Josh Sawyer is hell of a game director. New Vegas, Pillars 1 and 2, Pentiment and more. Pillar of Eternity are only behind BG1/2 as my favorite games of all time. Deadfire literally saved my sanity during some really bad case of depression
FNV and PoE are horrible games. Can't even compare that ~3/10 trash (they are not even RPGs) by many solid criterions to brilliants like BG, Arcanum, Planescape, which are 9-10/10 games.
I mean that's obviously bait, but there's something genuinely funny about shitting on PoE in the same comment where you say a broken trashcan filled with good ideas that fundamentally don't work together like Arcanum is good.
@@dandanthesuitman6013 Not at all. Seriously. Obviously we have very different criterions for games, RPGs and about good and bad. PoE and FNV are literally some of the worst games I've played in last 30 years.
@@dandanthesuitman6013 And Arcanum... Yes, Arcanum is buggy, but it is definately one of the greatest true RPGs ever made. It's a flawed masterpiece. PoE and FNV with it's shitty writing and illusions of RPGs have nothing to compare to it, it's like walking to the Moon or different galaxy by legs. PoE and Underfallouts are truly horrible, even shitty mbile gaming futile games are better thatn that, in which I never play.
@@destroyerrunemo I wouldn't call POE exactly horrible. Just like Tyranny and the Outer Worlds they are FUNCTIONAL, but an absolute soulless snooze fests to play. Its as if they were developed by people who never liked or played videogames. The only other similarly boring cop out I can think of is Starfield, but it at least shows some production values.
One thing that's extremely funny about hearing that the cipher class was a carry-over from Wildstar is that within forum discussions about PoE you'd see arguments that cipher almost felt like the "canon" class for the player character
I loved PoE, but I stayed away from the Cipher. I rarely play more traditional/core CRPGs, and it felt like such a challenging class for someone largely interested in the story more than the system complexity or nuance. Ditto the Chanter, if I remember right? I respect and admire such design, but it's not a great fit for those who might only play it once, perhaps twice, because unless they do research they just won't appreciate the distinctions or build strengths/weaknesses. It's an interesting point about Cipher's being good fits for the story, especially knowing more mechanics could've been closer tied to their abilities.
Why am I not surprised that some of my favorite features and classes in the game were designed by Tim! The Cipher class is just .. chef's kiss! 😆 Also the monk power source is so brilliant!!😮 Do you think you can bring Josh Sawyer for an interview? He is such an amazing designer! Can't wait for your video on Tyranny!! Have a great day!😊
I loved the hangman tree being the first thing you see in PoE. Then you hear about this oppressive lord. It had such a great dark fantasy atmosphere to it.
i almost flunked my junior year of high school because of PoE2. I'd be in a class not focusing just workshopping builds that I would try when I got home. It took me a long time to finish that game because instead of making progress in my main campaign, I'd keep making new characters and getting a few hours into them. It's also one of 2 games to ever make me cry. Its an in-joke now with my friends that when Avowed releases, they aren't going to hear from me for a while.
PoE is the first big RPG I had played since New Vegas. It really reignited my love for RPGs and started me on a path to explore D&D. Thanks for your part in it, Tim!
Josh Sawyer is a great guy for directing games, very creative but also has a good eye for balance. I keep hoping he'll take a another swing at directing and ARPG again. New Vegas was so, so fun.
Also PoE is not a big RPG, it's just a disgusting shame and a puke, comparing to great classic RPGs. One of dissapointments of gamedev. Should not exist at all, it's that horrible.
Monk in PoE (and deadfire) is one of my favorite classes in any game ever, tabletop or crpg. So much fun and such a clear class concept, which “monks” often lack.
my greatest respect for you, tim! pillars 1 was an amazing game and pillars 2 improved with imo the best rpg mechanics ever made. perfectly intuitive combat mechanics (& everything very well explained), dozens of multiclass combos that can be combined with dozens unique weapons that create hundreds of viable character designs is just peak game design. sadly the water based theme & loading times didnt work out properly. ---> here is my advice: create a game thats basically a bigger pillars 1 but with the abundantly rich mechanics of pillars 2 = best rpg ever.
Pillars of Eternity was a ton of fun! I played a Wizard Knight lol I wielded a sword and a book, and wore heavy armor Probably not even close to optimal, but it sure was fun!
I've yet to play Pillars 2 but the first game is an absolute masterpiece and, for me, it surpasses BG1 and 2 in many ways. Avowed being set in the living lands certainly has my attention and I still hope for updates on the tabletop even. Thanks for sharing your insights!
I know this video is a little old, but I recently completed a playthrough of Pillars 1 with the Monk class and I had great fun, I'm glad to hear you've had a hand in that :D
@@idnintel It's much like Tyranny, but there are more side quests in the Pillars games. In Pillars 1 the maps are closed, pre-rendered areas, but there is a lot of stuff to discover outside the main quest. Pillars 2 is more exploration focused, with its naval theme and random events.
@@Glownyszef ok, thanks for that. I'll play it but then I'll want to play something more exploration and freeform right after it. Still need to play wizardry 8 actually :).
Didn't Pillars 2 really wipe him out, though? I wouldn't be surprised if he never wants to return to such a project. I loved Pillars 1 - even if, on console, the performance eventually descended into flickbook territory (and man, those load times... especially when trying to get to the living quarters in the stronghold) - but still haven't played the second. It always feels like such a time commitment. He says with about 90hrs on Starfield already...
I can imagine how awesome it would be to work with you, Tim. So much passion and great ideas. Right now we’re developing an isometric dark fantasy RPG, the team is great, but I’m the only narrative designer on the project. I bet we’d need only minutes to put out dozens of ideas 😅 the world needs more devs like you!
