Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[FeelTheRads]

And it's completely irrelevant in deciding whether a system is good or not. In fact, if you make mistakes in leveling up for a prestige class then maybe you shouldn't play games at all. Or maybe Obsidian is incapable or providing a good UI so that people can't make those mistakes?
Nah, must be the system.

Ah yes, people hated the game because they didn't play it as intended... How refreshing.

Don't underestimate Infinitron's ability to know much better than you why you don't like a game. As a rule of thumb, it's never the game, it's always you.

 

[felipepepe]

I don't know what sort of person you're picturing in your head, but from comments that a lot of people make, I get the feeling you see a moron, a person who doesn't really like games, who isn't enthusiastic about them in the same way that you are. In some cases, this is true. But I've seen hundreds of volunteer and professional testers come and go. Most of them are actually pretty intelligent. They like or love games. They like or love RPGs and have played a bunch of them. They're still not terrific at them. They miss a bunch of things and they make a bunch of mistakes.

Yeah, and were did this lead him? Even with all this dumbing down and "let's not frustrate players" philosophy, they still can't reach the millions of units sold that Baldur's Gate got back in 1998, even though the market is many times bigger now. What a sad day when even BioWare respects players more than Obsidian.

But let him go on, tell the world how his system is perfect and what players want, while the Souls series does the exact opposite and sell dozens of times more to a much higher critical & fan acclaim.

 

[Rivmusique]

Excidium II, I never did figure something out. When you burnt out of the game after hitting the Od Nua ogres, was that before or after you'd visited Defiance Bay first?

I didn't get there, I did Maerwald quest and decided to check the paths. Got burnt out and decided it's better off waiting for Gold/Enhanced/GOTY/whatever edition and play a fully patched & content complete game.

Haha, knew it.

It's been a while now, so let me tell you guys a secret. Same thing happened to me. Made me take a month off from the game. The Endless Paths are a trap for hardcore RPG players, since hardcore RPG dude rules dictates that you always try to clear out an area before moving to the next one. Big mistake, and I'm pretty sure it's made many people hate the game.

What's confusing to me is those who do move on to the combat-lite Defiance Bay and then hate that too instead of finding it a refreshing change of pace. After that I got there I couldn't put the game down and was doing 5 hour a day sessions until I finished the game.

You finished the whole of Od Nua before heading to DB? But you gain almost zero experience in there?

I always dive in the endless paths until I ran out of camping supplies or I feel like I'm losing a lot more resources than is comfortable on an enemy pack due to low level, usually a bit after that first drake boss (though I skip the big Ogre fights, on my first playthrough I jumped in the pit then started climbing up to the Ogres, they kicked my 0 supplies/half-HP arse). Pushing on at that level would likely involve constant returns to a store/inn to buy new supplies or rest.

 

[Infinitron]

No, of course not. I wonder how possible that even is.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, and were did this lead him? Even with all this dumbing down and "let's not frustrate players" philosophy, they still can't reach the millions of units sold that Baldur's Gate got back in 1998, even though the market is many times bigger now. What a sad day when even BioWare respects players more than Obsidian.

But let him go on, tell the world how his system is perfect and what players want, while the Souls series does the exact opposite and sell dozens of times more to a much higher critical & fan acclaim.

It took about two years for BG to sell one million units based on the May 2000 US retail figures. It's already outsold Planescape Torment's pre-GOG lifetime sales (400,000) within a year. Not to mention ToEE's (~256,000 in two years) and Icewind Dale's (according to Desslock its lifetime sales were 140,000, I'm assuming he's using NPD numbers so double that for a rough international total http://www.quartertothree.com/game-...95-IWDII-is-neat&p=19209&viewfull=1#post19209)

 

[Excidium II]

Would it really be worth it making PoE 2 anyway, with those sales?

 

[Roguey]

Would it really be worth it making PoE 2 anyway, with those sales?

When it comes to units sold, it's only slightly less successful than D:OS, a success that resulted in Larian going on a massive expansion spree.

Wasteland 2 didn't sell as much and Fargo still expanded as well.

 

[Fairfax]

Would it really be worth it making PoE 2 anyway, with those sales?

I ran some numbers back in August. Removing the ~78k backers and assuming the rest were all standard editions, they made at least $12 million dollars at the time. A lot of tiers got multiple copies of the game, however, and there ~5853 backers in tiers with more than 1 copy of the game. Assuming 2-3 extra copies on average, that's 12-18k copies. Still at least $11 million from a project that cost them $6 million tops (we don't know how much they spent out of their own pocket).
It was also a fairly small team. Sawyer said they had 20 people on average for most of the development cycle. That's 10% of Obsidian's personnel.
Now it's harder to tell because they game had a deep discount multiple times since then. I think the game was at 450k back then, so that's roughly 250k new copies sold. Assuming they were all purchased at -50%, that's ~$3,937,500. Add GOG into the mix and it's more than $4 million.

