Pillars of Eternity

Deadfire is a bit more forgiving in that regard. Just a bit — the Old City can be a real pain if you go too early. At least the game warns you when certain areas and foes are likely too much for you to handle.

Big patch out

A new megaboss was added, Hauani O Whe the Boss Ooze. Found on the island between Dunnage and Fort Deadlight

UI reword and UI customization options

A Berath's Blessing: "Can I pet him?" allowing Eder to equip a pet.

You can now import characters between playthough, either at the start, or as adventurers.

Magran's Challenge additions, allong with Hylea and Rymrgard's Challenges

https://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=560130

Oh, how I've come to dread those words. Time to go see what mods are broken this time...

Edited by Tarlonniel on Oct 25th 2018 at 5:38:46 AM

So uh, I didn't realize patch 5.0 (besides being release of final challenge and turn based mode out of beta) added a LOT of Woedica interactions ._.;

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 16th 2019 at 10:46:31 PM

Ya know, its kinda depressing how CRPG is one of those genres that don't seem to lend well to active forum conversations long after release.

I'm kind of wondering if there is some marketing gimmick or something that would make invidual crpgs stay longer relevant..

"releasing more story content" comes to mind.

Hmm, but none of recent CRP Gs had conversation among general populace really invigorated with new DLC or updates. Heck, even the trope pages for some of them took at least several months before someone updated them afterwards

I mean story content that affects the main plot. The DL Cs for POE 2 are all ancillary side tales that don't really advance what people really care about (What's beyond the mist, what happens with no wheel, etc...).

Eh, I would argue that first one and third one are pretty big deal expanding on gods stuff

(Second one is more of just how Galawain is a dick)

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 23rd 2019 at 6:29:13 PM

Well I haven't finished playing yet so it's not my fault!

I just wanna say that Thaos' final speech in Pillars 1 is one of my fav final speeches in a long time.

In general, the final twist of Pillars made me think a lot, which is rare for a video game. So it'll always have that place in my heart.

Josh Sawyer says they're going to have to think pretty hard about why PoE2 was an acclaimed flop before considering making a third. Probably a bit of an expected thing at this point, but there it is in writing.

Edited by VutherA on Nov 10th 2019 at 5:17:58 AM

IT's a shame, but I can sort of understand.

Everyone in comment section loves dropping their own ideas it seems.

I do kinda think they miss the point of "I didn't like the game" not explaining why the game didn't sell well because they clearly did buy thegame

Like if you were a customer, you wouldn't know game is "too verbose" before buying it

Edited by SpookyMask on Nov 11th 2019 at 12:10:00 PM

He even admits that he wishes the game was also a critical flop, since at least then they'd have a better idea of what to fix for the sequel. As it is, it seems like they did everything right and still weren't able to sell well.

I think the correct answer is pretty much "marketing!"

Like, let's take Torment and Wasteland 2 as example: Sure the reviews weren't super great, but they were okay enough. But nobody remembers them existing now.

Meanwhile Divinity has become a thing everyone thinks of when they think of interesting turn based combat systems. Pathfinder: Kingmaker on otherhand has brand name from being one of top five most played pen & paper rpgs.

Personally my two cents is the issue isn't with Deadfire, but POE 1. I found the first game really hard to get into. The first part of the game in particular before you get the keep is slow. The game also didn't have Tyranny's thing where you can mouse over terms to get explanations, which made the game's attempt to sell this this brand new. never heard off setting a lot harder than it needed to be. I'd not be surprised if a lot of people who tried POE 1 never finished it and never tried Deadfire.

The other is the game not committing to the pirate bit. The game's got this whole pirate/sail thing. And the ship mechanics are awful. A best one could call them "passable", but nothing about them really is entertaining nor does it really scratch that "adventures on the high seas" bit.

If a game markets itself as being all age of sails themed and you ask about it and the answer "Well the boat stuff isn't great", that gives the ship a big hump to get over.

Well reviews are a thing...

Edited by Ghilz on Nov 11th 2019 at 9:32:51 AM

That wouldn't make sense with most reviews being positive though

There was a lot of hostile word of mouth. People who didn't like the companions and setting seem to have specifically disliked the fact that it wasn't more generic Standard Fantasy Setting fare, that the characters and factions were 'poorly written' because they didn't talk in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe...which they didn't in the first game, really, but it still looked like Baldur's Gate. And it did get a lot of flak for the main quest being short and 'disappointing', some of which has to do with the bulk of the game, the faction conflict, being potentially skippable, but a lot more of which has to do with your audience for these games really wanting that chosen one, save-the-day power fantasy. I'm not knocking it per se, but there are a lot people in that audience who will check out if, like in Deadfire, you really can't win, no matter what you do. And that sucks, because the whole point is that Eothas isn't really evil and none of the factions are perfect, but I do think that swayed a lot of word of mouth and ultimately hurt sales.

