? They just don’t care, because cRPG is silly stuff for silly gamers in order to pay their bills. What is worse, instead of improving, they are in a clear process of involution. Tyranny has skill trees in DA style. They were shameless copying popamole games to improve sales. Their writers don’t read books. Seriously, the amount of goodwill you guys give is beyond reason, bigger than maternal love.

 

[agris]

Lurker King

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm using a different perspective. No one wants to be bad at their job. No one wants to put out mediocrity. The skillsets that go into making video games (art, programming, design, project management) will rake in higher salaries in non-game related fields, so I believe that they want to make good games, not just take a paycheck.

We can agree to disagree, but my post reflects my point of view: given the chance, I think their employees want to make better games. To make good games. I think OE is in a somewhat unique position given their size and independence, factors that contribute to what Tigranes said above.

The best we can hope for when we see a studio produce a subpar cRPG is for them to take the opportunity to learn, grow and improve. Then, if the best they can produce is still disappointing, we know that either 1) their goals are different than our expectations or that 2) your assumptions are valid. Regardless, we should stop supporting the company until something we like is produced.

That's where I'm at right now after PoE. I can't support them. I hope they prove me wrong and their writing/combat encounter design/scope is all improved for my tastes, but until then I can't give them a dime. I think right now the development of talent is suffering because of the untenable business/production model they operate with. But I want them to have the opportunity to do better though, which is where my post came from.

 

[Lurker King]

agris I believe that they may want to believe that they care, but either they have misguided ideas about game design, or they can’t implement them to be on business, or they don’t care. I think they have misguided ideas because they ultimately don’t care. If they cared, they wouldn’t adopt affirmative action in the hiring process, they wouldn’t ignore the main things about the IE games they are supposed to succeed, etc. I think I can list at least five or six people here on the Codex who knows more about combat systems than everyone at Obsidian. We know that Obsidian always sucked at this. Why didn’t they hire anyone here to make this? Because they think they know best. But they don’t. The truth is, I think they know deep down that they can’t please us with the things we want because they will lose sales and they need a wider audience. So ultimately, they wouldn’t provide us with the things I want even if they knew, because payroll.

And by the way, I don’t like to say disgraceful things to developers and I hope this will not have a negative effect on them, but is the truth. Either I say the truth in the vain hopes that you will support the same games I want and discuss game design without compromises, or I keep ignoring the facts to avoid being an asshole.

 

[Lurker King]

Another thing you should consider that is that Obsidian only shone when their worked in what they want, instead of trying to tap a particular audience. In F:NV, they were working on FO. In MotB, they were working on an expansion, so they had more freedom. Now, I don’t believe for one moment that Sawyer or Tim Cain wanted to do another “Pillars”. I think they have to do this to stay in business because that’s what sells. But when you are working in something just because that’s what expected of you, there is no real passion involved, everything is cheap and checklist design follows.

 

[Tigranes]

Do you have any reason to believe they don't care about the games they make, or that Sawyer doesn't want to make POE2?

 

[Invictus]

Do you have any reason to believe they don't care about the games they make, or that Sawyer doesn't want to make POE2?

I am not the biggest fan of Sawyer but if he didn't want to he could have moved to another project or whatever... he stayed on Pillars because he cares about it
And for all his "Sawyer daddy knows best" he distinctly points out on the pitch for Pillars 2 that the encounter design was not very good, the info dumps were heavy handed and that the AI was lacking so they ARE aware of the problems and aim to make them work on the sequel
Even small stuff like the lackluster items and the stronghold got a bit of a boost on the 3.0 versions so they are listening to
Maybe they wont change the balance and the combat things I liked the most about IE games like prebuffs and counters but other than than they seem to be on the right path
Now all they need is some hot romance options and bam they be the new bioware yo

 

[duanth123]

Do you have any reason to believe they don't care about the games they make, or that Sawyer doesn't want to make POE2?