In short: yes. It wasn't as profitable as D:OS, for instance, but still quite profitable.

Would it really be worth it making PoE 2 anyway, with those sales?

When it comes to units sold, it's only slightly less successful than D:OS, a success that resulted in Larian going on a massive expansion spree.

Wasteland 2 didn't sell as much and Fargo still expanded as well.

Massive? They went from 40 to 53. Obsidian is the one who went from 75 people in 2012 to 200 now.

 

[Excidium II]

huh not bad.

 

[Roguey]

Massive? They went from 40 to 53.

I'm takling about the satellite studios they have in St. Petersburg (dunno how many they have here) and Quebec (currently 10, they plan to expand to 40 within two years).

 

[Fairfax]

Massive? They went from 40 to 53.

I'm takling about the satellite studios they have in St. Petersburg (dunno how many they have here) and Quebec (currently 10, they plan to expand to 40 within two years).

Just checked, it's a considerable increase, but I wouldn't call it "massive".

'I'd prefer a worldwide level playing field': Why Larian is opening a studio in Quebec
[...]
The studio will initially house a core team of ten staff, with plans afoot to employ between 30 to 40 staff over the next three years. This would make the office as big as its current HQ in Ghent, and twice as big as its St Petersburg branch.

That's 40 in Ghent, 10 in Quebec, ~20 in St.Petersburg. About 70 people total. It also helps that they have tax breaks in Quebec and the ruble is worth shit next to dollars and euros.
D:OS was also much more profitable. Less than $1 million in crowdfunding, 500k in two months and almost 1 million copies by now, with -40% being the lowest recorded discount on Steam.
They've made at least $20 million in profit. Although it's worth mentioning that some of that money was (apparently) wasted on the console port.

 

[Rivmusique]

No, of course not. I wonder how possible that even is.

Same thing happened to me. Made me take a month off from the game. The Endless Paths are a trap for hardcore RPG players, since hardcore RPG dude rules dictates that you always try to clear out an area before moving to the next one. Big mistake, and I'm pretty sure it's made many people hate the game.

So what is the big mistake? I understood it to mean pushing on despite low level, likely constantly going through loading screens to go back up top to rest.

 

[felipepepe]

It took about two years for BG to sell one million units based on the May 2000 US retail figures. It's already outsold Planescape Torment's pre-GOG lifetime sales (400,000) within a year. Not to mention ToEE's (~256,000 in two years) and Icewind Dale's (according to Desslock its lifetime sales were 140,000, I'm assuming he's using NPD numbers so double that for a rough international total http://www.quartertothree.com/game-...95-IWDII-is-neat&p=19209&viewfull=1#post19209)

As I said (and you ignored), the market today is many times bigger. Starcraft was the huge, record-breaking blockbuster of 1998 and sold "only" 1.5M in the first year.
In comparison, Diablo III sold 3.5M in the first 24 hours and then 12M in the first year, just on PC.

 

[Fry]

Yeah, and were did this lead him? Even with all this dumbing down and "let's not frustrate players" philosophy, they still can't reach the millions of units sold that Baldur's Gate got back in 1998, even though the market is many times bigger now.

Silly logic. A relatively large percentage of the 1998 CRPG market bought BG because that's what was available, not because they thought it was the pinnacle of CRPG design. Assuming those people are still playing games, they've mostly moved on to modern AAA popamole. The percentage of the market that still wants IE-style is pretty small.

What a sad day when even BioWare respects players more than Obsidian.

Huh? How so?

But let him go on, tell the world how his system is perfect and what players want, while the Souls series does the exact opposite and sell dozens of times more to a much higher critical & fan acclaim.

Are you seriously using that shitty controller-tastic timing-based shit to support your point? All you're managing to prove is that most people play shitty games.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, edgy name-calling on Dark Souls surely disqualifies all I said and makes PoE's stats much more intricate that DS's... Great post bro, bet you feel proud.

And silly logic is saying things like "they only bought cause that's what was available". I guess BG sold like 20x more than Fallout 2 because it was MORE available.

 

[Fry]

No, it sold more mostly because it had the D&D license. Pretty obviously.

I don't give the tiniest shit about Souls game stats. When they're buried under a pile of awful console kiddie combat, who cares?

 

[Excidium II]

;^)

 

[Semper]

But let him go on, tell the world how his system is perfect and what players want, while the Souls series does the exact opposite and sell dozens of times more to a much higher critical & fan acclaim.

you're seriously promoting the souls char dev, wich is is solely based on twitch skill and animation patterns? doesn't matter what stat you pump on lvl up, those games can all be finished with lvl1.

 

[Infinitron]

So what is the big mistake? I understood it to mean pushing on despite low level

Trying very hard to defeat xaurip/wurm and ogre hordes that were above my level on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the dungeon, trying not waste spells at first before giving up, reloading a lot until I finally managed to break them. It's rewarding when you succeed but it's still a sluggish experience that gives a false early impression of the pacing of the game's combat.

