Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

[imweasel]

So POE2 just be the last isometric RPG made by Obsidian in near future.

 

[imweasel]

Day 10:

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is #23 on Steam (global).

Spoiler

 

[aweigh]

It is true that even for self-admitted PoE likers (like me) it is a very weird experience to play it. I had never realized how deeply autistic PoE combat is until I recorded a bounty fight from PoE1 which I thought went "awesome" and uploaded to my YouTube, and when I started watching it I realized it was 9 minutes long (one combat!) and that 8 and a half of those minutes were spent in pause with me excitedly mousing over things, clicking one thing, pressing cancel button, clicking another thing, hitting spacebar to see it trigger and then immediately hitting spacebar again to re-read the combat log to confirm that what I thought was happening was actually happening, etc, etc. For anyone who isn't already invested it simultaneously looks boring as fuck and confusing as fuck.

 

[fantadomat]

imweasel,i do enjoy your display of musical taste. Will be waiting for the next one.

 

[Dexter]

I am also sure that the game will (eventually) break even, so Obsidian is not in danger

For the last time, it doesn't matter whether the game breaks even eventually, it matters whether they have resources to stay afloat. They are not indies. They are medium sized studio with a huge payroll.

For the last time, you should also take into consideration that Obsidian is actually working on other projects. PoE 2 only breaking even is not enough to sink the fucking studio. Not even close.

Where's the Alien RPG? Where's Stormlands? Where's Dwarves? Where's Futureblight? All of those were also projects that "Obsidian actually worked on".

Fact is, without any sort of monetary windfall and treasure in their coffers, bankruptcy court is always just one angry/drunk Feargus phone call to the wrong person away.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

It is true that even for self-admitted PoE likers (like me) it is a very weird experience to play it. I had never realized how deeply autistic PoE combat is until I recorded a bounty fight from PoE1 which I thought went "awesome" and uploaded to my YouTube, and when I started watching it I realized it was 9 minutes long (one combat!) and that 8 and a half of those minutes were spent in pause with me excitedly mousing over things, clicking one thing, pressing cancel button, clicking another thing, hitting spacebar to see it trigger and then immediately hitting spacebar again to re-read the combat log to confirm that what I thought was happening was actually happening, etc, etc. For anyone who isn't already invested it simultaneously looks boring as fuck and confusing as fuck.

The combat is autistic? Maybe you are autistic. The combat is garbage. RTwP is cancer. You can larp all the complexity you want. The truth of the mater is that you can win every fight being a one-trick pony. Did all bounties by the way. Never gonna touch any Obsidian game this game again. Waste of money.

 

[Sigourn]

And so this tester says, "You are fucking lying. You're so full of shit." He's like, "Show me – show me how you did it." So I load it in, and I started pre-buffing. And I had three casters going for five rounds pre-buffing, and people drinking potions. He's asks, "What are you doing?" "I'm pre-buffing." He's like, "What do you mean?" So I explained all the different bonuses that I got, and how they stacked with each other, and how I cast the longest duration spells first, so that by the time I got to my shortest duration ones, that they were at the end of sequence and all this stuff. And then I transitioned, and I went in, and I fucking just wiped out the whole map. And he was like, "That's how you're supposed to do that?" I'm like, "Yeah, that's how I do every fight."

I know the tester is to blame. But I think devs are to blame too. With Icewind Dale especially, I realized one thing: if you have never, ever played D&D or a D&D inspired cRPG before, you are going to have a bad time, even on Core rules. On the other hand, those who have done one of those, or both, will have a breeze. In my opinion, this is because you advance far too quickly, whereas real life tabletop sessions, I assume, aren't like that. It's too much info to take all at once. Those who are familiar with D&D may know every spell from memory. Those who aren't, like myself, usually use whatever information they know from less hardcore RPGs, most of which heavily rely on doing damage as opposed to buffing, debuffing, casting AoE spells and the like. It is a rather rare case where the "Normal" difficulty's only target audience are those who want to play the game as the game was intended to be played (which in IE games literally means "by the rules"), because everyone else either finds it a joke or too hard to be fun. To be honest, RTwP combat is shit anyways.

Heavy prebuffing and a good strategy make the difference between being horribly killed, and breezing through a fight, as both my experience with Trials of the Luremaster and Sawyer's comment show.

