Why couldn't Obsidian make a commercially successful isometric RPG like Larian?

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

The real question is would PoE have been as successful as BG3 if PoE was fully 3d and had the camera zoom into your characters during dialogue.

 

[revani]

Obsidian took a fundamentally flawed system (RTwP) that's only revered due to nostalgia by a small percentage of gamers, and claimed that they could make it better. They did succeed at that too imo, but that didn't matter because the end product was still mediocre at best. Some of the old schoolers who liked the old games despite their flaws weren't there anymore, for one reason or the other. Casuals (i.e. the people who actually determine whether your game is commercially successful or not) would rather play something like Dragon Age: Origins. They failed to ride that initial kickstarter craze, and what they did for the second game didn't matter, as it rarely does.

Larian took a tested an proven system that's usually thought of as "boring" by casuals because of them never actually trying it. They focused on the "fun" aspects of the game during their marketing campaign, like the humour and being able to spend quality time with your partner. In the meantime they made it obvious where the inspiration was coming from and filled their game with little homages. Casuals didn't care about the flaws because they were in it for the fun, and the old schoolers were happy to shill the game with passion because it scratched their itch properly. Rest is history.

So it was essentially a matter of the smart guy at the head of Larian making good decisions, and the opportunist guy at the head of Obsidian making uneducated ones.

 

[Roguey]

Sven was trying to remake Ultima 7 since Divine Divinity which while not one of the best games ever made is still a pretty good game. His studio A sucks mainly because of the lack of resources.

Larian hasn't lacked for resources since the first Divinity: Original Sin.

 

[REhorror]

I just find it amazing/weird that Owlcat (an unknown Russia studio) just comes out and washes away everything Obsidian did it, except New Vegas I guess.

 

[Konjad]

PoE was seen as a let down after all the hype it had

What reviews have you read? The ones on codex? Normie reviewers "loved" PoE when it came out. Mostly because they didn't know any better. Felt like it's good even if they don't quite comprehend it. Like a pretencious tv show.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Obsidian took a fundamentally flawed system (RTwP) that's only revered due to nostalgia by a small percentage of gamers, and claimed that they could make it better. They did succeed at that too imo, but that didn't matter because the end product was still mediocre at best. Some of the old schoolers who liked the old games despite their flaws weren't there anymore, for one reason or the other. Casuals (i.e. the people who actually determine whether your game is commercially successful or not) would rather play something like Dragon Age: Origins. They failed to ride that initial kickstarter craze, and what they did for the second game didn't matter, as it rarely does.

Larian took a tested an proven system that's usually thought of as "boring" by casuals because of them never actually trying it. They focused on the "fun" aspects of the game during their marketing campaign, like the humour and being able to spend quality time with your partner. In the meantime they made it obvious where the inspiration was coming from and filled their game with little homages. Casuals didn't care about the flaws because they were in it for the fun, and the old schoolers were happy to shill the game with passion because it scratched their itch properly. Rest is history.

So it was essentially a matter of the smart guy at the head of Larian making good decisions, and the opportunist guy at the head of Obsidian making uneducated ones.

RTwP is not a problem, the success of the Pathfinder games by Owlcat is proof of that. You can clearly still make RTwP rpgs with decent sales numbers if the whole package is good.

 

[Quillon]

The real question is would PoE have been as successful as BG3 if PoE was fully 3d and had the camera zoom into your characters during dialogue.

If PoE was made & played like DAO it woulda been much more succesful yes. Wouldn't have been as successful as BG3 cos the budget/production quality isn't even comparable, come to think of it a DAO-like gaym would also have been much more expensive to make.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Larian's policy of allowing players a great degree of freedom works great in times of youtube, streaming and especially the recent short-form videos. Even in Sawyer's Perfectly Balanced TM combat worked like a charm it would be extremely hard to communicate what's good about it via a short video. On the other hand exploding tons or barrels, turning into a cat to crawl into a small hole or having an amusing conversation with a forest animal all can be crammed into a tik-tok video. People like these funny stories about things you can do in a game. Like travellling all the way to NCR to steal a Bozar in early Fallout 2. What story could you even tell about POE? "I've discovered the most effetive build for my class and now Perfectly Ballanced TM combat encounters take 15% less time to complete. I am euphoric because I am enlightened by my efficiency".

