Deadfire is such a glorious gem of an RPG - it's a shame it didn't sell as well as it should have. Also tragic that it seems to have taken such a huge toll on Josh Sawyer. Hopefully the burnout isn't too long-lived.
Mike D deadfire is hardly a gem. It‘s an okay BG clone on its own but an absolute blunder considering what they wanted it to be. It sold exactly as much as it deserved.
@@Galmion Deadfire is easily in the top 3 best CRPG ever. It has a great story and an amazing setting and it should have sold way more than it did. Divinity Original Sin 2 sold a shit ton and that game stinks.
@@miked5562 People love to complain especially on the internet. It’s not like there’s a dozen of these games nowadays so can we at least cherish the few ones that come out especially when they’re appealing graphically and content-wise?
It's incredible to be able to have such an in-depth insight into the game development. No game is perfect, but he sounds like they only made mistakes and seems to take a lot of the criticism for himself and the decisions he made, which is a bit harsh in my opinion. Deadfire was a great game and no great game is without flaws. I'm thankful to be able to play as many good CRPG lately. I hope it not the last time we'll heard of Eora.
@@dzikripratama3776 Agreed, but that goes for most things. Fallout 3 is a first person shooter/action adventure game with some roleplaying elements and a lazy story, of course people loved it
Josh and Ken Levine are the reasons why I became game developer over 10 years ago. Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 are, IMO, the only ONLY games that capture the magic of Baldur's Gate - My favorite series of all time. I know that MS now owns Obsidian and they'll most likely focus on bigger games but I still hope for PoE 3 from Josh and His team. Love the man, huge respect for all games that he worked on
Schizm1 PoE 1&2 certainly weren’t absolute stinkers on their own, but they definitely were massive failures considering what they set out to do. They messed up, plain and simple. The games were okay at the end of the day, but maaan imagine what they could have delivered if the had the budget / freedom / will to make a true spiritual successor to BG - not just a bland and subpar copy of it. Oh what could have been
Man, this is a fantastic talk. I feel bad that response was so tepid and that there were obviously a lot of things in development that were crushing on Josh because he obviously talks about PoE2 here with some heavy heavy resentment, maybe even hate; which is really unfortunate as I absolutely adore this game and think it's one of the best cRPGs I've played going back to my early 90s days. It certainly had it's issues no doubt but a lot of that has been fixed or bettered with patches and even before then I'd say it was 100% worth a playthrough or two. I hope this doesn't get him down too much because this seriously sits with like 200 hours on my PC right now.
I'm with you. PoE2 was such an amazing game and really didn't perform as well as it should have based on its merits. Sometimes the timing of a game is just off and it doesn't quite light the fire it should.
@@Merknilash "PoE2 was such an amazing game " The story was quite poor. And so was the story for PoE1. PoE2 ended with virtually zero player agency and compelling villains. Just go and ask Eothas and have him decide the fate of the world. The remainder of the story was basically a tack-on and separate from the supposed antagonist. It's really just terrible. Who thought that would make an exciting ending? Most people who bought PoE1 did not buy PoE2 and that should have been a sign of problems with both games.
I played PoE1 and was excited to play PoE2. PoE2 was a much better game, mechanically. I really enjoyed it and put in about 180 hours on it. I played the turn-based conversion as well, and though that version had balance issues, I preferred it to RTwP. The world building is excellent, and I'm pleased that Obsidian is making a new game set in the world of Eora.
Actually it sound rather ridicules, he tried to convince as that text mini game with shallow rules was the most expensive. That's level of solo student. Pure waste of resources.
@@denyspysmenniy4298 he didn't try to convince anyone of anything - the functionality ended up being quicksand and taking way too much time to get all the kinks out of and get functional and nobody even liked it.
I feel exactly the same. I actually like it a lot; But then again, I'm a very boardgamey kind of guy. But I'd also have given up to have all those resources put into more companions, quests, etc.
I didn't like it at all and boarded all the ships I could. And the fact that it cost them so much money for something so needless and simple is very surprising. Wish that money would have been put into the garbage that's called console port of Deadfire.
the longer I work in corporate America the more I can relate to the idea that your boss tells you you have to do something completely outside the scope of the project and just leaves you holding the bag and I ain't even management, at least Josh could make calls
Post-mortem? That's rough, assuming it's dead. I absolutely love PoE, it's the kinda game that makes me love gaming... if it weren't for companies like Obsidian and guys like Josh, I honestly wouldn't bother gaming anymore. Love his brutal honesty and self-criticism, would like to see that by the big shots of the industry too.
I absolutely loved these games as well. We are probably the fringe psycho gamers he mentions though. Our nostalgia goggles are strapped on so tight they are cutting off the circulation to our brains.
Post mortem is not a negative term. It just means to analyse something after the fact. What does dead mean here? They have to stop working on it at some point.
I'm watching this post BG3 launch, and damn if DOS2 put so much pressure on isometric RPGs, then I can't even start to fathom the impact BG3 is having on the teams that are working on other games.
specially because despite the success of BG3, everyone on the WotC side were all still fired. which makes me think we have to look at these issues of "industry pressure" from a wider, socioeconomical angle.
@@voltcorp thanks for clearing up! As far as I understand, the WotC wasn't directly involved in the development, so the fact that the team that consulted Larian was laid off has little to do with the success of the game. Just another corpa cutting corners just because. BUT your comment made me remember the Bioware layoffs that literally followed the release of BG3, and I remember thinking like, how in the world the managers expect Bioware to come close to the success of BG3 if they fire the talent that made BG2. So yeah, the DA4 now has to perform not only extremely well while being developed by a smaller team but also do so with the bar set at BG3
@@aviannte Larian people have said explicitly that WotC folk were pivotal for the game's success, and for getting Larian enough time and creative freedom. Reminds me of the Lost series, which was a craze and started a whole new era of cinematic series, but producers were fired for greenlighting something so expensive.
Really interesting game design insight here. Hearing that the ship combat drew so many resources is pretty disheartening, given that I'm sure almost everyone just boarded the enemy or tried to avoid ship encounters entirely. I liked that the game had full VO that was for the most part pretty solid, but I can always do without it.
@@KatalistProductionsKozzySasha Some people did, but it still probably wasn´t worth the resources. I for one always just rammed or boarded asap to be over with it.
@ Ya I am not surprised most didn't like it, I was not sure if I would before I played the game, but I ended up looking forward to the ship and my companions and the roles they played during battles. Also all the upgrades I bought for the ship, it all felt much more personal to me than the stronghold in the 1st game. Shame most didn't like it and I can def see it taking a decent amount of resources.
5 лет назад+3
@@KatalistProductionsKozzySasha I definitely liked my ship much better then stronghold.. It was just those fights which turned me off. But hey - if I can just ramm and board, I am basically super happy, its just shame for those resources that could have been spent elsewhere
my big thing with divinity was that i love the characters. a robust companion mechanic, responsive npcs, player-driven plot lines- that would be enough to make a game ideal for me. it doesn’t have to be voiced, it just has to be player-responsive. i guess the big problem is that there’s something lacking in crpgs that you can’t find anywhere except in ttrpgs, but poe2 got close, and i really appreciate that.
Deadfire is one of my favourite games ever made. Sure it had some problems, but they can all be overlooked with how amazing the story and player agency in that story is. It's such a shame it didn't sell well because it'll discourage them from a third title.
It seems like Josh took a lot of this feedback to heart. I hope that over time he has "forgiven" (I say in quotes because there'll be critics no matter what, especially in gaming) himself for choices that didn't work as well as he wished. I actually enjoyed POE 1 and 2 a lot, especially the story of 2. The VO, the factions, the characterization of the gods, etc. was all very dynamic and compelling. Never tried the ship combat, but thankfully that was optional.
I love Josh and his talks, he is always so insightful. But I gotta say, this was a bit of a bummer, it was so critical and while I also had my little problems with Deadfire, I ultimately really love PoE 1 and 2. I especially thought Deadfire knocked it outta the park, the relationships were interesting and funny (although buggy at launch) and the combat and exploration was addicting, I loved my time with the game. Then again I am a gameplay first, narrative second kind of person so some of the things that people really disliked never bothered me too much. Either way, I hope Obsidian is doing well and best of luck to Josh, I am excited to see what's next.
