Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[Infinitron]

Going by this other Josh post that incensed me in the past (https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/josh-sawyer-appreciation-station.133811/page-36#post-8324533) he can't stand the genre conventions and has an overpowering urge to ground them in gritty realism, as opposed to the other way of dealing with distaste for such conventions and turning them into a quippy joke.

That might be true in terms of narrative, but Josh's mechanics certainly weren't strictly grounded in realism. I'd say he did push them in the direction of more "maturity", in the sense of "Of course all stats should be useful to all classes, come on bro nobody actually liked that grognard dump stat stuff, grow up and give up your youthful illusions of verisimilitude".

(and of course in some respects Josh's mechanics were more grounded in realism, with their greater emphasis on damage types/resistances and action speeds compared to classic D&D)

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

This fucking guy, what a limpdick primadonna. Everyone is always at fault except him.

 

[0sacred]

even more ideas how to 'improve' on DnD, huh? What could go wrong.

 

[Shadenuat]

Ffucking oldskool fans!! They gave me millions that paid for my hyper expensive office chair and blue steel bicycle gears and dint like my game its all their falt!!! (butthurt reddit icon)

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I like that Josh is still causing you grognards so much butthurt.

 

[vortex]

I like that Josh is still causing you grognards so much butthurt

Josh is causing this uprising to heat up Pillars 3 announcement.

 

[Shadenuat]

He is causing amazement how someone worked on iwd and actualy got spirit of old kitchy dnd right first time, then managed to fuck up monsters encounters, fuck loot, fuck dungeons, but ok obsidian did not have good gameplay,
But they also fucked up the story to the point that the only memorable thing is edited leftover mca companion, while holding power of some of best writers available at their fingertips
Me genius elite designer they dont understand muscle wizards, the genre is dead, elden ring sold more

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I could get on board with "dump stats are bad", but it didn't even materalize in real gameplay because everybody dumps Res.

So it's not as if playerbase rejected Sawyers amazing innovations, he just failed to implement these in the game at all.

 

[Slaver1]

Worst part is that CRPG fans were so desperate to like POE. The hype was in overdrive to an extent we haven't seen since and might never see again. Everyone was trying to like it even when it became palpably obvious it was a damp squib. If ever there was a perfect layup for releasing a safe game nestled in the cozy niche incorporated by the previous IE games this was it. Strange then that Sawyers game(s) felt so instantly unfamiliar, uncomfortable and, after a while, unmistakably mind-numbingly boring compared to the ever addictive, eternally fun games it was "mimicking."

 

[Roguey]

I could get on board with "dump stats are bad", but it didn't even materalize in real gameplay because everybody dumps Res.

So it's not as if playerbase rejected Sawyers amazing innovations, he just failed to implement these in the game at all.

Sawyer laments over how he absolutely had to have a six-attribute system. It was his own brain that told him he had to do it this way, but then he blames grognards for making him do it, even though they hate his attributes and would have preferred him either using D&D stats or just doing whatever the hell he wants since it makes no difference.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The problem with Pillars is that it was Dead Time: The Game. There were some important encounters and plot points but they were spread in between dozens of hours of menial shit. I haven't completed Deadfire but it felt like more of the same. I don't know if I should import my save from 1 or just start over. From what I've seen, importing doesn't give you crucial stuff, and there aren't many consequences to your actions in the first game. From that point of view, it's very true to the IE experience at least.

 

[Cross]

"Honestly, I have to say it felt like the most compromised games I worked on were Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2," Sawyer said. "Because when I came back to that format, I was like, 'Oh, I worked on these two [Icewind Dale] games, and then I worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, and now I have a bunch of new ideas for how differently I would do it if I were doing it on my own.' But they were crowdfunded games and the audience was like, 'No, we want D&D, we want exactly the same experience as the Infinity Engine games.'"

The fact that backers had already paid for an RPG that, in the words of that first Kickstarter(opens in new tab), "pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past", meant Sawyer felt he had to keep Pillars of Eternity retro even in places where he had better ideas. "I did feel a sense of obligation," he said, "but also I felt like I was making bad design decisions ultimately, like I was making a game worse to appeal to the sensibilities of the audience that wanted something ultra nostalgic."

This is pure bullshit. He claims he kept the mechanics "exactly the same" as the Infinity Engine games, but he only kept superficial things, like the names of certain spells, while making the actual mechanics entirely different, to the detriment of gameplay.

Take Charm Animal. In Baldur's Gate as a druid or ranger you could charm non-hostile animals to follow you around and fight for you. You can't do that in Pillars, spells can only be used in combat against hostile enemies and the 'Charm Beast' spell only lasts a few seconds.