This philosophy is also apparent in the game design itself. There is nothing particularly intereting or memorable about anything in the game. BG3 Emperror is a disgusting old pervert who tries to stick his tentacles up your PCs bum but at least it's something interesting to talk about. Pillars' writing feels as if Obsidian just collected all criticism about fantasy writing cliches and set forth on correcting the "mistakes" without replacing it with anything substantial. So in addition to the Perfectly Balanced Combat we were also graced with Perfectly Ballanced Storytelling. They made sure that the game has: no manic pixie dream girls, no damsels in distress, no villains who are evil for to sake of being evil, no comically stupid characters, no saving the world, no ancient magical swords, no undead armies and no orcish hordes, no scottish dwarves, no asshole elves, no edgelords etc. In the end they've delivered a perfectly bland experience. Except for Durance, since Avellone even at his worst still tries to write something worth reading no matter what.

 

[revani]

Obsidian took a fundamentally flawed system (RTwP) that's only revered due to nostalgia by a small percentage of gamers, and claimed that they could make it better. They did succeed at that too imo, but that didn't matter because the end product was still mediocre at best. Some of the old schoolers who liked the old games despite their flaws weren't there anymore, for one reason or the other. Casuals (i.e. the people who actually determine whether your game is commercially successful or not) would rather play something like Dragon Age: Origins. They failed to ride that initial kickstarter craze, and what they did for the second game didn't matter, as it rarely does.

Larian took a tested an proven system that's usually thought of as "boring" by casuals because of them never actually trying it. They focused on the "fun" aspects of the game during their marketing campaign, like the humour and being able to spend quality time with your partner. In the meantime they made it obvious where the inspiration was coming from and filled their game with little homages. Casuals didn't care about the flaws because they were in it for the fun, and the old schoolers were happy to shill the game with passion because it scratched their itch properly. Rest is history.

So it was essentially a matter of the smart guy at the head of Larian making good decisions, and the opportunist guy at the head of Obsidian making uneducated ones.

RTwP is not a problem, the success of the Pathfinder games by Owlcat is proof of that. You can clearly still make RTwP rpgs with decent sales numbers if the whole package is good.

I didn't say RTwP was the problem, only that it was flawed. If people enjoyed something flawed years ago, they can enjoy it now too. I also played and enjoyed Kingmaker as a RTwP game until that absolute genius came up with the TB mod.

What made me like Kingmaker wasn't the game being RTwP. But the RTwP aspect of it didn't annoy me too much either, because it was familiar. Can't say the same for PoE.

PoE lacked soul (heh) in terms of writing and the story. But there are very successful games that are even shittier in those.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Obsidian is still too hung up on its Fallout NV days. They can neither let go of it, nor do they have the will or incentive to innovate and carve out their own niche. With Avowed, they'll now ostensibly attempt to make a Skyrim clone. That makes them push the genre one year (!) forward. Bravo.

 

[Butter]

Obsidian is still too hung up on its Fallout NV days. They can neither let go of it, nor do they have the will or incentive to innovate and carve out their own niche. With Avowed, they'll now ostensibly attempt to make a Skyrim clone. That pushes them one year (!) forward. Bravo.

Like a dame approaching the wall and trying to relive the brief moment when she was prom queen. Pretty sad honestly.

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

The real question is would PoE have been as successful as BG3 if PoE was fully 3d and had the camera zoom into your characters during dialogue.

If PoE was made & played like DAO it woulda been much more succesful yes. Wouldn't have been as successful as BG3 cos the budget/production quality isn't even comparable, come to think of it a DAO-like gaym would also have been much more expensive to make.

Probably, but I think BG3's whimsical style and anime-styled characters are what made it click for normies, PoE was way too bland and gritty for most fantasy RPG fans.

 

[Doktor Best]

DOS2 - standalone sequel with quirky environmental combat and coop that will attract even casual players who aren't normally into cRPGs.

PoE2 - direct sequel to a snoozefest of a game that almost no one completed, zero appeal to people who aren't into cRPGs.