[[MIGHT BE SPOILERS AHEAD]] I realize I am very late for this party - but I feel like I'll make a comment here since this video really saddened me to a point where it felt almost heartbreaking. Before starting off - JOSH, YOU'RE AMAZING
Late to being late, but just wanted to say, excellent write up! For some reason, my experience with POE1 vs POE2 was the exact opposite of yours. I actually bounced off of POE1's story pretty hard, whereas I really, really like POE2's story. Though I'm currently on a second playthrough of POE1 and I AM appreciating it more this time. But I think the reason why I prefer POE2's story is that I actually loved the different factions, the moral gray that comes with all of them, their lore/backgrounds, etc. I was so engaged in the "squabbling" of these kith powers, richly inspired by real history and culture, that I couldn't fathom NOT siding with one of them. I loved agonizing over which one to side with, given that they all have their own flaws. And this made POE2 so compelling to me, in a way that was reminiscent of Fallout New Vegas. I just love that stuff and I can't get enough of it. I also very much prefer the ending for POE2 to POE1. *SPOILERS in case anyone reads who hasn't played the game* I remember dreading a boss fight with Eothas at the end of the game and was relieved/impressed that Josh and Team were basically like, "No, you can't stab the God possessed, skyscraper sized statue to death. Nor can you make a fancy attribute check to talk him down. You can influence him a bit, but one way or another, that Wheel is coming down." Some people complain that this ending results in a "lack of player agency," but as someone who has played lots, and lots of cRPGs, this kind of subversion was very refreshing to me. But both POE games are great, and I'm a huge fan of the POE franchise in general. They're my favorite cRPG games, besides maybe the BG series. However, I think objectively that the Pillars series is better, and I've just got rose tinted glasses for the BG series. But who knows. I've not played the Pathfinder games yet, can't wait, as they are next on my list!
love josh, i have a lot of opinions about deadfire but this guy is absolutely one of my favourite devs. So so so looking forward to the next game he leads development.
Good guy Sawyer, says throwing people under the bus, ends up throws himself multiple times under the bus instead. :D I'm one of the people who hated ship-to-ship combat and cried about it, but since 0.5 I've been enjoying the heck out of the game with turn-based combat. Also, I still love PoE1 more because the pacing was slower and you were presented with a mystery that required a lot of investigation and goals and motivations of the main antagonist wasn't clear from the beginning, and the general tone of the game was much bleaker with a sense of hopelessness to it that really was pleasant for me personally. That is not saying Deadfire is bad, it's a different experience, still love my RPGs darker. Thank you, Josh, for this presentation. #MoreRPGspl0x
Interesting briefing. I like Deadfire, but also agree with most of the criticisms. One thing that I disagree with most fellow players: full VO. I just don't care that much. For me, a few voice overs done well is more than enough. I'm also not a huge fan of Divinity.
@xmeany so I'm told. Frankly I never understood the hype about OS. I tried to play several times but was bored out of my mind, despite the gushing reviews. Regardless, I still don't see how full VO is really necessary.
I don't like full VO either. It changes the developers ability to change it later if need be, there is generally less dialogue to begin with, and I read much faster than people speak, so I end up skipping most of the VO anyway. I kind of liked how only some sentences of pillars 1 were voiced. It gave me an idea of how they wanted the characters to sound, but it didn't waste resources on voicing every line.
Oh my goodness. Josh Sawyer actually CUT the ship-to-ship combat before the crowdfunding campaign began only to have his boss (Feargus??) decide to bring it back as a crowdfunding goal? This must be most blatant instance of the "creative compromises" he alluded to in that other interview he had earlier in 2023
Feargus has been mentioned in many interviews over the decades as someone who decides he has an idea or likes one that someone proposes and then the designers have to figure out how to put that in or expand on it/fit it in their game.
This is what happens when you let fans influence a game too much. There is a fine balance between reaching out for fan feedback and adjusting a game to some of their needs, and a game development process being completely taken over by fans' whims. The issue with giving fans too much voice is that each of them has their own vision of a perfect game. To try to meet all their needs in a single game is impossible, as their expectations will often be contradictory. As a result, every game, no matter how good, will always entice some level of hate form fanbase, whose needs were not satisfied by the game. Developers should listen to fans, but if they have a certain vision of the game, they should implement it as is, even if some fans hate it. Because its their fuckin game! And this is also how games were made back in the day, when there were no betas or social media. Ultimately these games were released with all their flaws we see today, but despite that gained legendary status over time. By the way, I can imagine how much hate Baldur's Gate would receive, if it came out today... think about it. Both POE games are a wonderful work of art and will be an inspiration for the next generation of cRPGs in the future. Hopefully, Josh will not get discouraged by a hateful minority of fans and in time will grace us with another installment of his masterpiece!
Full V.O. isn't worth the effort for this type of games. I loved the partial-V.O. of PoE1, and I'd prefer that titanic effort and insane funds to be directed towards other aspects of such games.
Agreed, it's really overblown by some with respect to text in CRPGs. If you can't be bothered to read up on dialogue, you're even less likely to spend time reading about the different skills and mechanics that make the game work. At which point, you should really be playing something else. Full VO should never have a higher priority over areas like optimization, story or gameplay mechanics. A game can do well without full VO, it cannot do well without the others.
@@robosergTV Imagine VOing all BG I and BG II conversations the sheer scope of it would prevent them to ever be released, nobody cares what somebody says is "a must for modern games" amazing games don't rely on VO.
@@Fredjo then dont write so much text in the game, go read a book. Games should have VO, end of the story. You dont read subtitles when watching a movie
Excellent presentation, Poe1 and 2 are good albeit flawed games, but still something the team should be proud of. I like 6 chars because I like running the same team every game - fighter, paladin, rogue, cleric, mage, archer. With 5 I have to cut the paladin or rogue depending on how many skill checks or have to multiclass a bit, which I'm fully ok with Edit: partial VO is better than full VO. The VO gives you an indicator of what's important and then you can skim/fast read the side stuff. I like books and games, not movies
I think this shows how much you can have your opinions coloured by other people's reactions. There's so much wrong with PoE1 but because it did well, Josh (and others) didn't become hyper-focused on those things. The first game had a very slow story that could have potentially 10+ hours between anything to do with the main plot at all. And when all was said and done, the main story itself could be told in a few minutes. The systems were explained terribly and the info on item sheets was often difficult to parse. Companion quests were often underwhelming and ended abruptly; so much so that I didn't even realise that I'd finished Aloth's one. There are little nitpicky things like how the unvoiced "stage direction" part of dialogie was jarring - it'd have several sentences of what the NPC was doing but the spoken part of the dialogue box was voiced immediately, meaning you didn't read the stage direction part until after they spoke even though it happened _before_ they spoke. Too many of the quests were bland, and sadly the blander ones tended to mainly be at the start which makes the game feel very lopsided in terms of how much you care about what's going on. I really could go on all day, but the point is Josh and co. didn't obsess over those things because the game did well enough. To me - and many others in here, it sounds like - PoE2 is a much better game. It's certainly not got that feeling of slavishly trying to recreate games like BG at the cost of sacrificing a certain amount of creative flair and identity. It's really sad to me that they might not appreciate the huge amount of things PoE2 did well, and might retreat back to the conservative, regularly bland stylings of the first game.
@@calebjanus2000 The game is like objectively boring and bland, they literally balanced it to death, the combat is slow. The story is stupid, they throw a bunch of flavor text at you to build up this idea of world building meanwhile they already had a world to build upon from before (POE), and then rely heavily on tropes for characters to get you interested in, it has all the tropes of a regular RPG except this time you get to do fetch quests with dull content and slow combat. It's like nothing like the one before, the voice acting is bad (Which is something you could say of the first one but there really wasn't much voice acting to criticize.). And there's so much more overall to complain about, like I never NEVER expected the POE 2 to be exactly the same or even similar to the first one, but I expected an improved version of the first one in terms of the gameplay and story mechanics (the story of the first one was okay, the white marsh DLC was the best imo.) On top of that you're literally just moving around a blank map with nothing to do most of the time. Like at least give me some items to collect or some random encounters that give me items or something, nope. The grandaddy of all these games IMO is fallout, fallout 1 is still my favorite RPG, and two is a close second, but it allows for an actual open world instead of this bastardized open world RPG on rails nonsense. If you give me freedom, give me all freedom, if you want me to play your story, make me want to play your story, make me want to recruit your characters, do side quests. Hell Fallout: New Vegas had an absolutely compelling story, and you didn't even have to do most of the side quests, you wanted to do the side quests! even after you'd basically maxed out your equipment and skills, the world should compel me to act so I can make a difference on it and enact my will, that's good writing, not Adair in his shitty fake southern accent making a pun about pigs and cousin fucking while we're fighting fish people. To me it's what happens when you have designers who smell their own farts pontificating on the design implementation of video games meanwhile all they ever really wanted to do was write fiction, so all they can ever think of is world building when making their video games which is like NOT AT ALL what you want to do to even write a story but it's the only practical way to justify not focusing on gameplay mechanics and player experience which then turns into them trying to make a movie into a video game, which just completely ruins the pacing on the video game and makes a dismal experience for the player.
