Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting

[markec]

It's not about physics but lack of any attention to detail.

Attention to detail can result in a worse game:

Nobody cares about every single little detail, what people care about is just enough to have suspension of disbelief. If I go to a city and npcs just stand there not reacting to anything even me hitting them that hurts the immersion. Its not like they are a newbie studio that never made a game with such systems, so I really dont understand people defending this.

 

[Roguey]

Nobody cares about every single little detail, what people care about is just enough to have suspension of disbelief. If I go to a city and npcs just stand there not reacting to anything even me hitting them that hurts the immersion. Its not like they are a newbie studio that never made a game with such systems, so I really dont understand people defending this.

Because it's a Bioware game with a first-person camera hack.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oblivion's game content sucks. Perhaps because they spent so much time on these small details and superficial crap like soil erosion that ultimately had to be cut????

For all its faults as a game with horribly dumbed down systems and horribly bowdlerized setting, it is widely agreed that the game content, as in quest design, is actually pretty good. It's well known that I hate Oblivion for what it did to The Elder Scrolls and RPGs as a whole, but some of its questlines - particularly Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild - had genuinely cool quest ideas that were decently implemented. And some of these implementations relied on the pre-existing simulationist systems, like a Dark Brotherhood quest where you infiltrate a party and have to kill all its guests one by one without them finding out you're the killer, which relies on NPC movement and the stealth system.

Oblivion is shit because they deliberately designed the systems to be shit (like the level scaling), not because any content was cut in favor of simulationist details. You're deliberately misrepresenting things to back up your anti-simulationist argument.

 

[normie]

Shiny objects being these small details that are ultimately inconsequential to overall game quality (in NV's case, looping reload animations).

Sawyer was right, Avellone was being a salty bitch who's long lost his fire, you wouldn't get it
chasing the moby dick of autism is what seperates great games from lukewarm ones

 

[JarlFrank]

Nobody cares about every single little detail, what people care about is just enough to have suspension of disbelief. If I go to a city and npcs just stand there not reacting to anything even me hitting them that hurts the immersion. Its not like they are a newbie studio that never made a game with such systems, so I really dont understand people defending this.

Because it's a Bioware game with a first-person camera hack.

If they wanted to make a Bioware game they shouldn't have opted for a perspective that raises Bethesda game expectations.

 

[The Wall]

Compared to TOW, the responsiveness is low. What does Obsidian have left now? Story? Exploration? There are major developers and indie developers who are better at both. I think this game deserves indifference.

Thank you my friend. I can now retire from this thread. /Bye aWOWe:D Laesbian Xisters!

 

[markec]

Nobody cares about every single little detail, what people care about is just enough to have suspension of disbelief. If I go to a city and npcs just stand there not reacting to anything even me hitting them that hurts the immersion. Its not like they are a newbie studio that never made a game with such systems, so I really dont understand people defending this.

Because it's a Bioware game with a first-person camera hack.

Its not how it was marketed.

Also with first person, with developers being creators of New Vegas and Outer Worlds there are certain expectations.

Also you could eliminate all of those complains with simply trick of disabling the player from using weapons and magic inside a settlement. This could be done easily and could be done to fit both the lore and narrative. Not doing so shows how lazy they were and that they have no excuse for that laziness.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I don't get it.. We had plently of games, even if they're trash, that have no reactions with guards and npcs, Witcher , Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Greedfall, etc Why exctally is such big deal in case of avowed to lack this?

If they wanted to make a Bioware game they shouldn't have opted for a perspective that raises Bethesda game expectations.

Perspective don't mean shit, people gonna have expectations that they want and you can't control that.
There's a reason you get people comparing Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V despite both games not being in the same genre..

 

[JarlFrank]

We had plently of games, even if they're trash, that have no reactions with guards and npcs, Witcher , Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Greedfall, etc Why exctally is such big deal in case of avowed to lack this?

It's also a problem for these games, actually.

But people are more demanding towards Avowed because
a) it was initially pitched as a "Skyrim killer" yet has none of its reactivity
b) Obsidian previously made New Vegas, which had physics and NPC reactions, and Outer Worlds, which had NPC reactions

Avowed compares unfavorably to Obsidian's own past games.

 

[Roguey]

For all its faults as a game with horribly dumbed down systems and horribly bowdlerized setting, it is widely agreed that the game content, as in quest design, is actually pretty good.

What the fuck.