Question: How do you feel about the work of all the people involved in making an online game (Like WildStar) being essentially lost to the sands of time when the online service eventually (and it will) shuts down? Do you think game publishers and developers should be held responsible for "future proofing" the game in some manner, like releasing the server-side code and assets to the community or some other way so that people in the future would be able to enjoy the virtual worlds they never got the chance to visit?
I can't answer for Tim, obviously, but I kinda think that's just the compromise inherent in the tech that allows for the concept. This 'games as service' moniker has understandably gotten a bad rep, but at its core it's providing a unique form of game experience. They're hugely defined by community, and when that community drifts away as the vast majority of games can't really continue - other than as a shell of their former selves. It'd be good to see better cultures of preservation, but that's a blight on the whole industry regardless of game form. Companies barely give a shit about keeping access to SP games, and those are *far" simpler problems to solve.
I actually just beat Pillars 1 last week. Well on my way in Pillars 2. I love the hireling system. Those adventurers are so cool because theyre personal and customized to your liking. Also enjoying the multiclass system in the 2nd game. I wouldnt be mad if a 3rd game came out lol
Another great video! Huge fan of your work mr. Cain! Just started PoE recently and I'm in love with everything so far. Just spotted for the first time in your bookcase the absolute G.O.A.T. Gloomhaven! Would love to hear which board games are your favourite ones, be it in the rpg genre or not
While I didn't love POE's shipping crafting system my favorite classes are, no joke, cipher and monk! My favorite POE character that I made was a pale elf monk, a former slave that survived and escaped thanks to learning the monk arts. She was stoic and benevolent except when confronting slavers, in which case she went nuts.
Oh my god, a game I've actually played and not to mention, I also picked Cipher because it sounded the most unique! It took my quite a while that the initial Charm spell was actually stupid broken. I genuinely don't remember crafting, I'm sorry, it was probably so scaled down that it was auto-process from a player perspective. The Adventurer's Guild idea and the procgen I feel were still implemented in a scoped down format: i.e. the Stronghold dungeon floors and the custom companions, which honestly just contributed a to a meta build rather than having flavourful companions. And the combat spell list, man, that must've been a doozy to manage all the time. It's always in some quests and plenty of effects to go around, the entire quest team were using it. While the Watcher spiritis being basically Soulsbourne bloodstains would've been a neat solution, I think it was scoped down quite well as well. I think the game could've benefitted more from having a dedicated Rogue/Artificier type of companion earlier, it was quite odd to have your primary mage specialize in lockpicking, while your Cipher main was the actual spellcaster of the party. This also explains why Ciphers were explained into the world all the way in Act 3, because that's around the time you joined back to flesh them out into a full blown class. Absolutely fascinating, yet to play Tyranny, but I know it will be just as much of a treat.
"the best character creation system of any game"? What nonsense are you talking about? Absoulte bs. Are you a kid 10-30 years old who have no experience in 80s-90s gaming? Damn stupidity and ignorance is/are truly infinite...
So, I loved PoE, second game as well. One design decision I really do not understand, however, is that every character seems to be legally blind. The vision radius is so, so small, it regularly made the game feel claustrophobic, even when I was in broad daylight. Also really dampened the beautiful background art. I'm not a huge CRPG buff, so maybe its a genre convention that I don't get, but it always struck me as a really weird design choice and I can't really figure out an explanation why it is the way it is. Surely exploring and surprises on the map can be made interesting without having to role play that all my characters have the eye sight of senile bats?
The spirits setting off traps feels like a very Dark Souls-esque "messages/ghosts" kind of thing. I like it, but I can see how in a party game where you could use any of your characters, universal mechanics made more sense to pursue on a budget that was all things considered pretty tight. If the game had been a single-player character kind of thing like Fallout 1/2, I think that'd have been amazing.
I love PoE1&2. I think I caught most of Josh’s talks, so it’s great to hear from your perspective. I must say, I am not sold on manually playing through procedurally generated pillars. I am not a fan, when games take away “camera” from protagonist. Sure we get to control other characters when adventuring, but I always imagine it as giving them orders, but it is difficult to see it that way, when I get to play as companions without PC present. You idea for integrating Watcher abilities with skill checks sounds really cool. I wonder, if watching ghosts would get tedious after a while, but I do like the flavour.
In JavaScript you would create a function for the spell effect. It would be part of the particular spells object. So no switch statement to maintain. Cos in JavaScript functions can be passed as objects. In other languages the particular spell would be an object that inherits from a base spell object. So each spell would be a method in a child object. So no need for switch statements at all.
I love Pillars. Its what really got me into crpgs. Only game that was kind of that style I liked before was dragon age origins(which is kinda like a crpg on training wheels)
That spell system kinda reminds me of what UEs GAS system is doing (which seems to leave a love it or hate it impression on devs from what I can see). I've always been interested in working with a system like this to support more systemic gameplay. That status effect switch statement, while unwieldy, might be a common pattern and I'm wondering if it should be explored as a best practice when architecting these types of systems. Or do you think there are better or alternative ways that these systems could be implemented?
I haven't played but 10 hours of PoE (a few times that far), and I want to playmore, but life is busy I backed it and am of the old-school Fallout, BG, Torment, Arcanum, days of loving cRPGs, but still haven't gotten to it I planned out my character a bunch of times - a Cypher, without question to me the most appealing class I don't know what a watcher is though, and I don't like to play support classes, but I love the idea of more versatile defensive classes, and when you say 'watcher' I think of a class whose entire skill set is like a stealther-helper class (no attacks!) based on targetting opponents, checking their next ability and target for that ability, and then having their own abilities that disrupt in various ways. like a whole class of distraction and disruption and interuption and interception that by its use - no dispelling or healing, all preventative! goforit
I watched a video where Josh complained about the loading screens of Pillars, that he wanted them out of the game but the programmers said they couldn't be avoided because of the very large resolution images (the background of the game maps) needed to be loaded. I was wondering if that was really a problem without a solution, considering games min specs these days are 8GB of ram. I mean how many very large images can you load in ram at the same time? Particularly with compression and maybe by diving the backgrounds in smaller tiles and maybe having lower resolutions of them loading first while loading the higher res load on another thread or something like that, I think it could be done, to stream all the maps and have 0 loading screens in the game.