What is or isn't a snoozefest is utterly subjective. For the normie masses a turn-based game is a snoozefest by default.

Your co-op point is valid but DOS1 had co-op, even local co-op IIRC, and PoE was still the bigger thing.

POE1 was not big because of its merit, but because it was the kickstarter crpg renaissance game that got the biggest buzz. It was supposed to be predecessor in all but name to Baldurs Gate 2. Expectation were sky high. Now dont get me wrong i had fun with POE, but even as a grognard i couldn't say it met expectations. POE2 was a better game, but the audience bought and played POE1 and they were lukewarm about it so they didnt rush to buy the sequel which promised to give them the same experience again.

DOS1 came out of nowhere and simply was a better game than POE. Yes writing was a bit of an aquired taste, but it didn't take as much spotlight than writing did in POE. It didnt stand in the way as much. DOS1 had better combat, environmental interactivity, pacing, a lovely soundtrack, coop. All those aspects played into DOS feeling the most like an actual pen and paper session, which lets be honest here are about wacky situations 95% of the time anyways.

And environmental interactivity of Larian games is strangely undersold on Codex imho. It not just ground effects, pushing enemies down a cliff or nuking shit with barrels. There is so much shit you can do in the DOS games and especially BG3 that it goes way beyond that. And that generates player agency, makes players feel like they discover a way to play the game that is unique to them beyond character building or dialogue. Larian basically married the strengths of immersive sim into a turn based rpg and managed to sell it to a broad audience.

And to me thats a big win. BG3 success is so overwhelming that i am willing to bet money it will lead to a surge of copycats. If even 10% of those games are worthwhile to play that means there will be more food for us on the table.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Obsidian took a fundamentally flawed system (RTwP) that's only revered due to nostalgia by a small percentage of gamers, and claimed that they could make it better. They did succeed at that too imo, but that didn't matter because the end product was still mediocre at best. Some of the old schoolers who liked the old games despite their flaws weren't there anymore, for one reason or the other. Casuals (i.e. the people who actually determine whether your game is commercially successful or not) would rather play something like Dragon Age: Origins. They failed to ride that initial kickstarter craze, and what they did for the second game didn't matter, as it rarely does.

Larian took a tested an proven system that's usually thought of as "boring" by casuals because of them never actually trying it. They focused on the "fun" aspects of the game during their marketing campaign, like the humour and being able to spend quality time with your partner. In the meantime they made it obvious where the inspiration was coming from and filled their game with little homages. Casuals didn't care about the flaws because they were in it for the fun, and the old schoolers were happy to shill the game with passion because it scratched their itch properly. Rest is history.

So it was essentially a matter of the smart guy at the head of Larian making good decisions, and the opportunist guy at the head of Obsidian making uneducated ones.

RTwP is not a problem, the success of the Pathfinder games by Owlcat is proof of that. You can clearly still make RTwP rpgs with decent sales numbers if the whole package is good.

I didn't say RTwP was the problem, only that it was flawed. If people enjoyed something flawed years ago, they can enjoy it now too. I also played and enjoyed Kingmaker as a RTwP game until that absolute genius came up with the TB mod.

What made me like Kingmaker wasn't the game being RTwP. But the RTwP aspect of it didn't annoy me too much either, because it was familiar. Can't say the same for PoE.

PoE lacked soul (heh) in terms of writing and the story. But there are very successful games that are even shittier in those.

Then we agree mostly. I just found it strange that you mention RTwP so explicitly, when the choice to use RTwP it is not the main reason that PoE1/2 failed to meet expectations. However, I disagree that they made it better. The mechanics and combat are not designed well for RTwP. Sometimes less is more and PoE's convoluted systems are good example for that.

 

[revani]

Obsidian took a fundamentally flawed system (RTwP) that's only revered due to nostalgia by a small percentage of gamers, and claimed that they could make it better. They did succeed at that too imo, but that didn't matter because the end product was still mediocre at best. Some of the old schoolers who liked the old games despite their flaws weren't there anymore, for one reason or the other. Casuals (i.e. the people who actually determine whether your game is commercially successful or not) would rather play something like Dragon Age: Origins. They failed to ride that initial kickstarter craze, and what they did for the second game didn't matter, as it rarely does.