The horror of developing ship combat should be a lesson in not overextending crowdfunding goals. With the resources used for ship combat, Obsidian could have had some mixture of: Turn-based combat at launch. Sidekicks upgraded into full companions. Better optimization. A far less stressful voice recording schedule. Ect... It blows that the most demanding feature was received ambivalently.
I hate people who demand full VO for RPG's. Josh listed just some of the problems with it, and if you notice, the majority of RPG's with full dialog often have dumbed down and limited dialog which is a major consequence of VO work. I like VO's, but its not worth the cost. Maybe one day we will have computer generated VO's that will solve the issues.
@xmeany And I hate people like you who are more interested having somebody read you the story and limiting your dialog to stupid yes, no(yes), maybe (yes) choices. The video told you exactly why VO is bad, but you ignore it. You attack this as being stuck in time, with that logic then you must love modern elements like microtransactions, loot boxes, and play to win games now since that is modern trash. I want to PLAY games, not watch them like a movie.
Vampire the masquerade bloodlines had full VO, great voice acting, fantastic writing and dialogues. The game had other issues but writing and VA wasnt it. If you manage your project right you can reap the benefits.
Bloodlines had much less overall dialog and much fewer dialogue trees to go through. Characters like Therese and Mercurio had large trees but the main shopkeeper selling koala ears basically has like ten lines. In Deadfire there's at least ten shopkeepers and they all have large trees.
It depends on the game and how it's done. You sound like someone that has a very fixed idea on the matter, in a bad way. Like how you think full VO automatically has to lead to the Fallout 4 dialogue system. You can add a lot to a game with VO. Baldurs Gate 2 wouldn't be the same game without VO. Imagine Irenicus without any VO? The challenge lies in when and how to do it. Also, on the other end of the sprectrum tons of answers isn't always a good thing. Because if most of them are just pointless fluff that don't really influence anything then what's the point? You have to factor in a lot of things. This extreme idea of a lot of VO for an RPG is bad is far too simple.
The only thing about reducing the party size that bothers me is the number of classes and varieties with companions and multiclassing added into the mix. It can be hard to really play around with ideas when you have one maybe two playthroughs you can commit to, it can be frustrating to have to decide.
@@terbentur2943 I know that... I sometimes solve it by creating mercenaries mid campaing and treating them like main character until I am satisfied with my new build :D (seeing that it works is usually all I really need to be happy)
Loading screen loading screen loading screens. This was the only thing that really hurt the game. The actual game was epic. The loading screens were brutal. Pillars sold me on pause game combat. Way cooler than turn based divinity style
I havent been bothered at all by loading screens in games for years by virtue of having a second monitor with some video playing and a button on the keyboard that plays/pauses the last used video player. So I am never stuck doing nothing at all
I love both of these games and Im glad Obsidian was able to make them. The whole crowdfunding model has brought so many great game series and styles of games that I thought we would never see again and proves that fans can drive these developers to at least pay their bills while working on something special. Nothing captures Baldur's Gate 2 as well as this series in particular but I can see how it's not necessarily going to be as big as a modern shooter or whatever is popular now.
Sounds like the higher ups screwed things over far more than he mentions. Things like reasserting an unpopular (even internally), incredibly resource-intensive feature back into development and full VO added in during development, with push-back on delaying the schedule so it could actually be done properly, are crazy decisions. Not to mention that this game didn't receive any meaningful marketing; I really hope those individuals/groups aren't involved in any future titles. Hoping there are plans for a POE3 (with lessons learned) after Avowed though. I understand the need for a break from developing these types of games, but it's EASILY the best RTwP game on the market today. Especially when the only other game like it is significantly worse mechanically and only received the time of day due to Pathfinder association.
Great video! I enjoyed PIllars 2 more than Pillars 1, but there was still some stuff that could have been improved. I was one of the few who loved the ships and the ship combat haha. Keep up the great work Josh, can't wait to see what you work on next.
Couple of things spring to mind: 1) The major reason that sidekicks weren't well received was because they were almost literally a fancy portrait attached to a custom character. You play this down as them not being 'full' companions, but they had almost *no* writing whatsoever. Thus, they're quite pointless for most players, because they resemble a custom character except without the full control over attributes, starting talents, race, subclass, etc. (and THAT is a whole pet peeve I could elaborate more on, but I digress) 2) I think full VO is a terrible waste of money. It's a feature that matters most to people who didn't grow up on Baldur's Gate et al. Quality writing and plot matters *far* more than full VO. Other than that, it was an interesting talk, and I look forward to seeing what you work on next.
I agree that full VO is a waste of money -- but I have the feeling that my opinion is a product of my age, and maybe not relevant to the younger audience. I grew up playing the gold-box games, so I guess I'm kind of old-school -- but these raised expectations of VO (and graphics, etc.) are how games advance over time. I'd be happy without VO, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out the majority of gamers don't share that opinion.
@@yosharian That's a reasonable. point -- but I guess it always comes down to the possibility of more money. Selling your game to investors as intentionally not appealing to a wider audience makes a difficult job even more difficult. I get it what you're saying, though. I prefer smaller, more niche products -- but in the end, most game studios are a business first, which means keeping up with buyer expectations and hoping for the best. There will always be the odd game that goes its own way and become a long-term cult success, but most businesses don't like to bank on those odds.
5 лет назад+1
I would be really glad if cRPG devs could finally embrace the concept of "Show, don´t tell". All these cRPG are SO text heavy that my eyes seriously hurt from all the reading. And sometimes I just sit down for evening 2 hour play session, and all I do is "read the fucking text" with all these barely relevevant descriptions, lore dumps etc. (latest Torment and Tyranny being the biggest offenders, they were litteraly filled with text vomit). Of course your VO will be hard when you place all the information in text instead of game world. Just reduce lore dumps, place the not neccessary info into gameworld instead of conversations and make conversations more interesting by adding more choices instead of text dumps.
That you for your candor, honesty, and deep look behind the curtain in an industry full of charlatans and liars. I continue to have nothing but respect for John. He’s a damn legend.
What a Legend. And POE2 is such deep complex incredible game that it made me appreciate real time with pause. I thought I liked turned based...but looking back I realised that I never finished one (xcom,divinity). Because turn based combat becomes slow and boring very quickly. And POE2 you can make it as fast as you want and it looks amazing and visceral. I now regret not buying it on launch and not supporting Obsidian (I didn't liked POE1 at all).
Very informative! Partial VO may be more powerful to emphasize the important part of the storyline. I don't think we should give in to lazy people who are afraid to read more than a few words per hour, let's give them some practice so they can read again! Aligning one's standard to a large audience can only lower it.
On a side note, not sure who managed the setting of this talk, but 1) please no brightly-colored ads just next to a screen that must show dark scenes! and 2) avoid distracting people with a troll and his camera (what does this guy think he's doing anyway?).
I don't get the obsession with full VO, especially for side characters. It's not that important and we know it means that it'll prevent important rewrites and the quality will suffer from it.
@@wofuljac "Because game evolve" is the stupidest answer. "Why is this console spewing acid in my face randomly?" "because games evolve!" The rest of your answer makes more sense, but it is still a very high price to pay, especially for indie/mid-range devs.
@@gargamellenoir8460 Games do evolve like all art. People these days are used to Full VO from other modern rpg games like Final Fantasy, Witcher, Elder Scrolls. This isn't the days of Baldur's Gate 1 where few lines are spoken. It's like a modern movie will go back to the 1920s of silent films, most people would be like "what the heck?".
@@wofuljac that's like saying games should always be 3d because games evolve. Very stupid argument. I've enjoyed the story more of games with no VO compared to VO games. I dont care much for having to wait through a long VO line anyways when I have a ton of things i need to read to process info.
@@ChamplooMusashi Nope, cause 2D also evolve. Compare Rayman Legends to the first Mario Bros.. Keep in mind I'm just saying that most people don't like dated things, I don't mind reading. I like Old School Boulder gate games or Final Fantasy 6 or Fire Emblem on 3DS.