Bear in mind that Pillars was built in Unity; it's quite challenging to get really fast and smooth loading in Unity even now with Addressables and considering SSDs as standard, and would have much been worse then. The lengthy stutters during load screen refreshes indicate that significant aspects of the loading process weren't asynchronous at all, let alone something that could be done smoothly in the background during gameplay sequences. If they made their own engine with streaming support as a priority it does seem plausible that it would have been technically possible, but probably wouldn't have been affordable for that project size. Otherwise, I think what they said sounds understandable.
Regarding that ghost seeing feature - you have to consider that there shouldn't be entire systems created (including content) solely to fit one class, or some niche ability. Creating ghosts possibly with dialogue, or scenes revealing traps is nice, but too niche. It's just "detect traps" with extra steps. The same with locked chests and doors - it is a bad experience to be unable to open them solely because you (or your party) lacks the specific ability for that. A wizard should have something to open locks or blast locked objects, a fighter should be able to smash it, a rogue should be able to pick locks. The question is if you want to impose barriers on all of these - meaning very sturdy chests that can be locked, very fragile chests with strong locks, stone chests resistant to magic, solid wood chests resistant to physical, etc. This would for example favor diversity of methods, where having multiple methods to open chests is the ideal. Or if you go into lower level places, a fighter should be able to open the most physical resistant chests. And chests are niche enough that the ability to open them should come with other skills as well. A wizard that has "open lock" specialization via spells should also be proficient in alteration type magic which is relevant for combat. A rogue that can open locks with lockpicks should be proficient in stealth, pickpocket, extra damage from stealth, etc. In games like Fallout 4 it feels mandatory to take the skills for lockpicking and/or hacking. I don't like that.
How would the Watcher have gained the abilities (spotting traps and secret passages) you describe ? Would it have been a case of the spirit stuff happening if the Watcher was the one to spot the thing using the required skill or would it have been a special power that only they could gain ?
@@CainOnGamescan't wait for tomorrow's video! These bite sized videos have been really excellent. The short format, great presentation and steady release schedule works really well. Really appreciate you doing them!
Just to reiterate I would pay into any kickstarter that you wanted to do, including purchasing back IP and rereleasing or w.e. I am pretty sure Pillars would be a drop in the bucket by comparison.
I played through pillars 1, it was nice, didn't like some design choices. In particular the choice of making might work as the stat to boost damage for both martials and spellcasters
I wonder how the armors in Fallout and other games work tbh. There is Armor Class, but I am not sure if it means damage protection or chance to dodge, though there are also stats shown in inventory and there are like 0/0 damage protection at the start with no armor, but then some armor gives 0/20 some armors raise the first or the second values or both, but I am not sure what each value means exactly. Also I played some games with THAC0 before and didn't really know what it means, but all I knew is the lower number is the better. Armors in Arcanum I couldn't decipher some abbreviations ingame and had to look outside the game to know what they mean. I knew for example what AC is, but what is PR, ER, NP I had to memorize. I would love some short video about various armor systems in games, but if not, it is okay, I will educate myself more with google if possible :)
Love the game, playing it currently. It does seems a little lore dense, even spell and power names are sometimes extra longs for no reason. But a person that goes to fight wanting to be hit makes no sense other than "numerically mecachincs"🤣 The watcher visions seems like a better version of Dark Souls bloodstains
On the Wild Star topic, NCSoft had City of Heroes/City of Villains at the time, did that game's character appearance editor ever become something the studio challenged you with?
POE was my second foray into CRPGs, I started with DOS2. POE was like DOS but better in every single way (IMO) Especially storywise, which is interesting becaue the DOS and POE stories are very similar in their foundations, but POE just executed on it a whole lot better. I am a person who thinks the Pirate-fantasy is lame as hell. I don't like it, I don't like Pirates of the Caribbean, I don't find swashbuckling cool (same thing with Wild West for me) but Deadfire legit kept me hooked.
Dear Tim: how hard would it be to implement turn-based in PoE (and maybe Tyranny) like in PoE2? The mechanics beg for the level of tactical control that turn-based offers. Why hasn't that been done?
I just started playing the 2nd one and I’m enjoying it so far I was able to get it from the gamepass on pc but still having a blast so far I’m still early game like fresh off the beach…why do all these types of game start on a beach
I really loved Tyranny. It was not perfect but it is one of those that really stay with you for a long time. I still occasionally discuss it with friends.
Dear tim. This is the second video where you have been coughing. Please remember that your larynx needs rest from time to time. Lots of youtubers have had their throats become hoarse because of lack of breaks. Don't worry! We, your fans, will be here waiting ❤
How did you get involved with obsidian? I remember you saying that they wanted you to have more responsibility, but you didn't want that, but I don't remember how you got involved with them.
I'm pretty ignorant in the game industry as a job, I wonder how it works to be able to be working on South Park, then just quit (?) To Pillars, then go back. I would think there's a contract like "you will work here at least until this game is done"
loved the game did not like the _"Chanter"_ class whatsoever it was too complicated i have similar feeling with PoE 1-2 i had with Fallout 1-2 the first game is iconic the but second is a better game
Agree about chanter. Although I liked blue companion guy from Rauatai so much that had him regardless. But I like PoE 1 more and here is why. There was one thing that bothered me quite a lot. Presumably, you have little time, because you need to outrun wlaking statue. But game is huge and you are not penalised by taking your time. One thing just doesn't connect to another here.