This applies to basically every mechanic in Pillars compared to its D&D equivalent. I posted about this before.

The problem with PoE's abilities and spells is that most of them are superficial variations of each other, and usually boil down to 'do damage in a needlessly convoluted manner' or 'minor stat (de)buff for a few seconds'. PoE has far more abilities and spells than Baldur's Gate, but very few of them are meaningfully different from each other.

D&D has a Magic Missile spell that always remains useful, because the amount of missiles increases as you level up and it's one of the few spells that has no saving throw, meaning it can't be resisted. PoE has an entire line of 'Minoletta's missiles' spells, all of which are quickly outclassed by other spells. It's all bloat.

A cynical person might think this was done on purpose to create the illusion of a deep ability/spell system, because programming lots of unique effects for spells and abilities is very resource-intensive. But I think it has more to with Sawyer being a bad designer, or at least not understanding what makes fantasy RPGs fun to play.

It's not exactly a mystery why so many of PoE's encounters felt like busywork. It's because of the removal of any meaningful consequences, meaning combat has no stakes.

For example, here is how death works in the IE games:

• Reaching 0 HP results in a character's death. Resurrection is possible, but not readily available at lower levels.
• Reaching -10 HP, being struck while petrified or being disintegrated results in permadeath, with no possibility for resurrection.

Here is how death works in PoE:

• Reaching 0 hp doesn't result in death, as the character simply stands up after combat and regenerates. Only after 'dying' about half a dozen times is the character in any actual danger of permadeath.

Sawyer effectively adopted the same forgiving death mechanics Bioware has been using since Kotor. In the IE games (perma)death can occur at any time. In PoE, you get so many second chances a character can basically only ever die if you deliberately allow it.

Someone like Feargus does not care about the minutiae of gameplay, so as long as it was generic fantasy with real-time with pause, he allowed Sawyer to do whatever he wanted. Which he did. And it sucked.

Deadfire moved even further away from IE design with its per-encounter bullshit, and surprise surprise it made the game worse. Maybe the players know better than you, Josh.

Deadfire's inclusion of a turn-based mode could be considered an improvement. Of course, they did it not out of any desire to improve gameplay, but because they were envious of the massive success of turn-based RPGs like Divinity: Original Sin. Which just shows how completely creatively bankrupt Obsidian is.

 

[Butter]

Deadfire's inclusion of a turn-based mode could be considered an improvement. Of course, they did it not out of any desire to improve gameplay, but because they were envious of the massive success of turn-based RPGs like Divinity: Original Sin. Which just shows how completely creatively bankrupt Obsidian is.

They added full VO during production because they were jealous of DOS 2 success. They didn't bother adding turn-based until a year after release, and it was hacked in by two people. It should've been part of the design document from the initial brainstorming session, but as you said they're creatively bankrupt. I'm not convinced there's anyone left at Obsidian with any sort of vision. When given carte blanche to make his dream game, Sawyer churned out a Name of the Rose visual novel.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

 

[gurugeorge]

(and of course in some respects Josh's mechanics were more grounded in realism, with their greater emphasis on damage types/resistances and action speeds compared to classic D&D)

See, this to me is what a lot of the grognard types, blinded by their miffed fury, are missing about the games. Because of that close attention to action speeds in particular, they are much better RTwP games, they flow better than the massaged tabletop of the BG/IWD RTwP games (and even the Owlcat games today). And in some senses, once you get the initially odd-seeming stats ingrained in your mind, even quite good simulationist games (except in the sense that the old games allowed fail builds - analogous to, e.g., a klutzy thief irl - and these games are deliberately more egalitarian and try to avoid that possibility).

The whole detour into RTwP with the BG/IWD was an aberration in fact. Anything based on D&D type rules should always have been turn-based, the way the rules were designed, that's their home. But once RTwP was invented, the possibility of developing game systems around that game mode opened up, and Sawyer tried to rethink it - and with POE2 pretty much succeeded.

I've come to really enjoy POE2 more each time I've played it. POE1 was okay (esp. the DLC) but for me is unbearable to play because of the hideous visual soup. But POE2 is a great game all-round. The fact that it "failed" (though note that because it's a huge game that's always there, its relative popularity has climbed steadily over the years, as non-drama-invested bored players eventually get around to trying it and like it - e.g. there's a steady flow of "Hey this is actually pretty good" YT vids) is not a reflection of its quality, but rather a reflection of the relatively small popularity of RPGs. Once the hardcore audience had given up on the series after the first game, there wasn't much of a natural audience left, and Larian had more or less soaked up whatever fringe normie audience CRPGs have with their surprise, innovative hit and its follow-up.