I must be an anomaly, since I liked ship combat, but was annoyed by the full VO, as all characters inevitably sounded the same at some point. There is a limit to how much even experienced voice actors can stretch their acting.
It's so weird that that is an expectation. I recently played Disco Elysium FC, and while I loved it, I was a bit put off by the constant VO, I can read the less important parts you know.
I didn't get why the companions system was not well received. If you played Pillars of Eternity 1 you know that Aloth is a bit serious, gloomy and bland, that is what I liked about him and I'll always use that guy in my party, it's abvious that he would rolls his eyes everytime you said something dumb. About the Xoti vs Pallegina, well.. that is how things works in real life, people can get so mad about the opinions of others that they will explode in a matter of seconds, for example, put a far right wing x a far left wing, those two will eat their guts in 6 minutes, that is how people work. So I would say that the companions were a success I'm actually thinking about buying Pillars 2 now.
Deck to deck combat rocked and quite honestly if you're really really good you can defeat much higher level ship crews and get some twinked out gear. My next playthrough I'll be doing a lot of early deck to deck fighting for loot and gold.
I just always hated trying to shoot a fireball in rtwp and having my melee guys walk into the aoe and enemies walk out of it by the time the wizard shoots it off. If I was a wizard who was taking time to summon the energy to shoot a fireball I would simply aim the fireball *after* I had it ready to go and not commit to aiming it *before* it was ready.
Some funny thing about this is this probably happened in real life, where some artillery dude or archer probably miscalculated their aim and hit his own allies. Thing is, in TB, it is assumed that every round consists of 6 seconds right, at least by PnP, then translating that into 'real time' is difficult because 6 seconds is a very long time for a warrior to just stand by while waiting for the wizard to cast and calculate the trajectory of the fireball aimed at a charging enemy. I mean, what if the enemy is right at your allies' noses and your wiz/sorc aimed that fireball at the enemy's face? That's my take on the whole RTWP vs TB debate.
Josh, don't give yourself too much of a hard time about it. Yes on reflection some things could have been different to make the game even greater. I really love the game but my major gripe was the fact that the item variability was quite low and nerfed to the point of really omly Benefiting accuracy and damage. The other thing would have been a better stronghold.
That's a strange critique, the item variability is not low at all in PoE2, it actually gets kind of ridiculous and out of control the items that have a number of spells and unique effects attached to them, and the item upgrade paths are quite varied.
Im playing pillars 1 for the first time cuz i just discovered it (after not paying attention to obsidian since kotor2) and its soo good im gonna purchase poe2 the second i complete it
Josh is a fantastic game designer and a captivating speaker. I love listening to all his insights from creating RPG's for the better part of the past 25 years. ❤ Pillars 1 and 2 are among my absolute favorite games to play. Most of the general game design feels basically perfect to me, but what really enchants me is the world of Eora. The writers responsible for it did a wonderful job building a detailed and believable fantasy setting from the ground up. It's leagues ahead of other contemporaries, such as The Elder Scrolls or Divinity games (subjectivity notwithstanding). So while I'm saddened to hear a Pillars 3 might never happen, it seems Avowed will be set in Eora, which will be a nice consolation prize for me.
Couldn't agree more. Somehow almost everything in Pillars 2 is either good or even awesome, it's the main story that is really disappointing. It's a true shame that so many good elements "only" end up serving such a disappointing story.
Eothas was super interesting to me so I don't get this thinking at all The part where you finally meet up with him and the music matches the mood perfectly was one of the best moments in any RPG I've played since FF6 and BG2.
@@Merknilash No epic boss fight and my watcher can't do anything just watch this asshole destroy the wheel, even I can call Wael stop him, he still destroy the wheel.
@@Merknilash I agree that Eothas is interesting, but the main story by itself still wasn't thrilling. I was much more interested in what the council of arch-mages was up to for example and seriously wished the game/main story would have been about them. Other aspects like this seemed to have more potential somehow.
Obsidian have done this a few times. PoE1's story is really short, almost everything you do has nothing to do with the main story other than sharing themes (souls, mainly) and the late-game revelations are really things that should be in the first quarter of the game that set up the story, not the conclusions. It's also the same in The Outer Worlds in which, again, the core plot has about 4-5 chunks spread out through loads and loads of things that aren't focused on the same narrative but instead tell smaller, separate stories - and then it just ends when you think it's actually finally getting going. New Vegas did a much better job, to be fair. It does seem to be a general WRPG issue where the narrative goes like "intro/premise -----loads of unrelated stuff----> main plot pick-up ------loads of unrelated stuff---> revelation about "what's really going on" -> end. Pretty much every Bioware game has this thing where it sets up the end of the game at the start (e.g. find Sarevok, stop Loghain, stop Saren) then all the middle of the game is simpy getting into position to do that, then you do it. The end. You don't get an ongoing plot with waves of revelations and new developments. I wonder if it's because LotR is so pivotal in the Fantasy world and that's the epitome of that; we need to destroy the ring and stop Sauron, so they do. The rest of the plot is just speed bumps along the way to realising that goal - the goal doesn't change or develop and the middle is just basically a loading screen between "aim" and "execution".
What a interesting video, found it out of luck. I didn't played Pillars 1, got straight to Pillars 2 and I partially regret that decision... but either way, I absolutely loved this game, one of the best world buildings I've seen, the combat is fun, interesting characters, great writing, etc.. My only criticism is related to the ship combat, the management of the ship itself is just fine, I like that... but the combat, not so much, it felt overwhelming, I only tried two times or so. I guess this is a early game reward for players willing to learn the system, they can defeat a high level ship through these mechanics. I just skip it entirely. Later you get strong enough to just board the ship and resolve the encounter like if it is a land battle, I forced my way, had a good time. Besides that, I have nothing else negative to say about this game, it's really good
Can someone who's watched the presentation tell me if there are any PoE 2 spoilers in the speech? I love Sawyer's input on everything, and I haven't had the chance to get into PoE 2 just yet (due to life).
Deadfire was good, but it bombed financially. Part of the reason why there is no POE3 yet despite that players wanted one is that Obsidian is quite unsure if it would have the same great review/worse sales than Deadfire. Also to @Johnathan Era , I never really liked DOS and DOS2, especially the latter with its overreliance or obsession with surface effects AND the way that the game throws too many trash mobs at you that makes you turn off the game because TB + too many mobs = a nightmare waste of time. Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous is actually good if not for their kingdom/crusade mechanics, while Baldur's Gate 3 is buckling under the weight of Larian trying to implement 5e rules with their homebrew DOS/2 rules. They already made blunders during BG3's early access, like loaded dice, again the obsession with surface effects, and weird things like having jump, evade, disengage, hide as BONUS actions instead of being a specific feat for specific classes. Larian advertised BG3 as a modern way to implement 5e in a CRPG, but it seems like all they want is to make a DOS2 clone.
@@johnathanera5863 Kingmaker is not good whatsoever. If anything it's pretty bad. From the horrible late game, to the atrocious kingdom management, to the boring quest design, I'd hardly even call it mediocre.
I shit talked poe 1 and 2 a lot, but this puts some things into perspective. I really disliked the setting but it had tons of potential. Josh had it rough.
@@terbentur2943 Don't get me wrong, I am playing POE 2 for the first time now with all the DLCs on the hardest difficulty and I enjoy it. But you can't deny the overall theme with pirates is childish at times.
@@robosergTV Again it just boils down to taste. Pirate themes can be done pretty serious I think it does not really have to do with the setting. You can totally argue that the story and presentation was more on the light side and I would not disagree. I personally just enjoy pirate settings since they are something else in fantasy unlike the 999th iteration of medieval fairy tail land.
a big barrier for me re: the ship combat is that i.... do not know a single thing about ships. the combat DID have tips, but not clear enough ones in my experience? like they still assumed you had some rudimentary knowledge of ships and i didn't even have that lmao. it sort of threw you right into it. having some sort of integrated tutorial experience for a first time playthru could have made it better, perhaps (but as was said in the presentation: quicksaaaaand...). HOWEVER the ship combat was also generally easy enough to avoid; i just always chose normal combat on board the ships instead (which was a good resource for grinding/saving up $).
People must have gotten hyped over the ship combat because it is a minor part of the game to me and fine as is. Granted I just played both games this year.
I started PoE recently and I wish I had half of these quality of life little things when I was playing BG or IWD. I mean, fast/slow/normal speed? come on! What a joy it is to explore and run around in this game.