@@VK-sz4it that's a general problem with almost all RPG i know the story tries to tell you that you need to do something fast like finding Ciri in the Witcher 3 but at the same time you can do whatever you want in the world. I dont care about this too much. I already hate time pressure situations so if the game does not enforce it the better.
@@fixpontt I hate time pressure in games as well and share your opiniin on that. But somehow PoE 2 made me feel guilty about me loitering around and doing side quests.
@@fixponttThat's one reason I was really disappointed/wary when I heard Witcher 3 was going to be open-world. Honestly, whilst I loved Cyberpunk (looking forward to a full 2.0 Phantom Liberty run), I still don't think CDPR quite 'get' open-world design structure. And your point about their story choices in combination with that structure arguably counts double for Cyberpunk. I personally found TW3's main plot dull and meandering - and White Orchard is just a terrible way to open an open-world game. I really liked 2077's story, but the ticking time bomb in V makes faffing around in the gameworld - the whole point and strength of the structure - even more at odds with the gameplay flow. Might seem like heresy to most, but I think ME Andromeda is one of the best designed examples of open structure married to story and theme. 'Faffing around' = helping settle the cluster, so gameplay is in step with theme, and the story never imposes a threat or time value that makes the aforementioned faffing seem incongruous. Regardless of a general perception of its writing flaws, it's a very well thought out game.
Spell effects cleaning my arse... Remember the bug with the chanter that exploded the save file size because the effect was not cleaned properly on end and got into the save. I remember I had to edit the xml manually until the bug was fixed.
Yes, that was the chanter spell "Rime and Frost", which created trap objects in the world. And this is a perfect example of how game development and debugging gets complicated. You see, I did clean up the spell effects of Rime and Frost, by marking all of those traps as destroyed. Unity then cleans up those objects on its next garbage collection, which happens automatically. Finally, our save game system collects and serializes objects in the world. However, if a save game is made before that garbage collection, those destroyed objects were mistakenly saved too, which bloated the save games. The bug arose from a confluence of these systems. What was the right fix? Should I have forced a garbage collection after each spell effect end? No, because that would take a LOT of cycles, and effects were ending constantly. Should Unity do a garbage collection before save games? Maybe, but I don't think that is one of their automatic times, because save games are mostly handled on our side. Should we have forced a garbage collection before save games? Maybe, but we have no control over how long that would take, and then every save game would take longer to create. Should we not save destroyed objects? Yes, even though that requires an extra check on every object, it is not too much extra time and is pretty unnoticeable.
Thank you for the explanation. When the object was deserilized on load was it still marked as destroyed and collected by Unity eventually or has it persisted in the objects list and thus in the save game forever?@@CainOnGames
@@bratttn That's a good question, and I don't remember. Either the trap was incorrectly marked as off but not destroyed by the status effect system, or the process of serialization and deserialization by the save game system left the traps as off but not destroyed, but either way, those traps persisted and entered into save games.
The design pillars of eternity
The eternity pillars of design
Might be more of a Josh question.
@@DefinitelyNotSadeit's a pun, not a question
@@DefinitelyNotSadeTim did a video on Design Pillars.
Listening to Tim talk about design pillars for eternity just bc I like the way he talks. Idek anything about bideo games
Josh Sawyer is hell of a game director.
New Vegas, Pillars 1 and 2, Pentiment and more.
Pillar of Eternity are only behind BG1/2 as my favorite games of all time. Deadfire literally saved my sanity during some really bad case of depression
FNV and PoE are horrible games. Can't even compare that ~3/10 trash (they are not even RPGs) by many solid criterions to brilliants like BG, Arcanum, Planescape, which are 9-10/10 games.
I mean that's obviously bait, but there's something genuinely funny about shitting on PoE in the same comment where you say a broken trashcan filled with good ideas that fundamentally don't work together like Arcanum is good.
@@dandanthesuitman6013 Not at all. Seriously. Obviously we have very different criterions for games, RPGs and about good and bad. PoE and FNV are literally some of the worst games I've played in last 30 years.
@@dandanthesuitman6013 And Arcanum... Yes, Arcanum is buggy, but it is definately one of the greatest true RPGs ever made. It's a flawed masterpiece. PoE and FNV with it's shitty writing and illusions of RPGs have nothing to compare to it, it's like walking to the Moon or different galaxy by legs. PoE and Underfallouts are truly horrible, even shitty mbile gaming futile games are better thatn that, in which I never play.
@@destroyerrunemo I wouldn't call POE exactly horrible. Just like Tyranny and the Outer Worlds they are FUNCTIONAL, but an absolute soulless snooze fests to play. Its as if they were developed by people who never liked or played videogames. The only other similarly boring cop out I can think of is Starfield, but it at least shows some production values.
One thing that's extremely funny about hearing that the cipher class was a carry-over from Wildstar is that within forum discussions about PoE you'd see arguments that cipher almost felt like the "canon" class for the player character
I loved PoE, but I stayed away from the Cipher. I rarely play more traditional/core CRPGs, and it felt like such a challenging class for someone largely interested in the story more than the system complexity or nuance.
Ditto the Chanter, if I remember right? I respect and admire such design, but it's not a great fit for those who might only play it once, perhaps twice, because unless they do research they just won't appreciate the distinctions or build strengths/weaknesses.
It's an interesting point about Cipher's being good fits for the story, especially knowing more mechanics could've been closer tied to their abilities.