There's no player choice in the quests. They're as basic as an RPG quest can possibly get. Pasting the relevant section from the Great Review:

Dialogues, Quests, Role-Playing

The player needs a certain size and a large number of choices to really make role-playing feel meaningful
Todd Howard

Well, hopefully one day Todd will make such a game, but let's talk about Oblivion for now. I believe these screenshots illustrate the role-playing and choices in the game:

"Knowing this was a ruse, I refused" - Wouldn't it be nice, if I had a CHOICE to accept? "I had no choice but to kill them" - Wouldn't it be, like, totally mind blowing, if I had a CHOICE not too?

To review, the dialogue system has been changed, so now you have 2-6 things you can ask any given person about. Upon such request, an NPC will give you 1-3 sentences, one at a time for people with reading disabilities, and sometimes a choice, such as "Do you want to accept this quest now or do you want to accept it later?", will be present. Seeing NPCs asking me "not to tell something to someone" brings a tear to my eye, because I can't, even if I wanted to. Even people with zero imagination would find that dialogue options are incredibly limiting, and that even the most basic and logical options are not there. You can't talk to hundreds of bandits and marauders you will find in ruins, caves, and forts. You can't handle such encounters peacefully by persuading them, fooling them, bribing them, and not to mention joining them. Once they see you, it's fight to the death, and considering that everything is scaled down to your level, the outcome is predictable and rarely challenging.


We track that on a faction basis, as well as every individual. You can make friends anywhere in the game, it's just harder with enemy factions.
Todd Howard

No kidding. When enemy factions such as the Necromancers cult and the Mythic Dawn cult see your friendly face, they tell you how they gonna own your ass (I guess they haven't been told that enemies are tied to your level, ensuring their untimely death), and, without giving you a chance to say something positive, they attack. Oh well...

The political landscape of the game world is highly fractured following the emperor's assassination, and you will have to be cautious of the motives of those who would befriend you.
Gavin Carter

You wouldn't be lying to your old pals, Gavin, would you? You shouldn't be cautious of the motives of those who would befriend you because a) you don't have a choice and even if you suspect something there is not a damn thing you can do about it, and b) Ken Rolston has this "no betrayal" rule (Douglas Goodall: ""No betrayal" meant that key NPCs couldn't turn on the player, lie to the player if they were honest in the past, nor could an NPC steal an item from the player, etc.").

Faction quests don't overlap, so quests never offer you to make a meaningful choice between, say, protecting an NPC for the Fighters Guild and killing an NPC for the Dark Brotherhood. Also, those seemingly powerful factions don't give a damn about the dark demonic invasion and, instead of doing something about it, do something else. On one hand, you have those stupid gates all over the countryside; on the other hand, you have a quest to find a job for some Fighters Guild's members who don't have anything to do. You can't tell them to close some gates for the benefits of the local communities, so the best you can do is hook them up with a lady who wants them to collect some ingredients. Makes sense.

To make matters worse, mage skills are not required to join & rise through the ranks of the Mage Guild. In Oblivion, most mage quests were about whacking someone. Coincidentally, that's what most Fighters Guild and the Dark Brotherhood quests were all about, creating this wonderful "same shit" feeling, and making the Thieves Guild's quests the only unique quest line in the game.

particularly Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild

These are the only ones worth a damn because of the systems involved.

 

[thesecret1]

Oblivion's game content sucks. Perhaps because they spent so much time on these small details and superficial crap like soil erosion that ultimately had to be cut????

For all its faults as a game with horribly dumbed down systems and horribly bowdlerized setting, it is widely agreed that the game content, as in quest design, is actually pretty good. It's well known that I hate Oblivion for what it did to The Elder Scrolls and RPGs as a whole, but some of its questlines - particularly Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild - had genuinely cool quest ideas that were decently implemented. And some of these implementations relied on the pre-existing simulationist systems, like a Dark Brotherhood quest where you infiltrate a party and have to kill all its guests one by one without them finding out you're the killer, which relies on NPC movement and the stealth system.

Oblivion is shit because they deliberately designed the systems to be shit (like the level scaling), not because any content was cut in favor of simulationist details. You're deliberately misrepresenting things to back up your anti-simulationist argument.

Indeed, many of Oblivion's quests were pretty good. Dark Brotherhood questline is obvious, but there were many others that were interesting and fun narritively. The one where you went into a painting, the fighters guild where you got stoned and massacred civilians, a haunted house quest, and then there was the whole shivering isles DLC which was similarly great.

Oblivion's mechanics and setting sucked ass, but the quests were, strangely enough, some of the best Bethesda has made

 

[JarlFrank]

These are the only ones worth a damn because of the systems involved.

Thank you for admitting that the good quests in Oblivion are good because of the systems involved, therefore proving my point that the systems implementation is not what led to Oblivion's low quality as a game, contrary to your previous statement.