Great talk, kind of feel sad about the hint at the end concerning the TB vs RTwP combat. Always loved RTwP, unfortunately it's becoming more and more unpopular these days. THough, I really can't figure why, it always seemed to me more 'modern' than TB mechanics.
I think he covered it in this speech: RTS use to a much more popular genre meaning a larger proportion of the gaming population understood that sort of system. These days there's more players out there who aren't use to that (for a party-based game) and much more use to that in turn based games. Plus each character in PoE on average can do more in each fight then they did back in BG. So there's kinda more to do with 4 characters in PoE then there was with 6 characters in BG (spellcasters would get all the management, other characters you'd just position and let fight). Having said that I much prefer the way RtwP feels in this games as well, so I'm a huge fan of there still being series like PoE and Pathfinder doing it. I'm extremely sad BG3 won't be RtwP.
I only have 4.5 hours in PoE 2 and have never really played this type of game very much. Not a big fan even though I did like the classic FF type turn based games. This game is probably excellent, but it's tough to figure out, and may not be my cup of tea. Anyway...I really enjoyed this presentation.
I wonder if the advancements in AI voice generation will help lighten the load for dev teams expected to provide full VO...? Also, hope Josh is feeling refreshed after directing Pentiment, it was an amazing game 👍
Josh seems happy in a more advisor type of role now; Obsidian has shed many of their older developers so it will be interesting to see how the company plays out this next decade
53:10 I worked on Victoria 3 and we did team play days, we'd try multiplayer (until it crashed) then move on to single player. Lots of backstabbing and wars.
Ok, Josh... if anyone can put together a player based game that can make it's creators and modders money, maybe you are the man. I have been making adult content for fallout. A very long time. I do not want to give my work away. Been mucking about with Project Brazil Map... the scaling is messed up. Wish I had the 1.3.1 .esp. The map was wasted and and incomplete. If anyone from Radian-Helix out there that has an early esp would post it on the moddb.com site that would be cool. I unwrote the master file trying to get at the landscape scaling and what not and because I just hate duplicate files.
The RTWP combat system in Deadfire was amazing. Good improvement over BG/IWD. Turn-based is such a slog and an instant turnoff for me. Also the reason why I never got into Divinity Original Sin. Personally I have no idea what is wrong with the writing as some people claim. Maybe it is because I am European that I don't see it ....
Would love to watch but just started playing Poe1. Thumbs up anyway, great company!
5 лет назад+6
Main thing I kindaoff disliked about PoE2 was... TOO much balance. I mean they tried to balance it all so hard, that even with 60 possible classes they all started to feel very similar to each other. They were all just different means of doing almost same dps, and nerfing all the really powerful items to dust in later patches made it even worst. I mean how can I do some fun and unique build around weapon which does explosions if it triggers only 5% of time. I had full encounters without my weapon doing anything interesting. All the fights were eventually dumbed down to "rush my characters in and start casting the strongest spells/abilities available", because hey, they immediately refresh after encounter ends, so why bother with tactics, caution and resource management right... That and classis CRPG lore dumbs :D Otherwise its cool game, I definitely plan to play it again with all DCLs in TB mode
Never happening. Josh has said the last couple years Pillars 2 was a big flop for him and the company has entirely changed losing/gaining employees. Now he seems happier taking the advisor role more. Avowed is the current year PoE3 for better or worse..
@@circlesnare3671 Actually the most recant thing he said about PoE2 was that in the long term in was profitable "...after I shipped Deadfire I was pretty burned out because Deadfire sold, initially it sold very poorly. It reviewed very well but it sold very poorly and I was really burned out about it. Overtime it actually sold quite well and it is very profitable now thankfully, it just took several years." From Origin Story "Josh Sawyer (Pentiment) on Art, History and What Will Be Remembered", timestamp is around 13:55
@@jankieek8218 If you watch his recent streams, the man just seems bitter and jaded. He constantly gets asked these questions and his demeanor always changes from happy to melancholy. I think the initial failure and broken launch of POE2 really got to him. I mean can you blame him? You give little pieces of yourself to something bigger just for people to crap all over it (For good reason mind you). I don't think he has any desire to work in the full fledged RPG space ever again, judging from his demeanor. He has no desire, whatever desire he had left was killed when deadfire launched. You can actually watch his pre-release backer videos when deadfire was still in beta. His personality was completely different.
@@mikeity2009 yeah he does seem to be really jaded with the cRPGs and iirc in one of the recent interviews he even says that he probably isn't the best person to make a Pillars 3 or anything of that type because he isn't on the same wave lenght as modern audience for them. Man probably genuinely thinks that as well which is understandable looking at how things went but sad non the less.
Hm... This stuff really bothers me. Because ultimately it should be about the quality of the game and not what the standard or the expectations are. Thats the biggest mistake an artist can do or not?
I don’t like VO, I prefer to read and the voice is just a nuisance . I have been playing RPGs almost all my life and I love a turn based system in some contexts but definitely not in a CRPG . It feels like it’s breaking the action. This is also the reason why I don’t even bother following the development of BG3 which is the first ever title of the saga I’m not buying. No hate, I’ll just pass on it.
A shame that Obsidian shilled out to Take-Two and Epic Store. I guess Chris Avellone's criticism of obsidian's upper management wasn't completely unfounded.
Ah. The ship to ship combat. The thing that almost made me not get the game at all and I never liked it. As said, that's a different/separate game completely And full VO just feels so overrated. Not sure why I would want that (mostly knowing that it does add limitations and cost and doesn't really add that much to me). Partial seems reasonable
They just announced Avowed will be at most the size of Outer Worlds, so no not happening. People thinking Microsoft was just going to give studios they own unlimited money dont understand the industry
He is talking so much about feedback. Has he considered for just one second that maybe people are not part of a collective hive mind? I loved the original POE. It became one of my favorite, maybe all time favorite RPG. So many changes both big and small in POE 2 such as reducing the party size, changing the atmosphere from bleak and desperate to a jolly tropical pirate adventure, changing the focus of the narrative from the philosophical nature of the soul, a possible extinction scenario for the Dyrwood and secret societies to a godzilla statue stomping around, faction politics that resemble the colonization of the New World so much and "romance", having such bland boring companions (3 out of 7 reiterated) and so few of them, the voice acting is hit and miss mostly miss (I rather have no VO than some of the terrible VO this had). I hated POE 2. It was so disappointing. I have no idea who the target audience for this is supposed to be.
They're a company. These are not really passion products, they're being made with backers and other investors and done under a corporate structure. Yes, lots of people like PoE. There's people who also really love the changes to PoE2. And there's a LOT of people who provided some very commonly occurring feedback, as he described in this video.
They were trying to please a general audience but also address the complaints of the type of people who play betas/patches and give feedback. Made it into a hodge-podge of a game. Lots of good, lots of bad. Josh is happy being a less hands-on advisor and the company has changed most employees. Avowed is basically PoE3, and the type of game Obsidian makes now for better or worse.
Budget was too small. PoE 2 was aiming for AA territory. It needed cutscenes, more polish, like say the dragon age games, or likely the upcoming BG3. Games are more cinematic than in the BG era. The book stuff is offputting for mainstream audiences IMO.
There were too many female military commanders in the game, it created a jarring effect. Games like Mount and Blade Warband took a better approach to females in martial roles.
It is stated in the first game that the role of women in society varies greatly depending on the culture. They also showed this variety through Sagani, so seeing the Rauatai brass wasn't all that jarring, as it fit the descriptions given by Kana.
Not all RTwP. People forget that Mass Effect is RTwP, at any time you can pause, give your companions orders, and even adjust your aim without a care, and people love Mass Effect gameplay. The key was decent enough AI and not too much to manage at a time, so you could focus on the moment to moment of your character instead of constantly needing to pause. It means pausing was "set up for something big" instead of constantly interrupting the flow.
That's adorable because turn based was pushed aside from real time with pause during the infinity engine era for the exact reason you listed. Turn based is antiquated, boring and slow. Just because you have fewer than 3 functioning brain cells to allow yourself to work out rtwp doesn't mean you get to ruin crpg's for the rest of us.
For me POE1 is a better game than POE2! I did not like the 2 class character or fight wasn't hard as in POE1 or it was toooooo short even with the side story and I did not like 5man groups! POE2 was very customer friendly and that was the problem for me. I liked the struggle in POE1.
[Speech 100] Really good presentation.