Big, popular CRPGs are like the saxophone hits of the gaming world, and as my ex. said about those, you're only allowed one per decade

 

[Artyoan]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

I'm not sure if the mustache is thrown in there to horrify people even further or if it's the last thing defending his latent masculinity from transitioning into the abyss.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

 

[Gargaune]

"I did feel a sense of obligation," he said, "but also I felt like I was making bad design decisions ultimately, like I was making a game worse to appeal to the sensibilities of the audience that wanted something ultra nostalgic."

Christ, are we back to this again? PoE's design is riddled with stupid decisions and, almost systematically, what's good about it is lifted from the IE and what's bad is where Sawyer tried to reinvent the fucking wheel. The "nostalgic audience" didn't hold PoE back, it propped it up. At least the first time around, as much as you can prop up a half-arsed "homage", and by the sequel, they moved on to greener pastures.

But Sawyer being pigheaded and dismissive towards PoE's customer response is nothing new, like he's done with his +1 vs. percentile bonuses or the idiotically anticlimactic Deadfire resolution, and rest assured he'll do it again when his next opus fails to impress. Sure, he likes to play the humble craftsman in public, but privately he's convinced he knows better than the paying customer, despite the numbers proving otherwise.

 

[Infinitron]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

Sorry but posts like these are cope. He's a tall dude who works out, that look gets top tier West Coast art hoe pussy if he wants it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I guess that's why the recent codex spy news were about him crying after his gf left him and following sex workers on social media or something. Big dick energy for sure.

He was definitely a good looking guy and you can't even say he's aging badly or anything. Fucker seems to be doing this shit on purpose, which makes it even worse.

 

[Artyoan]

He felt stifled because he had to hold to his own company kickstarter mission statement about retaining an old school philosophy as a modern day successor. He isn't stifled by the fans, he is stifled by his boss, but not willing to publicly state it as such. If he wanted a new direction, say so in the kickstarter prior to the launch. If it doesn't generate the money, what does that tell you?

By Pillars 2 he can't plausibly say he had to compromise in any meaningful sense. That was quite a leap away from Pillars 1 in just about every category. I'm not even against him doing his own thing if he had the funding for a crpg project that allowed him a true blank canvas. If I were asked to do something I wasn't all in on I would either ask to be put on a different project or just simply do my job as paid.

Nostalgia may be a powerful thing but even in the case of WoW classic, much of it is an appeal to a great design philosophy that got left by the wayside without the developer even knowing they've abandoned it, or worse no longer knowing why it was appealing. Unlike seemingly most here, I actually do like PoE1 quite a bit. I just find this public lamenting to be misguided and nonsensical.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

Sorry but posts like these are cope. He's a tall dude who works out, that look gets top tier West Coast art hoe pussy if he wants it.

Wrong account Josh...

...or is it?!

 

[None]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

Sorry but posts like these are cope. He's a tall dude who works out, that look gets top tier West Coast art hoe pussy if he wants it.

Truly the owner of a rippling physique:

Infinitron DYEL? Someone has gotta, because it doesn't look like Sawyer does much himself.

 

[Volourn]

Lol He blames old skool.fans fir his choices even though he bashed and mocked them while changing things fir no reason. Like the ol muscle mages. How is that old skool dnd fans' fault? Nobody asked fir that bullshit. Not surprising coming from someone who absolutely hates dnd and old school Rpger's. Lol

 

[roshan]

He felt stifled because he had to hold to his own company kickstarter mission statement about retaining an old school philosophy as a modern day successor. He isn't stifled by the fans, he is stifled by his boss, but not willing to publicly state it as such. If he wanted a new direction, say so in the kickstarter prior to the launch. If it doesn't generate the money, what does that tell you?

By Pillars 2 he can't plausibly say he had to compromise in any meaningful sense. That was quite a leap away from Pillars 1 in just about every category. I'm not even against him doing his own thing if he had the funding for a crpg project that allowed him a true blank canvas. If I were asked to do something I wasn't all in on I would either ask to be put on a different project or just simply do my job as paid.

Nostalgia may be a powerful thing but even in the case of WoW classic, much of it is an appeal to a great design philosophy that got left by the wayside without the developer even knowing they've abandoned it, or worse no longer knowing why it was appealing. Unlike seemingly most here, I actually do like PoE1 quite a bit. I just find this public lamenting to be misguided and nonsensical.

How did Pillars 2 change, mechanics wise, from Pillars 1?