 

[zaze]

Compared to TOW, the responsiveness is low. What does Obsidian have left now? Story? Exploration? There are major developers and indie developers who are better at both. I think this game deserves indifference.

"from the creators of New Vegas" title

 

[Roguey]

Its not how it was marketed.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a...least-and-don-t-love-to-compare-games-anyway/

They mentioned over and over again "This isn't Skyrim."

Thank you for admitting that the good quests in Oblivion are good because of the systems involved, therefore proving my point that the systems implementation is not what led to Oblivion's low quality as a game, contrary to your previous statement.

The systems that are important to gameplay are worthwhile. Crap like soil erosion was not. They wasted a lot of time on junk features like that.

 

[Butter]

Soil erosion is not a system in Oblivion. Are you referring to the meme where their level designers allegedly studied geology so they'd know where to place rocks in the world?

 

[JarlFrank]

Again, Oblivion's problems derive from bad systems design that was done deliberately, particularly to target a playerbase that was too stupid to find Caius Cosades in Morrowind.
Lack of development time or cut content were not a source of its problems, so I don't know what you're trying to get at.

EDIT:
also, if we ignore the "not relevant to gameplay" clutter physics (Skyrim with its retarded but funny "put a pot over a dude's head so he can't see you steal" would disagree btw), you know which systems are relevant to gameplay?
NPC and guard reactions to stealing and being attacked, which The Outer Worlds had but Avowed doesn't

 

[Bad Sector]

Thank you for admitting that the good quests in Oblivion are good because of the systems involved, therefore proving my point that the systems implementation is not what led to Oblivion's low quality as a game, contrary to your previous statement.

I don't know if it'd be considered a "good quest", but there is also this one where you need to talk/find some woman but she has a schedule that has her move between a couple of cities in some days. I remember coming across her in the came while she was on the road, finding interesting that the game bothered to implement that detail (other games would have her just teleport). If nothing else that aspect did remain in my memory.

And of course the whole "playing as a thief" aspect of the game relies heavily on its schedule system that has NPCs go to sleep. Though the game's economy makes thieving pretty much pointless from a mechanical perspective.

 

[The Wall]

This is now Oblivion REDEMPTION Thread! Avoed? Aevoid? Awawd? A-WHO? More people playing Skyrim then this shit on ITS FUCKING RELEASE DATE

Shit has declined that much. Thanks to Roguey, Vic and Infinitron types the most. They are cold water that solidifies and normalizes every retarded change for the worse inside and outside of gaming for past 10+ years. I hate them more then Obsidian

 

[JarlFrank]

I never in my life expected to be defending Oblivion, but here we are in 2025 and the SLAM DUNKS have become so bad Oblivion compares favorably against them. Sad!

 

[Bad Sector]

Crap like soil erosion was not.

AFAIK soil erosion was used during the initial procgen of the game's world, it isn't something that the game does in realtime.

 

[markec]

Its not how it was marketed.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a...least-and-don-t-love-to-compare-games-anyway/

They mentioned over and over again "This isn't Skyrim."

You said "Because it's a Bioware game with a first-person camera hack."

From the article you posted:

"I think the best comparison is The Outer Worlds. I think that gives a much clearer idea of the scope of the game and also the design and layout."

Is Outer Worlds a Bioware game or a game closer to Mass Effect then New Vegas.

 

[Sweeper]

20 years from now

Outer Worlds was a classic, Obsidian's downfall didn't start until Avowed

 

[JarlFrank]

Crap like soil erosion was not.

AFAIK soil erosion was used during the initial procgen of the game's world, it isn't something that the game does in realtime.

So ultimately, it was a worthwhile system because it saved time for the level designers who didn't have to manually place all those hills but could let the system handle a believable world design.

Another win for simulationist systems!

 

[normie]

the poison apple mechanic has produced more fun than all the pillows games + outer turds combined

 

[Roguey]

Again, Oblivion's problems derive from bad systems design that was done deliberately, particularly to target a playerbase that was too stupid to find Caius Cosades in Morrowind.
Lack of development time or cut content were not a source of its problems, so I don't know what you're trying to get at.

Here's a long list of developer lies about Oblivion https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/which-oblivion-dev-lied-the-most.15427

There were multiple devs who outright stated that they weren't going to scale the whole world to your level knowing full-well the issues that would cause. They ended up shipping like that anyway, they just had no time to fine-tune it. They corrected it with Fallout 3.

Todd got that 80s Fleetwood Mac song as his theme meme song for a reason. He lies, that is, he promises features that end up having to be cut for time.