Nope
Deadfire is such a glorious gem of an RPG - it's a shame it didn't sell as well as it should have. Also tragic that it seems to have taken such a huge toll on Josh Sawyer. Hopefully the burnout isn't too long-lived.
Mike D deadfire is hardly a gem. It‘s an okay BG clone on its own but an absolute blunder considering what they wanted it to be. It sold exactly as much as it deserved.
@@Galmion Agreed. It's a mediocre RPG, a far cry from Baldur's Gate 2.
@@Galmion Respectfully disagree. Have played all of them and thought this one was excellent.
@@Galmion Deadfire is easily in the top 3 best CRPG ever. It has a great story and an amazing setting and it should have sold way more than it did. Divinity Original Sin 2 sold a shit ton and that game stinks.
@@miked5562 People love to complain especially on the internet.
It’s not like there’s a dozen of these games nowadays so can we at least cherish the few ones that come out especially when they’re appealing graphically and content-wise?
It's incredible to be able to have such an in-depth insight into the game development.
No game is perfect, but he sounds like they only made mistakes and seems to take a lot of the criticism for himself and the decisions he made, which is a bit harsh in my opinion.
Deadfire was a great game and no great game is without flaws.
I'm thankful to be able to play as many good CRPG lately. I hope it not the last time we'll heard of Eora.
@xmeany Fallout 1-2 sales combined didnt even reach the sales of FO3 but most people consider them as one of the best in the series. See the point?
@xmeany Sales hardly mean anything. Call of Duty is the best sold game every year, is it the best game every year? Not even close.
@@dzikripratama3776 Agreed, but that goes for most things.
Fallout 3 is a first person shooter/action adventure game with some roleplaying elements and a lazy story, of course people loved it
Josh and Ken Levine are the reasons why I became game developer over 10 years ago. Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 are, IMO, the only ONLY games that capture the magic of Baldur's Gate - My favorite series of all time.
I know that MS now owns Obsidian and they'll most likely focus on bigger games but I still hope for PoE 3 from Josh and His team.
Love the man, huge respect for all games that he worked on
Schizm1 PoE 1&2 certainly weren’t absolute stinkers on their own, but they definitely were massive failures considering what they set out to do. They messed up, plain and simple. The games were okay at the end of the day, but maaan imagine what they could have delivered if the had the budget / freedom / will to make a true spiritual successor to BG - not just a bland and subpar copy of it. Oh what could have been
What about Divinity Original Sin 2 (Definitive edition)?
@@unh0lys0da16
Divinity games are a thing of their own
@@1cspr1 In the sense that they blow away all competition?
@@unh0lys0da16
Word
Man, this is a fantastic talk. I feel bad that response was so tepid and that there were obviously a lot of things in development that were crushing on Josh because he obviously talks about PoE2 here with some heavy heavy resentment, maybe even hate; which is really unfortunate as I absolutely adore this game and think it's one of the best cRPGs I've played going back to my early 90s days. It certainly had it's issues no doubt but a lot of that has been fixed or bettered with patches and even before then I'd say it was 100% worth a playthrough or two.
I hope this doesn't get him down too much because this seriously sits with like 200 hours on my PC right now.
I'm with you. PoE2 was such an amazing game and really didn't perform as well as it should have based on its merits. Sometimes the timing of a game is just off and it doesn't quite light the fire it should.
@@Merknilash "PoE2 was such an amazing game "
The story was quite poor. And so was the story for PoE1.
PoE2 ended with virtually zero player agency and compelling villains. Just go and ask Eothas and have him decide the fate of the world. The remainder of the story was basically a tack-on and separate from the supposed antagonist. It's really just terrible. Who thought that would make an exciting ending?
Most people who bought PoE1 did not buy PoE2 and that should have been a sign of problems with both games.
@@BrunoAnton Hard disagree, it's one of the best story I have experienced in both case.
I played PoE1 and was excited to play PoE2. PoE2 was a much better game, mechanically. I really enjoyed it and put in about 180 hours on it. I played the turn-based conversion as well, and though that version had balance issues, I preferred it to RTwP. The world building is excellent, and I'm pleased that Obsidian is making a new game set in the world of Eora.
@@BrunoAnton youre a looney
I was pretty happy with the ship combat, but knowing what they sunk into it I'd have given that up in a heartbeat
Actually it sound rather ridicules, he tried to convince as that text mini game with shallow rules was the most expensive. That's level of solo student. Pure waste of resources.
@@denyspysmenniy4298 he didn't try to convince anyone of anything - the functionality ended up being quicksand and taking way too much time to get all the kinks out of and get functional and nobody even liked it.
I think if it stayed cut, they would have just kept the ship boarding. That may have freed up resources for other parts of the game.
I feel exactly the same. I actually like it a lot; But then again, I'm a very boardgamey kind of guy. But I'd also have given up to have all those resources put into more companions, quests, etc.
I didn't like it at all and boarded all the ships I could. And the fact that it cost them so much money for something so needless and simple is very surprising. Wish that money would have been put into the garbage that's called console port of Deadfire.
the longer I work in corporate America the more I can relate to the idea that your boss tells you you have to do something completely outside the scope of the project and just leaves you holding the bag
and I ain't even management, at least Josh could make calls
There is no one I can think of who loves talking about games and talking about making games more than Josh Sawyer. What an interesting man.
Post-mortem? That's rough, assuming it's dead. I absolutely love PoE, it's the kinda game that makes me love gaming... if it weren't for companies like Obsidian and guys like Josh, I honestly wouldn't bother gaming anymore. Love his brutal honesty and self-criticism, would like to see that by the big shots of the industry too.
I absolutely loved these games as well. We are probably the fringe psycho gamers he mentions though. Our nostalgia goggles are strapped on so tight they are cutting off the circulation to our brains.
Post mortem is not a negative term. It just means to analyse something after the fact.
What does dead mean here? They have to stop working on it at some point.
PoE2 sold poorly and was a commercial failure. That's why it's post mortem.
@@MetalGearyaTV The actual answer was already posted baby
@@alphasword5541 gthoh, u little n00b
I'm watching this post BG3 launch, and damn if DOS2 put so much pressure on isometric RPGs, then I can't even start to fathom the impact BG3 is having on the teams that are working on other games.
specially because despite the success of BG3, everyone on the WotC side were all still fired.
which makes me think we have to look at these issues of "industry pressure" from a wider, socioeconomical angle.
@@voltcorp I don't understand, who was fired? Larian hasn't had a layoff this year I believe
@@aviannte Everyone inside WotC (Hasbro) who was involved together with Larian was in the Hasbro layoffs. I edited to make it more clear, thanks.
@@voltcorp thanks for clearing up! As far as I understand, the WotC wasn't directly involved in the development, so the fact that the team that consulted Larian was laid off has little to do with the success of the game. Just another corpa cutting corners just because.
BUT your comment made me remember the Bioware layoffs that literally followed the release of BG3, and I remember thinking like, how in the world the managers expect Bioware to come close to the success of BG3 if they fire the talent that made BG2. So yeah, the DA4 now has to perform not only extremely well while being developed by a smaller team but also do so with the bar set at BG3
@@aviannte Larian people have said explicitly that WotC folk were pivotal for the game's success, and for getting Larian enough time and creative freedom. Reminds me of the Lost series, which was a craze and started a whole new era of cinematic series, but producers were fired for greenlighting something so expensive.
Sawyer FTW, as per his usual. Such a great talk.
Really interesting game design insight here. Hearing that the ship combat drew so many resources is pretty disheartening, given that I'm sure almost everyone just boarded the enemy or tried to avoid ship encounters entirely. I liked that the game had full VO that was for the most part pretty solid, but I can always do without it.
I loved the ship battles
@@KatalistProductionsKozzySasha Some people did, but it still probably wasn´t worth the resources. I for one always just rammed or boarded asap to be over with it.
@ Ya I am not surprised most didn't like it, I was not sure if I would before I played the game, but I ended up looking forward to the ship and my companions and the roles they played during battles. Also all the upgrades I bought for the ship, it all felt much more personal to me than the stronghold in the 1st game. Shame most didn't like it and I can def see it taking a decent amount of resources.
@@KatalistProductionsKozzySasha I definitely liked my ship much better then stronghold.. It was just those fights which turned me off. But hey - if I can just ramm and board, I am basically super happy, its just shame for those resources that could have been spent elsewhere
my big thing with divinity was that i love the characters. a robust companion mechanic, responsive npcs, player-driven plot lines- that would be enough to make a game ideal for me. it doesn’t have to be voiced, it just has to be player-responsive.
i guess the big problem is that there’s something lacking in crpgs that you can’t find anywhere except in ttrpgs, but poe2 got close, and i really appreciate that.