 

[FreeKaner]

And so this tester says, "You are fucking lying. You're so full of shit." He's like, "Show me – show me how you did it." So I load it in, and I started pre-buffing. And I had three casters going for five rounds pre-buffing, and people drinking potions. He's asks, "What are you doing?" "I'm pre-buffing." He's like, "What do you mean?" So I explained all the different bonuses that I got, and how they stacked with each other, and how I cast the longest duration spells first, so that by the time I got to my shortest duration ones, that they were at the end of sequence and all this stuff. And then I transitioned, and I went in, and I fucking just wiped out the whole map. And he was like, "That's how you're supposed to do that?" I'm like, "Yeah, that's how I do every fight."

I know the tester is to blame. But I think devs are to blame too. With Icewind Dale especially, I realized one thing: if you have never, ever played D&D or a D&D inspired cRPG before, you are going to have a bad time, even on Core rules. On the other hand, those who have done one of those, or both, will have a breeze. In my opinion, this is because you advance far too quickly, whereas real life tabletop sessions, I assume, aren't like that. It's too much info to take all at once. Those who are familiar with D&D may know every spell from memory. Those who aren't, like myself, usually use whatever information they know from less hardcore RPGs, most of which heavily rely on doing damage as opposed to buffing, debuffing, casting AoE spells and the like. It is a rather rare case where the "Normal" difficulty's only target audience are those who want to play the game as the game was intended to be played (which in IE games literally means "by the rules"), because everyone else either finds it a joke or too hard to be fun. To be honest, RTwP combat is shit anyways.

Heavy prebuffing and a good strategy make the difference between being horribly killed, and breezing through a fight, as both my experience with Trials of the Luremaster and Sawyer's comment show.

That's why he got rid of prebuffing in PoE ruleset I assume. Although there exists a degree of prebuffing in food and drugs in that as well. In any case yes I agree RTwP is bad for RPGs with complex character systems.

 

[Sacred82]

Feargus does not seem to be a learning animal, and believes that games like BG succeeded because of RTwP, not in spite of it.

I'm sure they all know RTwP is a problem, look at the amount of effort in PoE2 to make combat more readable.

It's just that you can't exactly ask people for money to make BG successor and make it turn-based.

you mean like a Planescape: Torment successor?

 

[Flou]

Maybe players are having a hangover of isometric games after this avalanche of mediocre isometric games on steam? Just a thought. If they keep making more DCLs, it will only make things worse.

That is definately one of the reasons. If you count both turn based and real time with pause games, you've got yourself plenty of crgps in the last few years. Before the Kickstarter frenzy... not that many or what came out were hidden gems that hardly anyone ended up playing.

 

[Elex]

Roguey True, but 9/10 from some clueless shill doesn't mean anything if the steam score isn't stellar.

well press shill in 2018.

wrong targed.

better pay an army of twitch streamer.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

But I think devs are to blame too. With Icewind Dale especially, I realized one thing: if you have never, ever played D&D or a D&D inspired cRPG before, you are going to have a bad time, even on Core rules.

You mean, if you never played a cRPG in your life. This is basically a cRPG illiteracy problem. If you are used to play cRPGs, no character system screen will intimidate you, knowing the rules or not.

I don't agree. The complexity of the game certainly is *a* factor. But finally in a game that is an IE clone banks most importantly on the writing and setting. While I completely agree with you that the mechanics are obfuscating, I feel that the real reason for the loss of interest in a banal story, badly written characters and a low T setting.

This. How come the complexity of D:OS2 was not a factor? I think you guys spend too much time analysizing a bad BG clone and know you need to come up with some excuse to justify the lack of interest in this thing. It is too complex for the masses. Yeah, right. You discussed to death a bad BG clone and all your feedback will amount to nothing.

 

[Mustawd]

FWIW, PoE2 has now fallen to the second page of the steam global top sellers.

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=win&filter=globaltopsellers

Also, seems interest continues to wane in the current player user base:

Spoiler

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

 

[Riddler]

FWIW, PoE2 has now fallen to the second page of the steam global top sellers.

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=win&filter=globaltopsellers

Also, seems interest continues to wane in the current player user base:

Spoiler

That interest is waning seems perfectly reasonable tbh. The people who got it on release have mostly finished the game by now and no sane person would play through the game before patches. The game is perfectly fine but encounters and balancing desperately need attention (and so do the disposition system as well).

 

[Mustawd]

That interest is waning seems perfectly reasonable tbh. The people who got it on release have mostly finished the game by now

Doesn't that imply that there are very few additional sales? So you're saying the main bump in sales is basically over? If so, that would explain the dropping on global sellers list.