Larian took a tested an proven system that's usually thought of as "boring" by casuals because of them never actually trying it. They focused on the "fun" aspects of the game during their marketing campaign, like the humour and being able to spend quality time with your partner. In the meantime they made it obvious where the inspiration was coming from and filled their game with little homages. Casuals didn't care about the flaws because they were in it for the fun, and the old schoolers were happy to shill the game with passion because it scratched their itch properly. Rest is history.

So it was essentially a matter of the smart guy at the head of Larian making good decisions, and the opportunist guy at the head of Obsidian making uneducated ones.

RTwP is not a problem, the success of the Pathfinder games by Owlcat is proof of that. You can clearly still make RTwP rpgs with decent sales numbers if the whole package is good.

I didn't say RTwP was the problem, only that it was flawed. If people enjoyed something flawed years ago, they can enjoy it now too. I also played and enjoyed Kingmaker as a RTwP game until that absolute genius came up with the TB mod.

What made me like Kingmaker wasn't the game being RTwP. But the RTwP aspect of it didn't annoy me too much either, because it was familiar. Can't say the same for PoE.

PoE lacked soul (heh) in terms of writing and the story. But there are very successful games that are even shittier in those.

Then we agree mostly. I just found it strange that you mention RTwP so explicitly, when the choice to use RTwP it is not the main reason that PoE1/2 failed to meet expectations. However, I disagree that they made it better. The mechanics and combat are not designed well for RTwP. Sometimes less is more and PoE's convoluted systems are good example for that.

They made the RTwP part itself better as in they improved how it plays and made it easier to control your characters and understand what's going on (barring the exaggerated visuals)

Sawyer also had the right idea in that adapting a turn based system to a real time where every 6 seconds is one turn had created a lot of problems for these old games. But the real issue was that he isn't good enough to come up with better mechanics than people who's been developing D&D for years, people who's actually jobs were to create game systems rather than video games (talking about D&D up to 3.5 as that's where I stopped paying attention). Hence me saying the game is mediocre at best. No reason to parrot what everyone has been writing here for years.

 

[user]

PoE was a snoozefest for me, I didn't like its re-imagined DnD system (skill checks, combat, spells etc), hub town sucked, story lost me after the castle at the start. In PoE2 I enjoyed its greater degree of freedom, still didn't like the system and found the narrative far cringier than whatever Larian did. All PoE had going for me was its amazing 2D art, so I would probably hadn't even played it if it was 3D.

I understand everyone has different tastes, but come on, stop inhaling copium and trying to find all kinds reasons why PoE didn't succeed as much. RTwP probably was even more popular for normies back then. In their forums many even think PoE2 didn't suceed because "iT wAS a pIrAtE GamE".

 

[JarlFrank]

I just find it amazing/weird that Owlcat (an unknown Russia studio) just comes out and washes away everything Obsidian did it, except New Vegas I guess.

Not that amazing/weird considering Obsidian has always been a B-studio getting other developers' sloppy seconds. Sometimes the results were good (New Vegas), sometimes heavily flawed but with some redeeming features (KotoR2), but usually just plain mediocre (NWN2, Dungeon Siege 3).

At their absolute best, Obsidian made flawed gems. At their average, they made incredibly mediocre slop. PoE is the perfect representation of their output in general.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Systems-wise PoE is also completely unintuitive. Even RPG veterans have to read all the descriptions of attributes and skills because none of them work like you'd expect - remember the buff wizards meme. Hurr durr strength increases all damage including magic because balance. PoE's systems are highly abstract, based on Josh's ideas of balance, trying to prevent minmaxing, etc.

How's PoE system unintuitive or convoluted? I never understood this complaint tbh.

All stats are presented clearly on the char creation screen and you see that e.g. +1 DEX will give you +3% action speed, +5 reflex defense etc. Can't get any more clear then that.
The only unintuitive thing may be STR giving boost to spell dmg, which is indeed uncommon in cRPGs, or what is the actual spell accuracy (same as equipped weapon? governed by some hidden stat?), but that's all.