Amusing to me that Tim did the two most fun classes in Pillars.
Why am I not surprised that some of my favorite features and classes in the game were designed by Tim! The Cipher class is just .. chef's kiss! 😆 Also the monk power source is so brilliant!!😮
Do you think you can bring Josh Sawyer for an interview? He is such an amazing designer!
Can't wait for your video on Tyranny!! Have a great day!😊
I would absolutely love to see an interview/discussion between Tim and Josh!
I loved the hangman tree being the first thing you see in PoE. Then you hear about this oppressive lord. It had such a great dark fantasy atmosphere to it.
You really need to get Josh on, Tim.
Would love this as well!
Yes!!!
I would love to hear more about Tyranny, one of my favorite games of its kind. I liked Pillars but Tyranny was a whole different level of enjoyment.
i almost flunked my junior year of high school because of PoE2. I'd be in a class not focusing just workshopping builds that I would try when I got home. It took me a long time to finish that game because instead of making progress in my main campaign, I'd keep making new characters and getting a few hours into them. It's also one of 2 games to ever make me cry. Its an in-joke now with my friends that when Avowed releases, they aren't going to hear from me for a while.
Pillars 1 and 2 are amazing games. Absolute masterpieces, both of them! ❤
PoE is the first big RPG I had played since New Vegas. It really reignited my love for RPGs and started me on a path to explore D&D. Thanks for your part in it, Tim!
Josh Sawyer is a great guy for directing games, very creative but also has a good eye for balance. I keep hoping he'll take a another swing at directing and ARPG again. New Vegas was so, so fun.
@@bluemooninthedaylight8073 Not really. Vegas was a very bad game, badly balanced as well.
New Vegas is not even an RPG, it is a shitty shooter and that's mostly it. Foolish Underfallout.
Also PoE is not a big RPG, it's just a disgusting shame and a puke, comparing to great classic RPGs. One of dissapointments of gamedev. Should not exist at all, it's that horrible.
@@destroyerrunemo this is the worst attempt at trolling I've ever seen. Shame :(
Good morning Tim. Thanks for the company at breakfast. Greetings from Brazil.
Such a fun and exciting time, even for us watching and supporting from the outside looking in.
Monk in PoE (and deadfire) is one of my favorite classes in any game ever, tabletop or crpg. So much fun and such a clear class concept, which “monks” often lack.
Yeah, I liked the monks in PoE. It was less Kung Fu, and more spiritual brawler.
my greatest respect for you, tim! pillars 1 was an amazing game and pillars 2 improved with imo the best rpg mechanics ever made. perfectly intuitive combat mechanics (& everything very well explained), dozens of multiclass combos that can be combined with dozens unique weapons that create hundreds of viable character designs is just peak game design. sadly the water based theme & loading times didnt work out properly.
---> here is my advice: create a game thats basically a bigger pillars 1 but with the abundantly rich mechanics of pillars 2 = best rpg ever.
I love all your videos, thank you for continuing to provide insight into RPG development and game design as a whole :)
Thanks for doing this. Pillars got me interested in those older rpgs i never played when i was a kid.
I played a monk fire Godkin bruiser/off tank in Pillars 1. One of my favorite characters.
Pillars of Eternity was a ton of fun! I played a Wizard Knight lol
I wielded a sword and a book, and wore heavy armor
Probably not even close to optimal, but it sure was fun!
I loved, loved, loved PoE's monk! It was so much fun - and different.
I've yet to play Pillars 2 but the first game is an absolute masterpiece and, for me, it surpasses BG1 and 2 in many ways. Avowed being set in the living lands certainly has my attention and I still hope for updates on the tabletop even. Thanks for sharing your insights!
I know this video is a little old, but I recently completed a playthrough of Pillars 1 with the Monk class and I had great fun, I'm glad to hear you've had a hand in that :D
Is pillars 1 a game that has some exploration in it's areas or is it more confined like in tyranny if you know? thanks for any response.
@@idnintel It's much like Tyranny, but there are more side quests in the Pillars games. In Pillars 1 the maps are closed, pre-rendered areas, but there is a lot of stuff to discover outside the main quest. Pillars 2 is more exploration focused, with its naval theme and random events.
@@Glownyszef ok, thanks for that. I'll play it but then I'll want to play something more exploration and freeform right after it. Still need to play wizardry 8 actually :).
Please, bring Josh here and we will convince him to make PoE 3 or New Vegas 2 somehow.
Didn't Pillars 2 really wipe him out, though? I wouldn't be surprised if he never wants to return to such a project.
I loved Pillars 1 - even if, on console, the performance eventually descended into flickbook territory (and man, those load times... especially when trying to get to the living quarters in the stronghold) - but still haven't played the second. It always feels like such a time commitment. He says with about 90hrs on Starfield already...
Love seeing these inside views from all your projects and work. It's super insightful and just fun to listen to!
I can imagine how awesome it would be to work with you, Tim. So much passion and great ideas. Right now we’re developing an isometric dark fantasy RPG, the team is great, but I’m the only narrative designer on the project. I bet we’d need only minutes to put out dozens of ideas 😅 the world needs more devs like you!
Question: How do you feel about the work of all the people involved in making an online game (Like WildStar) being essentially lost to the sands of time when the online service eventually (and it will) shuts down? Do you think game publishers and developers should be held responsible for "future proofing" the game in some manner, like releasing the server-side code and assets to the community or some other way so that people in the future would be able to enjoy the virtual worlds they never got the chance to visit?
I can't answer for Tim, obviously, but I kinda think that's just the compromise inherent in the tech that allows for the concept.