EDIT: Nvmind. People buy games and never play them all the time. I guess they could be waiting for patches.

 

[Riddler]

That interest is waning seems perfectly reasonable tbh. The people who got it on release have mostly finished the game by now

Doesn't that imply that there are very few additional sales? So you're saying the main bump in sales is basically over? If so, that would explain the dropping on global sellers list.

Sure, but we already knew that. I responded to the comment on the waning interest of the current playerbase, which I don't think is a sign anything is particularly unusual with these types of games. People buy it, play it and move on.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

People buy games and never play them all the time. I guess they could be waiting for patches.

Or to ask for a refund after playing for 20 mins.

That interest is waning seems perfectly reasonable tbh. The people who got it on release have mostly finished the game by now and no sane person would play through the game before patches.

This is fine.jpg.

Do you think anyone who enjoyed BG2 on release would stop replaying the game because of bugs? Of course not. The interest is waning because the game sucks.

 

[Junmarko]

(I already bought the season pass!).

Was actually willing to support Ob on this, until J.S decided to bench warm - seems like clear protest

 

[Riddler]

People buy games and never play them all the time. I guess they could be waiting for patches.

Or to ask for a refund after playing for 20 mins.

That interest is waning seems perfectly reasonable tbh. The people who got it on release have mostly finished the game by now and no sane person would play through the game before patches.

This is fine.jpg.

Do you think anyone who enjoyed BG2 on release would stop replaying the game because of bugs? Of course not. The interest is waning because the game sucks.

This particular part is "fine". That the post launch sales are bombing super hard is not.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Thread about to collapse due to hindsight bias overload.

Blame it on the Jews Germorons!

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

This particular part is "fine". That the post launch sales are bombing super hard is not.

They are correlated. When players are enthusiastic for a cRPG they try to convince their colleagues to buy and play. The game is supposed to offer replayability in the form of different builds, if nothing else. If players are not trying different builds is a sign that the combat is underwhelming.

 

[Junmarko]

Thread about to collapse due to hindsight bias overload.

Blame it on the Germorons!

is there no real role play anymore? - Jan Wagner from Cliffhanger Productions (Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown) discuss this in the new episode of DevPlay.

Jan definitely role-played the sales pitch of Boston Lockdown like a pro. Cliffhanger delivered with a royal flush.

 

[Sigourn]

You mean, if you never played a cRPG in your life.

Is Fallout a cRPG? Is Arcanum a cRPG? If they aren't, I retreat my comment. But if they are, then let me say they have nothing on Icewind Dale when it comes to complexity of spells and abilities.

I agree that PoE2 still has far far too much breadth for mainstream players, especially at character creation -- made worse by so-called multiclassing feature being forced to happen at level 1 and locked in forever after. But even when the player enters the game they have to deal with 4 or 5 other party members, their skills, items, combat positioning, and constant bellyaching.

This. If Obsidian tried to appeal to more casual gamers, they failed right at the character creation screen. That they made such a retarded mistake makes me doubt they will ever make a good game again.

It's like trying to make a game appeal to both straight and homosexual men. But you only add naked women at the beginning of the game. BUT WAIT, THERE ARE TONS OF DICKS 5 HOURS IN! No, sorry. Gay people will have already dropped the game way before then, and straight people will be turned off from the game eventually.

That's why he got rid of prebuffing in PoE ruleset I assume. Although there exists a degree of prebuffing in food and drugs in that as well. In any case yes I agree RTwP is bad for RPGs with complex character systems.

That's a good way of looking at it. In Fallout, RTwP would be much more manageable and enjoyable. There's not many actions one can possibly take. But when spells are flying around all the time, enemies constantly move... I like turn-based games precisely because they pause when they need to be paused (which is ALWAYS). I don't like RTwP because I need to pause, by myself, all the goddamn time to make even the most trivial of adjustments. Some may like this kind of gameplay. But other people don't simply dislike it, they hate it.

 

[Sacred82]

That interest is waning seems perfectly reasonable tbh. The people who got it on release have mostly finished the game by now and no sane person would play through the game before patches.

This is fine.jpg.

Do you think anyone who enjoyed BG2 on release would stop replaying the game because of bugs? Of course not. The interest is waning because the game sucks.

there was a kickstarter. Perfectly understandable for people to dabble around with the game, and then wait for the 3(!) DLC's already announced. We know how different a game PoE1 ended up after all the updates.