Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[Brancaleone]

Yeah but if the rules make you step out of the bounds of the archetype to the point there's really no line of demarcation between classes, why bother with classes?

Oh yeah Sawyer wants to make a classless archetype and Avowed will not feature classes.

Combatfaqs who seek challenge won't find it because of his 'balancing' approach.

The games certainly can be challenging on max difficulty. I however let my run fizzle out because of long load times, high tankyness of enemies and strange bugs particularily with the new turn based combat.
Fighting a few thugs for half an hour, then dieing because an opponents makes an attack outside of his turn because the engine spergs out, seeing a 5 minute loading screen before you try again just doesn't feel very fun. Maybe it is better by now, my run was very shortly after release of turn based mode.

I should have been more specific: combatfags who seek the difficulty spikes and the all or nothing aspect of challenge. Sawyer's max difficulty tends to be a longer than usual procedure of application of an even greater number of small impact actions.

It always reminds me of this kind of modelism:

Thousands upon thousands of small bricks, to be glued together one after another, which is certainly challenging in a way, because if you let your attention slip and glue a brick out of place, the entire wall is fucked up.

 

[Thac0]

I should have been more specific: combatfags who seek the difficulty spikes and the all or nothing aspect of challenge. Sawyer's max difficulty tends to be a longer that usual procedure of application of an even greater number of small impact actions.

Oh good call. I never knew I wanted this. Yeah combatfag games are more fun if they throw you an easy fight once in a while, and some fights are just plain unfair. Too balanced difficulty across the board feels like a slog.

 

[MajorMace]

Yeah but if the rules make you step out of the bounds of the archetype to the point there's really no line of demarcation between classes, why bother with classes?

Spot on. Game's a classless system featuring .. huh ... classes.
It's not the only paradox of poe's game design.

 

[Brancaleone]

I should have been more specific: combatfags who seek the difficulty spikes and the all or nothing aspect of challenge. Sawyer's max difficulty tends to be a longer that usual procedure of application of an even greater number of small impact actions.

Oh good call. I never knew I wanted this. Yeah combatfag games are more fun if they throw you an easy fight once in a while, and some fights are just plain unfair. Too balanced difficulty across the board feels like a slog.

Also difficulty spikes within the same encounter, which is often an underrated aspect of encounter design.

Plus, and this is entirely subjective, the psychological feeling of "I miscalculated slightly the duration of said spell and if I fail said saving throw I'm royally fucked" as opposed to "if I haven't made any typing mistakes these 400 lines of assembler should compile correctly".

 

[Delterius]

PoE is good. So is Kingmaker, New Vegas and Kenshi.

That may be true but are any of them a true rpg

Only Kenshi.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ahh, more and more are coming around to what I've known for some time: Sawyer is the equivalent of ass cancer to the RPG industry.

 

[the mole]

I think kingmaker is one of the most drab games I've ever seen

It's offensively ugly, it's an unpolished piece of shit

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah but if the rules make you step out of the bounds of the archetype to the point there's really no line of demarcation between classes, why bother with classes?

Spot on. Game's a classless system featuring .. huh ... classes.
It's not the only paradox of poe's game design.

My hunch is that what Soyer wanted to do is undermine the archetype itself, not come up with a classless system as such.

There's just this sense of relativism that permeates the entire concept.

The problem for him is that the attraction of RPGs is the archetypes themselves. One plays those games precisely because they want to live out the fantasy of being a warrior. They certainly don't play them because of the numbers and the meta in and of themselves.

 

[Spectacle]

Yeah but if the rules make you step out of the bounds of the archetype to the point there's really no line of demarcation between classes, why bother with classes?

don't give them ideas

I'm pretty sure that Josh has already spent hundreds if not thousands of hours thinking about classless systems.

 

[Delterius]

i think wizards in deadfire are my favorite archetype

spellbook scholarly magic is the best

 

[Diggfinger]

Yeah but if the rules make you step out of the bounds of the archetype to the point there's really no line of demarcation between classes, why bother with classes?

Oh yeah Sawyer wants to make a classless archetype and Avowed will not feature classes.

Combatfaqs who seek challenge won't find it because of his 'balancing' approach.

The games certainly can be challenging on max difficulty. I however let my run fizzle out because of long load times, high tankyness of enemies and strange bugs particularily with the new turn based combat.
Fighting a few thugs for half an hour, then dieing because an opponents makes an attack outside of his turn because the engine spergs out, seeing a 5 minute loading screen before you try again just doesn't feel very fun. Maybe it is better by now, my run was very shortly after release of turn based mode.