The system is so straightforward and easy to grasp, that even such a noob like me could pick up the game after like 10 years break from any vidyas and be able to do just fine on Hard diff, before eventually restarting on POTD for more challenge.

My 0.02$ on the thread question - the huge factor is DOS's streamability potential, with all the exploding barrels shenaningans and co-op, but this has been already covered.
Casuals want to watch shit exploding in 3D, not a 10 minute long battle with pausing every few seconds.

 

[ds]

How's PoE system unintuitive or convoluted? I never understood this complaint tbh.

All stats are presented clearly on the char creation screen and you see that e.g. +1 DEX will give you +3% action speed, +5 reflex defense etc. Can't get any more clear then that.

Having to look at tool tips to get an idea of what stats do is the opposite of intuitive.

 

[Piotrovitz]

How's PoE system unintuitive or convoluted? I never understood this complaint tbh.

All stats are presented clearly on the char creation screen and you see that e.g. +1 DEX will give you +3% action speed, +5 reflex defense etc. Can't get any more clear then that.

Having to look at tool tips to get an idea of what stats do is the opposite of intuitive.

Show me some good cRPG with relatively good/complex system where you don't have to look at stat description AT ALL to know what each of them do.
What happened to RTFM? Do we need everything to be self-explanatory now, without even bothering to read like one line stat description?

In any decent game you have to check somewhere what does each stat/skill affects. Hell, when I played BG1 for the first time, totally unfamiliar with DnD rules, I thought that STR governs only extra dmg and DEX is for melee +to-hit bonus.

 

[Butter]

How's PoE system unintuitive or convoluted? I never understood this complaint tbh.

All stats are presented clearly on the char creation screen and you see that e.g. +1 DEX will give you +3% action speed, +5 reflex defense etc. Can't get any more clear then that.

Having to look at tool tips to get an idea of what stats do is the opposite of intuitive.

Show me some good cRPG with relatively good/complex system where you don't have to look at stat description AT ALL to know what each of them do.
What happened to RTFM? Do we need everything to be self-explanatory now, without even bothering to read like one line stat description?

In any decent game you have to check somewhere what does each stat/skill affects. Hell, when I played BG1 for the first time, totally unfamiliar with DnD rules, I thought that STR governs only extra dmg and DEX is for melee +to-hit bonus.

I dumped my Dexterity the first time I played an IE game because I assumed higher AC was better. What does Wisdom do for your Cleric? Well the character creation screen usually doesn't tell you. (I'm aware that this stuff is in the manual, but how is that any more intuitive than what Pillars does?) A lot of people take their D&D knowledge for granted.

 

[just]

if you want your game to fail, make it rtwp
simple as

 

[Ol' Willy]

RTwP is good for strategies and wargames. RTwP strategy > RTS

But using it for RPGs... don't.

A while ago I was playing Armored Brigade and Ultimate General: Civil War, both are RTwP and both are very pleasant to play. But not a single RTwP RPG I played could deserve the same words

 

[user]

RTwP was not the reason it failed though.

How's PoE system unintuitive or convoluted? I never understood this complaint tbh.

All stats are presented clearly on the char creation screen and you see that e.g. +1 DEX will give you +3% action speed, +5 reflex defense etc. Can't get any more clear then that.

Having to look at tool tips to get an idea of what stats do is the opposite of intuitive.

Show me some good cRPG with relatively good/complex system where you don't have to look at stat description AT ALL to know what each of them do.
What happened to RTFM? Do we need everything to be self-explanatory now, without even bothering to read like one line stat description?

In any decent game you have to check somewhere what does each stat/skill affects. Hell, when I played BG1 for the first time, totally unfamiliar with DnD rules, I thought that STR governs only extra dmg and DEX is for melee +to-hit bonus.

If everything can flatly scale off all the stats things tend to become balanced™. For example I remember that spells felt like "attacks with effects" at the time - they could miss like attacks and had generic damage due to the fact they were made to scale.

 

[cvv]

RTwP is good for strategies and wargames. RTwP strategy > RTS

Eh, never could into Paradox grandies. Give me some dumb blast like Starcraft or C&C over EU or Victoria any time.