Deadfire is one of my favourite games ever made. Sure it had some problems, but they can all be overlooked with how amazing the story and player agency in that story is. It's such a shame it didn't sell well because it'll discourage them from a third title.
It seems like Josh took a lot of this feedback to heart. I hope that over time he has "forgiven" (I say in quotes because there'll be critics no matter what, especially in gaming) himself for choices that didn't work as well as he wished.
I actually enjoyed POE 1 and 2 a lot, especially the story of 2. The VO, the factions, the characterization of the gods, etc. was all very dynamic and compelling. Never tried the ship combat, but thankfully that was optional.
I love Josh and his talks, he is always so insightful. But I gotta say, this was a bit of a bummer, it was so critical and while I also had my little problems with Deadfire, I ultimately really love PoE 1 and 2. I especially thought Deadfire knocked it outta the park, the relationships were interesting and funny (although buggy at launch) and the combat and exploration was addicting, I loved my time with the game. Then again I am a gameplay first, narrative second kind of person so some of the things that people really disliked never bothered me too much.
Either way, I hope Obsidian is doing well and best of luck to Josh, I am excited to see what's next.
Deadfire sadly failed commercially, which explains the critical tone.
[[MIGHT BE SPOILERS AHEAD]] I realize I am very late for this party - but I feel like I'll make a comment here since this video really saddened me to a point where it felt almost heartbreaking. Before starting off - JOSH, YOU'RE AMAZING
Late to being late, but just wanted to say, excellent write up! For some reason, my experience with POE1 vs POE2 was the exact opposite of yours. I actually bounced off of POE1's story pretty hard, whereas I really, really like POE2's story. Though I'm currently on a second playthrough of POE1 and I AM appreciating it more this time.
But I think the reason why I prefer POE2's story is that I actually loved the different factions, the moral gray that comes with all of them, their lore/backgrounds, etc. I was so engaged in the "squabbling" of these kith powers, richly inspired by real history and culture, that I couldn't fathom NOT siding with one of them. I loved agonizing over which one to side with, given that they all have their own flaws. And this made POE2 so compelling to me, in a way that was reminiscent of Fallout New Vegas. I just love that stuff and I can't get enough of it.
I also very much prefer the ending for POE2 to POE1.
*SPOILERS in case anyone reads who hasn't played the game*
I remember dreading a boss fight with Eothas at the end of the game and was relieved/impressed that Josh and Team were basically like, "No, you can't stab the God possessed, skyscraper sized statue to death. Nor can you make a fancy attribute check to talk him down. You can influence him a bit, but one way or another, that Wheel is coming down." Some people complain that this ending results in a "lack of player agency," but as someone who has played lots, and lots of cRPGs, this kind of subversion was very refreshing to me.
But both POE games are great, and I'm a huge fan of the POE franchise in general. They're my favorite cRPG games, besides maybe the BG series. However, I think objectively that the Pillars series is better, and I've just got rose tinted glasses for the BG series. But who knows.
I've not played the Pathfinder games yet, can't wait, as they are next on my list!
love josh, i have a lot of opinions about deadfire but this guy is absolutely one of my favourite devs. So so so looking forward to the next game he leads development.
Never played the game but watched the whole thing haha. Josh sawyer is a great presenter
Im watching an hour presentation about the development of a game i've never played
very good presentation
Good guy Sawyer, says throwing people under the bus, ends up throws himself multiple times under the bus instead. :D
I'm one of the people who hated ship-to-ship combat and cried about it, but since 0.5 I've been enjoying the heck out of the game with turn-based combat. Also, I still love PoE1 more because the pacing was slower and you were presented with a mystery that required a lot of investigation and goals and motivations of the main antagonist wasn't clear from the beginning, and the general tone of the game was much bleaker with a sense of hopelessness to it that really was pleasant for me personally. That is not saying Deadfire is bad, it's a different experience, still love my RPGs darker.
Thank you, Josh, for this presentation. #MoreRPGspl0x
JOSH WE LOVE YOU
Interesting briefing. I like Deadfire, but also agree with most of the criticisms. One thing that I disagree with most fellow players: full VO. I just don't care that much. For me, a few voice overs done well is more than enough. I'm also not a huge fan of Divinity.
@xmeany so I'm told. Frankly I never understood the hype about OS. I tried to play several times but was bored out of my mind, despite the gushing reviews. Regardless, I still don't see how full VO is really necessary.
I don't like full VO either. It changes the developers ability to change it later if need be, there is generally less dialogue to begin with, and I read much faster than people speak, so I end up skipping most of the VO anyway. I kind of liked how only some sentences of pillars 1 were voiced. It gave me an idea of how they wanted the characters to sound, but it didn't waste resources on voicing every line.
Oh my goodness. Josh Sawyer actually CUT the ship-to-ship combat before the crowdfunding campaign began only to have his boss (Feargus??) decide to bring it back as a crowdfunding goal? This must be most blatant instance of the "creative compromises" he alluded to in that other interview he had earlier in 2023
Feargus has been mentioned in many interviews over the decades as someone who decides he has an idea or likes one that someone proposes and then the designers have to figure out how to put that in or expand on it/fit it in their game.
We could have had Ydwin as a full companion instead of this.
Something tells me there should be a strong union for workers in the video game industry.
This is what happens when you let fans influence a game too much. There is a fine balance between reaching out for fan feedback and adjusting a game to some of their needs, and a game development process being completely taken over by fans' whims.
The issue with giving fans too much voice is that each of them has their own vision of a perfect game. To try to meet all their needs in a single game is impossible, as their expectations will often be contradictory. As a result, every game, no matter how good, will always entice some level of hate form fanbase, whose needs were not satisfied by the game.
Developers should listen to fans, but if they have a certain vision of the game, they should implement it as is, even if some fans hate it. Because its their fuckin game! And this is also how games were made back in the day, when there were no betas or social media. Ultimately these games were released with all their flaws we see today, but despite that gained legendary status over time. By the way, I can imagine how much hate Baldur's Gate would receive, if it came out today... think about it.
Both POE games are a wonderful work of art and will be an inspiration for the next generation of cRPGs in the future. Hopefully, Josh will not get discouraged by a hateful minority of fans and in time will grace us with another installment of his masterpiece!
Well said!
This
Full V.O. isn't worth the effort for this type of games. I loved the partial-V.O. of PoE1, and I'd prefer that titanic effort and insane funds to be directed towards other aspects of such games.
no, speak for yourself. Full VO is a must for modern games, it also makes sure there is not bloat of boring text like in POE1.
In my opinion a game should either have full VO or nothing at all.
Agreed, it's really overblown by some with respect to text in CRPGs. If you can't be bothered to read up on dialogue, you're even less likely to spend time reading about the different skills and mechanics that make the game work. At which point, you should really be playing something else.
Full VO should never have a higher priority over areas like optimization, story or gameplay mechanics. A game can do well without full VO, it cannot do well without the others.
@@robosergTV Imagine VOing all BG I and BG II conversations the sheer scope of it would prevent them to ever be released, nobody cares what somebody says is "a must for modern games" amazing games don't rely on VO.
@@Fredjo then dont write so much text in the game, go read a book. Games should have VO, end of the story. You dont read subtitles when watching a movie
This man has been broken.
Excellent presentation, Poe1 and 2 are good albeit flawed games, but still something the team should be proud of. I like 6 chars because I like running the same team every game - fighter, paladin, rogue, cleric, mage, archer. With 5 I have to cut the paladin or rogue depending on how many skill checks or have to multiclass a bit, which I'm fully ok with
Edit: partial VO is better than full VO. The VO gives you an indicator of what's important and then you can skim/fast read the side stuff. I like books and games, not movies
I think this shows how much you can have your opinions coloured by other people's reactions. There's so much wrong with PoE1 but because it did well, Josh (and others) didn't become hyper-focused on those things. The first game had a very slow story that could have potentially 10+ hours between anything to do with the main plot at all. And when all was said and done, the main story itself could be told in a few minutes. The systems were explained terribly and the info on item sheets was often difficult to parse. Companion quests were often underwhelming and ended abruptly; so much so that I didn't even realise that I'd finished Aloth's one.