This 'games as service' moniker has understandably gotten a bad rep, but at its core it's providing a unique form of game experience. They're hugely defined by community, and when that community drifts away as the vast majority of games can't really continue - other than as a shell of their former selves.
It'd be good to see better cultures of preservation, but that's a blight on the whole industry regardless of game form. Companies barely give a shit about keeping access to SP games, and those are *far" simpler problems to solve.
I love Listenning to your expertise on video Games, it inspire me so much for my RPG content + it's just really interesting.
pillars is amazing . still playing it to this day ...
What timing...I just picked this game up on sale on Steam. Had no idea you were involved with it...looking forward to playing it.
I actually just beat Pillars 1 last week. Well on my way in Pillars 2. I love the hireling system. Those adventurers are so cool because theyre personal and customized to your liking. Also enjoying the multiclass system in the 2nd game. I wouldnt be mad if a 3rd game came out lol
Good morning Tim 🙂
Another great video! Huge fan of your work mr. Cain! Just started PoE recently and I'm in love with everything so far. Just spotted for the first time in your bookcase the absolute G.O.A.T. Gloomhaven! Would love to hear which board games are your favourite ones, be it in the rpg genre or not
Yes his views on some top boardgame mechanics would be a great video!!!
You helped design the monk class?! That's my favorite class! That's so cool.
Pillars 1 is one of my favorite games, love it more than baldurs gate 3.
I LOVE THE CIPHER CLASS THANK YOU SIR
Never knew you worked on Pillars! I've only read about it in Jason Schreiers book, Blood Sweat and Pixels. It was a fascinating game to learn about
Pillars of Eternity and Deadfire impacted me in such a strong way. I love Eora!
While I didn't love POE's shipping crafting system my favorite classes are, no joke, cipher and monk! My favorite POE character that I made was a pale elf monk, a former slave that survived and escaped thanks to learning the monk arts. She was stoic and benevolent except when confronting slavers, in which case she went nuts.
Oh my god, a game I've actually played and not to mention, I also picked Cipher because it sounded the most unique! It took my quite a while that the initial Charm spell was actually stupid broken.
I genuinely don't remember crafting, I'm sorry, it was probably so scaled down that it was auto-process from a player perspective.
The Adventurer's Guild idea and the procgen I feel were still implemented in a scoped down format: i.e. the Stronghold dungeon floors and the custom companions, which honestly just contributed a to a meta build rather than having flavourful companions.
And the combat spell list, man, that must've been a doozy to manage all the time. It's always in some quests and plenty of effects to go around, the entire quest team were using it.
While the Watcher spiritis being basically Soulsbourne bloodstains would've been a neat solution, I think it was scoped down quite well as well. I think the game could've benefitted more from having a dedicated Rogue/Artificier type of companion earlier, it was quite odd to have your primary mage specialize in lockpicking, while your Cipher main was the actual spellcaster of the party. This also explains why Ciphers were explained into the world all the way in Act 3, because that's around the time you joined back to flesh them out into a full blown class.
Absolutely fascinating, yet to play Tyranny, but I know it will be just as much of a treat.
Interesting as per usual :)
Do you have any design notes on Tyranny? It's one of my favorite RPGs and easily has the best character creation system of any game
"the best character creation system of any game"? What nonsense are you talking about? Absoulte bs. Are you a kid 10-30 years old who have no experience in 80s-90s gaming? Damn stupidity and ignorance is/are truly infinite...
I would love to hear your notes on Tyranny!
So, I loved PoE, second game as well. One design decision I really do not understand, however, is that every character seems to be legally blind. The vision radius is so, so small, it regularly made the game feel claustrophobic, even when I was in broad daylight. Also really dampened the beautiful background art. I'm not a huge CRPG buff, so maybe its a genre convention that I don't get, but it always struck me as a really weird design choice and I can't really figure out an explanation why it is the way it is. Surely exploring and surprises on the map can be made interesting without having to role play that all my characters have the eye sight of senile bats?
@haveanotherpinacolada I get that mechanic in RTS Games, in this one, I thought it was pretty off-putting
Loved the watcher-ghost idea.
You are a professional. Monks and Cyphers were the coolest classes and all that you mentioned got scrapped, is all I missed in the game.
wow my favorite monk design, thanks for that.
The spirits setting off traps feels like a very Dark Souls-esque "messages/ghosts" kind of thing. I like it, but I can see how in a party game where you could use any of your characters, universal mechanics made more sense to pursue on a budget that was all things considered pretty tight. If the game had been a single-player character kind of thing like Fallout 1/2, I think that'd have been amazing.
I love PoE1&2. I think I caught most of Josh’s talks, so it’s great to hear from your perspective.
I must say, I am not sold on manually playing through procedurally generated pillars. I am not a fan, when games take away “camera” from protagonist. Sure we get to control other characters when adventuring, but I always imagine it as giving them orders, but it is difficult to see it that way, when I get to play as companions without PC present.
You idea for integrating Watcher abilities with skill checks sounds really cool. I wonder, if watching ghosts would get tedious after a while, but I do like the flavour.
In JavaScript you would create a function for the spell effect. It would be part of the particular spells object. So no switch statement to maintain.
Cos in JavaScript functions can be passed as objects.
In other languages the particular spell would be an object that inherits from a base spell object. So each spell would be a method in a child object. So no need for switch statements at all.
I love Pillars. Its what really got me into crpgs. Only game that was kind of that style I liked before was dragon age origins(which is kinda like a crpg on training wheels)
That spell system kinda reminds me of what UEs GAS system is doing (which seems to leave a love it or hate it impression on devs from what I can see). I've always been interested in working with a system like this to support more systemic gameplay. That status effect switch statement, while unwieldy, might be a common pattern and I'm wondering if it should be explored as a best practice when architecting these types of systems. Or do you think there are better or alternative ways that these systems could be implemented?
loved pilars combat, i think its my fav combat in a crpg. defo the best rtwp combat hands down.