I think too-early encounters with Od Nua are one of the reason there are people who think "the only thing that matters in PoE is levelling up". Spells in the IE games aren't bound to your character's Accuracy like in PoE, so in theory it's easier to use them to defeat higher level foes in such situations, whereas in PoE they'll miss/graze a lot. Of course, those people are ignoring the fact that you don't need Accuracy to cast an Accuracy-increasing buff spell on yourself. Devotions for the Faithful, it's worth over six level-ups.

Massive? They went from 40 to 53.

I'm takling about the satellite studios they have in St. Petersburg (dunno how many they have here) and Quebec (currently 10, they plan to expand to 40 within two years).

There's a Larian Ireland now too.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'll tell you what will happen. It will make less on Fig/Kickstarter than PoE did, and then there will be tiresome arguments on this forum about whether that's because of backer dissatisfaction or because of inevitable diminishing returns and crowdfunding being less popular than it was in 2012.

If Obsidian are smart, they should start the campaign real soon after the release of White March Part 2 and use the game's main menu news thingie to throw a popup on screen when the crowdfunding campaign begins. badler are you reading

I expect they would announce they are in pre-production of PoE2 together with releasing TWM2. I really doubt they'll use crowd funding the second time. From what I've read in Josh's interviews, I think he attributes much of the game's downsides to having to spend resources to cover promises he made to backers in the KS campaign, and would like to have more freedom with PoE2's design.

Would it really be worth it making PoE 2 anyway, with those sales?

That's what I'm wondering too.

 

[Prime Junta]

Additionally, Josh hates D&D's prestige classes because they require you to plan out your entire build from level 1 and if you make a mistake while leveling, welp goodbye build.

Of course, he hates something for the most retarded reasons.

What a horrible thing, you intend to build a character a certain way to get some bonuses, but if you you are retarded and are unable to push the correct buttons you fail. My god, plz remove, and in fact, let's also remove half of the system while we're at it. What if you click on constitution when you want to click on strength??? Well, goodbye build then, that's what!

That's not the point.

The point is that prestige classes are the character-building equivalent of a colouring book. They're extremely restrictively defined by whoever wrote them up. There's no player agency or creativity involved: instead, all you have to do is meticulously colour inside the lines.

They reward good obedient players who do as the designer says, instead of creative players who want to find cool things to do with the building blocks inside the game.

I.e. prestige classes appeal to munchkins with no imagination or creativity who are good at taking orders.

 

[Prime Junta]

No, AD&D's classes are indeed more limited, due to the lack of talents & active skills. What I'm saying is that Baldur's Gate, the 18-year old foundation of PoE, offered a lot more flexibility within its classes due to dual/multi-classing.

I disagree. There's more flexibility within Pillars classes than there is with BG1 classes+multi/dual-classing.

PoE just took D&D 3rd edition, removed multi-classing & prestige classes, almost all non-combat skills & spells and devolved attributes into meager "+%" bonuses. They don't limit, define nor enable you, just make you slightly better at something. That isn't an achievement, it's a weaker, derivative version of a system from 15 years ago.

Huh. you really have no idea how the Pillars character system works, do you?

 

[Arkeus]

I think too-early encounters with Od Nua are one of the reason there are people who think "the only thing that matters in PoE is levelling up". Spells in the IE games aren't bound to your character's Accuracy like in PoE, so in theory it's easier to use them to defeat higher level foes in such situations, whereas in PoE they'll miss/graze a lot. Of course, those people are ignoring the fact that you don't need Accuracy to cast an Accuracy-increasing buff spell on yourself. Devotions for the Faithful, it's worth over six level-ups.

Probably shouldn't link to a level 4 spell as an example of a spell to use in order to kill high level enemies when at low level yourself.

 

[Infinitron]

I think too-early encounters with Od Nua are one of the reason there are people who think "the only thing that matters in PoE is levelling up". Spells in the IE games aren't bound to your character's Accuracy like in PoE, so in theory it's easier to use them to defeat higher level foes in such situations, whereas in PoE they'll miss/graze a lot. Of course, those people are ignoring the fact that you don't need Accuracy to cast an Accuracy-increasing buff spell on yourself. Devotions for the Faithful, it's worth over six level-ups.

Probably shouldn't link to a level 4 spell as an example of a spell to use in order to kill high level enemies when at low level yourself.

It's an example of a spell that can close the Accuracy gap over enemies that are higher level than you. If the real complaint is "low level spellcasters kind of suck", then that's famously true of D&D mages as well. That said, Eldritch Aim.

 

[Rivmusique]

Wizards also have Eldritch Aim as a 1st level spell, +15 acc on self. Use that then shit that lowers whatever defense for similar results.

Edit: Well played men.