I think just adjusting the pacing could've helped, though. Forcing you to confront the factions and take the quests where you piss the other factions off sometime before Magran's Teeth would've made sure there was an appropriate amount of space between Hasongo and Ashen Maw, and that would have at least helped with the complaints about the game being short.

Gotta admit, I didn't like ship combat. I always just rushed the other ship asap and boarded them so I could get to actual combat.

I don't think though it had that much hostile word of mouth though. Like everyone who did complain about the game still DID buy the game and there aren't really lot of videos about POE being bad.

Its actually why I think its marketing issue, there aren't lot of fan content or videos about POE at all

The main quest was my primary disappointment with the game, especially the ending, but I realize that can't be the reason for its poor sales - most players don't even get that far. The ship combat seems like a good thing to point fingers at. There were bugs, too, but that's pretty standard nowadays. I guess people could've been turned off by the wordiness and the setting, but the first game was the same way and it sold okay (I assume).

I don't have much investment in seeing a PoEIII, but I'm a sucker for Aloth and Rekke, so I guess if they make it, and either of those two are in it, I'll buy it.

That hostile contingent, vocal minority though it might have been, was definitely there from the beginning, and persists to this day. While people who actually liked the game have largely moved on, you will still, as with many things, see people who hated it come out of the woodwork and tell you how awful it was the moment it's so much as mentioned, on Steam, GOG, elsewhere. And that, combined with Obsidian's marketing from seeming to be mostly about good word of mouth from their Kickstarter backers, prevented the game from ever building up much momentum. And the DLC, even though I personally bought all of it, none of it really reinvigorated the game. Not the way The White March did, certainly.

It's just bad timing, as well, having to compete with DOS 2 at first and then Pathfinder: Kingmaker later (which I didn't like nearly as much myself, but the diehard people who really wanted more of the same standard medieval fantasy stuff really liked). Isometric CRP Gs, RTWP or otherwise, have probably hit a saturation point. And Tyranny (which I loved but there are some people who will never play any game more than once), Torment (which could never have lived up to its namesake and just wasn't quite weird enough), and Wasteland 2 (which honestly is still kind of rough to look at and takes a while to really get going), I think those left a bad taste in the mouths of people who wanted something a lot more modern, I think because they're used to triple-A titles and need everything to look and feel like The Witcher or Skyrim. Quirkiness is actually a turn-off for them.

I don't know. I think there were a lot of extras that were nice, but were never really going to bring in sales? Things like backer pets, and free updates (I think those could've worked better if there were fewer of them but with more content, still with patches in between). It was all very high quality, but it just never hit a critical mass where you could say 'Now this is what you play the game for!' if a person had already decided they weren't really into the base game.

Which is a right shame, since it's the base game I loved, the combat, the character creation, factions, and Eothas himself.

I have hard time believing CRPG genre is saturated though.

Like besides it having been dormant genre for long time, don't a lot of crpg fans play ALL the crpg games simply you aren't guaranteed to get even one game a year in genre?

Then again, there are lot of CRPG fans who love arguing about how their favourite crpg is obviously the best, you don't really get that with point and click adventure games. Like there is much more competitive attitude with crpg fans for some reason

Not just CRP Gs in general, specifically isometric RTWP Infinity Engine-style games. And the market hitting saturation isn't a permanent state or a point where the games will no longer sell at all, it's just that we seem to have reached the point where they will sell no more than they currently are (unless, like DOS 2, they start to become something else), and the money Obsidian put into Deadfire was I think based on the idea that that ceiling was a still a lot higher. It could rise more eventually (turn-based games are making a big comeback), and the field might be more clear later. The tolerance for action-RPG hybrids like the Witcher, Cyberpunk, and yes, The Outer Worlds does seem a lot higher. That's not saying anything against those games, just that that's where the trend is right now, given a limited market and only so many hours in the day.

But then there's Disco Elysium. I mean, I think if anything that shows there was an opportunity to get really weird and experimental, and is viewed as more of a true heir to PST's crown than Tides.

It's an awkward place to be in. How weird is too weird, or not weird enough? How safe is too safe? I'm not pointing fingers, it is really hard to gauge. Just bad timing, really. Obsidian's on the receiving end of a lot of that.

Edited by Unsung on Nov 11th 2019 at 10:11:19 AM