Oh wow! I'm surprised Cipher was from the Esper class. I didn't glomp onto the Esper class (Stalker main & Spellslinger alt
I haven't played but 10 hours of PoE (a few times that far), and I want to playmore, but life is busy
I backed it and am of the old-school Fallout, BG, Torment, Arcanum, days of loving cRPGs, but still haven't gotten to it
I planned out my character a bunch of times - a Cypher, without question to me the most appealing class
I don't know what a watcher is though, and I don't like to play support classes, but I love the idea of more versatile defensive classes, and when you say 'watcher' I think of a class whose entire skill set is like a stealther-helper class (no attacks!) based on targetting opponents, checking their next ability and target for that ability, and then having their own abilities that disrupt in various ways.
like a whole class of distraction and disruption and interuption and interception that by its use - no dispelling or healing, all preventative!
goforit
I watched a video where Josh complained about the loading screens of Pillars, that he wanted them out of the game but the programmers said they couldn't be avoided because of the very large resolution images (the background of the game maps) needed to be loaded. I was wondering if that was really a problem without a solution, considering games min specs these days are 8GB of ram. I mean how many very large images can you load in ram at the same time? Particularly with compression and maybe by diving the backgrounds in smaller tiles and maybe having lower resolutions of them loading first while loading the higher res load on another thread or something like that, I think it could be done, to stream all the maps and have 0 loading screens in the game.
Bear in mind that Pillars was built in Unity; it's quite challenging to get really fast and smooth loading in Unity even now with Addressables and considering SSDs as standard, and would have much been worse then. The lengthy stutters during load screen refreshes indicate that significant aspects of the loading process weren't asynchronous at all, let alone something that could be done smoothly in the background during gameplay sequences.
If they made their own engine with streaming support as a priority it does seem plausible that it would have been technically possible, but probably wouldn't have been affordable for that project size. Otherwise, I think what they said sounds understandable.
Regarding that ghost seeing feature - you have to consider that there shouldn't be entire systems created (including content) solely to fit one class, or some niche ability. Creating ghosts possibly with dialogue, or scenes revealing traps is nice, but too niche. It's just "detect traps" with extra steps.
The same with locked chests and doors - it is a bad experience to be unable to open them solely because you (or your party) lacks the specific ability for that. A wizard should have something to open locks or blast locked objects, a fighter should be able to smash it, a rogue should be able to pick locks. The question is if you want to impose barriers on all of these - meaning very sturdy chests that can be locked, very fragile chests with strong locks, stone chests resistant to magic, solid wood chests resistant to physical, etc. This would for example favor diversity of methods, where having multiple methods to open chests is the ideal. Or if you go into lower level places, a fighter should be able to open the most physical resistant chests.
And chests are niche enough that the ability to open them should come with other skills as well. A wizard that has "open lock" specialization via spells should also be proficient in alteration type magic which is relevant for combat. A rogue that can open locks with lockpicks should be proficient in stealth, pickpocket, extra damage from stealth, etc.
In games like Fallout 4 it feels mandatory to take the skills for lockpicking and/or hacking. I don't like that.
How would the Watcher have gained the abilities (spotting traps and secret passages) you describe ? Would it have been a case of the spirit stuff happening if the Watcher was the one to spot the thing using the required skill or would it have been a special power that only they could gain ?
Did you work heavily on POE 2? If so, was it any different from working on the first one?
I worked a little bit on Pillars 2. I will talk about that in tomorrow's video about Tyranny.
@@CainOnGamescan't wait for tomorrow's video! These bite sized videos have been really excellent. The short format, great presentation and steady release schedule works really well.
Really appreciate you doing them!
Just to reiterate I would pay into any kickstarter that you wanted to do, including purchasing back IP and rereleasing or w.e. I am pretty sure Pillars would be a drop in the bucket by comparison.
I played through pillars 1, it was nice, didn't like some design choices. In particular the choice of making might work as the stat to boost damage for both martials and spellcasters
"[South Park] needed a lot of bug fixing."
Still does😄
I wonder how the armors in Fallout and other games work tbh. There is Armor Class, but I am not sure if it means damage protection or chance to dodge, though there are also stats shown in inventory and there are like 0/0 damage protection at the start with no armor, but then some armor gives 0/20 some armors raise the first or the second values or both, but I am not sure what each value means exactly. Also I played some games with THAC0 before and didn't really know what it means, but all I knew is the lower number is the better. Armors in Arcanum I couldn't decipher some abbreviations ingame and had to look outside the game to know what they mean. I knew for example what AC is, but what is PR, ER, NP I had to memorize.
I would love some short video about various armor systems in games, but if not, it is okay, I will educate myself more with google if possible :)
Love the game, playing it currently. It does seems a little lore dense, even spell and power names are sometimes extra longs for no reason.
But a person that goes to fight wanting to be hit makes no sense other than "numerically mecachincs"🤣
The watcher visions seems like a better version of Dark Souls bloodstains
On the Wild Star topic, NCSoft had City of Heroes/City of Villains at the time, did that game's character appearance editor ever become something the studio challenged you with?
Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire was excellent.
5:20
DOGSIGN, WE HAVE DOGSIGN!
I love switch-statements. According to The Smartest Programmer That's Ever Lived, they're faster than if/elseif.
Was Pillars really made for just 4 million? I always assumed companies went out and used Kickstarters to get more funding elsewhere.
POE was my second foray into CRPGs, I started with DOS2.