And which bugs might you be referring to ?
After 140+ hours in TB-mode I havent encountered a single bug related to combat
(Except the annoying bounty fight by the bridge in Neketaka, where the guards randomly turn hostile)

 

[Old Hans]

Thousands upon thousands of small bricks, to be glued together one after another

I hate to be a party pooper but I think that is just a sheet with a brick pattern

 

[Brancaleone]

Thousands upon thousands of small bricks, to be glued together one after another

I hate to be a party pooper but I think that is just a sheet with a brick pattern

My eyes are not what they used to be.

This one?

 

[the mole]

kingmaker could be a ps1 game

 

[Malamert]

Ahh, more and more are coming around to what I've known for some time: Sawyer is the equivalent of ass cancer to the RPG industry.

Even worse than Sawyer are the hordes of mindless retards that praise and idolize that cancerous twat.

 

[the mole]

muh oldies

 

[JarlFrank]

an unusual setting

I wish people stopped blaming the setting. A fresh and unusual setting is not a bad thing. Planescape Torment is a cult classic, Disco Elysium was a surprise hit, PoE2's setting is pirate-themed and many people like pirates.

The game's unusual setting didn't matter in its lack of success. It's the fact that it just plain wasn't a great game. Blaming the setting is a cop-out, like how Sawyer went "oh no I guess people don't like RPGs set in non-standard fantasy worlds so next time we gotta be more generic again". No, the real reason people didn't buy PoE2 is because PoE1 was such a disappointing borefest, and PoE2's main story picks up with all that boring god shit nobody cared about. Especially if you didn't finish PoE1, the intro of PoE2 is one of the worst intros to any game I have ever seen.

 

[JarlFrank]

I should have been more specific: combatfags who seek the difficulty spikes and the all or nothing aspect of challenge. Sawyer's max difficulty tends to be a longer that usual procedure of application of an even greater number of small impact actions.

Oh good call. I never knew I wanted this. Yeah combatfag games are more fun if they throw you an easy fight once in a while, and some fights are just plain unfair. Too balanced difficulty across the board feels like a slog.

The main thing that makes it feel like a slog is the non-decisiveness of everything. There are no combat-ending moves that fuck the enemy up, everything is just one little bonus here, one little bonus there, and then of course there are pretty sizeable health pools so combat lasts a long time. Boring, boring, boring.

 

[Quillon]

the intro of PoE2 is one of the worst intros to any game I have ever seen.

b..but floating platforms maaaan, they made the intro so cool! and they killed off shepard just to bring him back 2 mins later, that was cool too!

 

[Bah]

People way over analyze POE2. Its really simple guys. Lots of people aren't interested in playing games featuring nigger cultures.

 

[Desiderius]

People way over analyze POE2. Its really simple guys. Lots of people aren't interested in playing games featuring nigger cultures.

God punished the Romans for killing Jesus by making them into Italians.

 

[Immortal]

The game's unusual setting didn't matter in its lack of success. It's the fact that it just plain wasn't a great game.

How could people know PoE 2 is "Objectively a bad and unfun game" if they never bought /played it..

I never understood this logic of armchair analyzing how bad game = bad sales. How many shit games have sold like hot cakes on the back of previously amazing games..? Cough Fallout 3 Cough Cyberpunk 2077 cough etc etc cough.

It's far more likely that PoE disappointed people after the hype train of muh BG3 that regardless how good Deadfire was or wasn't nobody would bother. That or maybe people do hate pirate themes.

IMO - Sequels always make or break based on the success / enjoyment of previous titles. If PoE was an earth shattering experience instead of a cheap unity game squatted over a toilet - you think people wouldn't be clambering for Deadfire? Do you think a single die hard PoE fan would ever pass on this game? - Their conversion rate should of been 100%. Unless.. maybe.. could it be.. they just don't exist?

TL;DR - PoE 1 was shit.

 

[Efe]

in four simple steps:

• they played poe.
• they were disappointed.
• ???
• they didnt purchase sequel to a disappointing game

 

[Immortal]

in four simple steps:

• they played poe.
• they were disappointed.
• ???
• they didnt purchase sequel to a disappointing game

Pretty much. Sawyer shouldn't be asking himself "Why was Deadfire bad?!" what Obsidian should be asking themselves was.. "Was PoE as good as we thought?"

 

[the mole]

maybe they should have just copy pasted baldurs gate 2 because autists can't get over it

thankfully I've never played it so I'm able to appreciate other games