POE was like DOS but better in every single way (IMO) Especially storywise, which is interesting becaue the DOS and POE stories are very similar in their foundations, but POE just executed on it a whole lot better. I am a person who thinks the Pirate-fantasy is lame as hell. I don't like it, I don't like Pirates of the Caribbean, I don't find swashbuckling cool (same thing with Wild West for me) but Deadfire legit kept me hooked.
Was there ever any consideration to use an established ruleset, perhaps 3.5 OGL?
Dear Tim: how hard would it be to implement turn-based in PoE (and maybe Tyranny) like in PoE2? The mechanics beg for the level of tactical control that turn-based offers. Why hasn't that been done?
I just started playing the 2nd one and I’m enjoying it so far I was able to get it from the gamepass on pc but still having a blast so far I’m still early game like fresh off the beach…why do all these types of game start on a beach
I really loved Tyranny. It was not perfect but it is one of those that really stay with you for a long time. I still occasionally discuss it with friends.
If I may ask: what languages were you coding in for Pillars of Eternity?
We are using C#, in Unity.
Dear tim. This is the second video where you have been coughing. Please remember that your larynx needs rest from time to time. Lots of youtubers have had their throats become hoarse because of lack of breaks.
Don't worry! We, your fans, will be here waiting ❤
Hype!!! TRYANNY HAS PLZ 😭😭😭😚😚😚😚😚😚😚😭😭😭😚😚😚
the tillers of paternity
How did you get involved with obsidian? I remember you saying that they wanted you to have more responsibility, but you didn't want that, but I don't remember how you got involved with them.
I'm pretty ignorant in the game industry as a job, I wonder how it works to be able to be working on South Park, then just quit (?) To Pillars, then go back. I would think there's a contract like "you will work here at least until this game is done"
Played it a few times. It was ok for that. To compare it to KOTOR, Bg 1, Bg 2, Fallout, Arcanum etc etc it is weak indeed.
loved the game did not like the _"Chanter"_ class whatsoever it was too complicated
i have similar feeling with PoE 1-2 i had with Fallout 1-2 the first game is iconic the but second is a better game
Agree about chanter. Although I liked blue companion guy from Rauatai so much that had him regardless.
But I like PoE 1 more and here is why. There was one thing that bothered me quite a lot. Presumably, you have little time, because you need to outrun wlaking statue. But game is huge and you are not penalised by taking your time. One thing just doesn't connect to another here.
@@VK-sz4it that's a general problem with almost all RPG i know the story tries to tell you that you need to do something fast like finding Ciri in the Witcher 3 but at the same time you can do whatever you want in the world. I dont care about this too much. I already hate time pressure situations so if the game does not enforce it the better.
@@fixpontt I hate time pressure in games as well and share your opiniin on that. But somehow PoE 2 made me feel guilty about me loitering around and doing side quests.
@@fixponttThat's one reason I was really disappointed/wary when I heard Witcher 3 was going to be open-world. Honestly, whilst I loved Cyberpunk (looking forward to a full 2.0 Phantom Liberty run), I still don't think CDPR quite 'get' open-world design structure.
And your point about their story choices in combination with that structure arguably counts double for Cyberpunk. I personally found TW3's main plot dull and meandering - and White Orchard is just a terrible way to open an open-world game. I really liked 2077's story, but the ticking time bomb in V makes faffing around in the gameworld - the whole point and strength of the structure - even more at odds with the gameplay flow.
Might seem like heresy to most, but I think ME Andromeda is one of the best designed examples of open structure married to story and theme. 'Faffing around' = helping settle the cluster, so gameplay is in step with theme, and the story never imposes a threat or time value that makes the aforementioned faffing seem incongruous.
Regardless of a general perception of its writing flaws, it's a very well thought out game.
Why was pillars of eternity balanced so much after release? It seems interesting to constantly nerf classes in a single player rpg.
Spell effects cleaning my arse... Remember the bug with the chanter that exploded the save file size because the effect was not cleaned properly on end and got into the save. I remember I had to edit the xml manually until the bug was fixed.
Yes, that was the chanter spell "Rime and Frost", which created trap objects in the world. And this is a perfect example of how game development and debugging gets complicated. You see, I did clean up the spell effects of Rime and Frost, by marking all of those traps as destroyed. Unity then cleans up those objects on its next garbage collection, which happens automatically. Finally, our save game system collects and serializes objects in the world.
However, if a save game is made before that garbage collection, those destroyed objects were mistakenly saved too, which bloated the save games.
The bug arose from a confluence of these systems. What was the right fix? Should I have forced a garbage collection after each spell effect end? No, because that would take a LOT of cycles, and effects were ending constantly. Should Unity do a garbage collection before save games? Maybe, but I don't think that is one of their automatic times, because save games are mostly handled on our side. Should we have forced a garbage collection before save games? Maybe, but we have no control over how long that would take, and then every save game would take longer to create. Should we not save destroyed objects? Yes, even though that requires an extra check on every object, it is not too much extra time and is pretty unnoticeable.
Thank you for the explanation. When the object was deserilized on load was it still marked as destroyed and collected by Unity eventually or has it persisted in the objects list and thus in the save game forever?@@CainOnGames
@@bratttn That's a good question, and I don't remember. Either the trap was incorrectly marked as off but not destroyed by the status effect system, or the process of serialization and deserialization by the save game system left the traps as off but not destroyed, but either way, those traps persisted and entered into save games.
So you're the one whom to blame for the pushing around characters in combat? 😆
Woah now, wouldn't want you to
d e a d n a m e anybody else. Might as well delete the channel to avoid issues.
i love Pillars of Eternity! put it on hard mode level up and watch the bloody gibs of 3d victims fly all over the place.
"no going back to the well", ever heard of Star Citizen 😂
Still waiting on the Tim Cain Cooking Show