There are little nitpicky things like how the unvoiced "stage direction" part of dialogie was jarring - it'd have several sentences of what the NPC was doing but the spoken part of the dialogue box was voiced immediately, meaning you didn't read the stage direction part until after they spoke even though it happened _before_ they spoke. Too many of the quests were bland, and sadly the blander ones tended to mainly be at the start which makes the game feel very lopsided in terms of how much you care about what's going on.
I really could go on all day, but the point is Josh and co. didn't obsess over those things because the game did well enough. To me - and many others in here, it sounds like - PoE2 is a much better game. It's certainly not got that feeling of slavishly trying to recreate games like BG at the cost of sacrificing a certain amount of creative flair and identity. It's really sad to me that they might not appreciate the huge amount of things PoE2 did well, and might retreat back to the conservative, regularly bland stylings of the first game.
PoE 2 is a better game overall imo.
@@calebjanus2000 The game is like objectively boring and bland, they literally balanced it to death, the combat is slow. The story is stupid, they throw a bunch of flavor text at you to build up this idea of world building meanwhile they already had a world to build upon from before (POE), and then rely heavily on tropes for characters to get you interested in, it has all the tropes of a regular RPG except this time you get to do fetch quests with dull content and slow combat.
It's like nothing like the one before, the voice acting is bad (Which is something you could say of the first one but there really wasn't much voice acting to criticize.).
And there's so much more overall to complain about, like I never NEVER expected the POE 2 to be exactly the same or even similar to the first one, but I expected an improved version of the first one in terms of the gameplay and story mechanics (the story of the first one was okay, the white marsh DLC was the best imo.)
On top of that you're literally just moving around a blank map with nothing to do most of the time. Like at least give me some items to collect or some random encounters that give me items or something, nope.
The grandaddy of all these games IMO is fallout, fallout 1 is still my favorite RPG, and two is a close second, but it allows for an actual open world instead of this bastardized open world RPG on rails nonsense. If you give me freedom, give me all freedom, if you want me to play your story, make me want to play your story, make me want to recruit your characters, do side quests.
Hell Fallout: New Vegas had an absolutely compelling story, and you didn't even have to do most of the side quests, you wanted to do the side quests! even after you'd basically maxed out your equipment and skills, the world should compel me to act so I can make a difference on it and enact my will, that's good writing, not Adair in his shitty fake southern accent making a pun about pigs and cousin fucking while we're fighting fish people.
To me it's what happens when you have designers who smell their own farts pontificating on the design implementation of video games meanwhile all they ever really wanted to do was write fiction, so all they can ever think of is world building when making their video games which is like NOT AT ALL what you want to do to even write a story but it's the only practical way to justify not focusing on gameplay mechanics and player experience which then turns into them trying to make a movie into a video game, which just completely ruins the pacing on the video game and makes a dismal experience for the player.
@@cartoonhanks1708 wrong.
Great talk. Thank you for sharing.
The horror of developing ship combat should be a lesson in not overextending crowdfunding goals. With the resources used for ship combat, Obsidian could have had some mixture of:
Turn-based combat at launch.
Sidekicks upgraded into full companions.
Better optimization.
A far less stressful voice recording schedule.
Ect... It blows that the most demanding feature was received ambivalently.
I hate people who demand full VO for RPG's. Josh listed just some of the problems with it, and if you notice, the majority of RPG's with full dialog often have dumbed down and limited dialog which is a major consequence of VO work. I like VO's, but its not worth the cost. Maybe one day we will have computer generated VO's that will solve the issues.
Voice over work can theoretically be affordable, surely there are affordable vo studios out of the states.
@xmeany And I hate people like you who are more interested having somebody read you the story and limiting your dialog to stupid yes, no(yes), maybe (yes) choices. The video told you exactly why VO is bad, but you ignore it. You attack this as being stuck in time, with that logic then you must love modern elements like microtransactions, loot boxes, and play to win games now since that is modern trash. I want to PLAY games, not watch them like a movie.
Vampire the masquerade bloodlines had full VO, great voice acting, fantastic writing and dialogues. The game had other issues but writing and VA wasnt it. If you manage your project right you can reap the benefits.
Bloodlines had much less overall dialog and much fewer dialogue trees to go through. Characters like Therese and Mercurio had large trees but the main shopkeeper selling koala ears basically has like ten lines. In Deadfire there's at least ten shopkeepers and they all have large trees.
It depends on the game and how it's done. You sound like someone that has a very fixed idea on the matter, in a bad way. Like how you think full VO automatically has to lead to the Fallout 4 dialogue system.
You can add a lot to a game with VO. Baldurs Gate 2 wouldn't be the same game without VO. Imagine Irenicus without any VO? The challenge lies in when and how to do it.
Also, on the other end of the sprectrum tons of answers isn't always a good thing. Because if most of them are just pointless fluff that don't really influence anything then what's the point?
You have to factor in a lot of things. This extreme idea of a lot of VO for an RPG is bad is far too simple.
The only thing about reducing the party size that bothers me is the number of classes and varieties with companions and multiclassing added into the mix. It can be hard to really play around with ideas when you have one maybe two playthroughs you can commit to, it can be frustrating to have to decide.
Exactly my problem.
@@terbentur2943 I know that... I sometimes solve it by creating mercenaries mid campaing and treating them like main character until I am satisfied with my new build :D (seeing that it works is usually all I really need to be happy)
We shouldn't have to decide
Loading screen loading screen loading screens. This was the only thing that really hurt the game. The actual game was epic. The loading screens were brutal. Pillars sold me on pause game combat. Way cooler than turn based divinity style
I havent been bothered at all by loading screens in games for years by virtue of having a second monitor with some video playing and a button on the keyboard that plays/pauses the last used video player. So I am never stuck doing nothing at all
Super interesting talk. Glad to be able to listen to it.
I love both of these games and Im glad Obsidian was able to make them. The whole crowdfunding model has brought so many great game series and styles of games that I thought we would never see again and proves that fans can drive these developers to at least pay their bills while working on something special. Nothing captures Baldur's Gate 2 as well as this series in particular but I can see how it's not necessarily going to be as big as a modern shooter or whatever is popular now.
Sounds like the higher ups screwed things over far more than he mentions. Things like reasserting an unpopular (even internally), incredibly resource-intensive feature back into development and full VO added in during development, with push-back on delaying the schedule so it could actually be done properly, are crazy decisions. Not to mention that this game didn't receive any meaningful marketing; I really hope those individuals/groups aren't involved in any future titles.
Hoping there are plans for a POE3 (with lessons learned) after Avowed though. I understand the need for a break from developing these types of games, but it's EASILY the best RTwP game on the market today. Especially when the only other game like it is significantly worse mechanically and only received the time of day due to Pathfinder association.
Great video! I enjoyed PIllars 2 more than Pillars 1, but there was still some stuff that could have been improved. I was one of the few who loved the ships and the ship combat haha. Keep up the great work Josh, can't wait to see what you work on next.
Couple of things spring to mind:
1) The major reason that sidekicks weren't well received was because they were almost literally a fancy portrait attached to a custom character. You play this down as them not being 'full' companions, but they had almost *no* writing whatsoever. Thus, they're quite pointless for most players, because they resemble a custom character except without the full control over attributes, starting talents, race, subclass, etc. (and THAT is a whole pet peeve I could elaborate more on, but I digress)
2) I think full VO is a terrible waste of money. It's a feature that matters most to people who didn't grow up on Baldur's Gate et al. Quality writing and plot matters *far* more than full VO.
Other than that, it was an interesting talk, and I look forward to seeing what you work on next.
I agree that full VO is a waste of money -- but I have the feeling that my opinion is a product of my age, and maybe not relevant to the younger audience. I grew up playing the gold-box games, so I guess I'm kind of old-school -- but these raised expectations of VO (and graphics, etc.) are how games advance over time. I'd be happy without VO, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out the majority of gamers don't share that opinion.
@@JHiggins67 Yeah and the majority of gamers didn't buy Deadfire, either
@@yosharian That's a reasonable. point -- but I guess it always comes down to the possibility of more money. Selling your game to investors as intentionally not appealing to a wider audience makes a difficult job even more difficult. I get it what you're saying, though. I prefer smaller, more niche products -- but in the end, most game studios are a business first, which means keeping up with buyer expectations and hoping for the best. There will always be the odd game that goes its own way and become a long-term cult success, but most businesses don't like to bank on those odds.
I would be really glad if cRPG devs could finally embrace the concept of "Show, don´t tell". All these cRPG are SO text heavy that my eyes seriously hurt from all the reading. And sometimes I just sit down for evening 2 hour play session, and all I do is "read the fucking text" with all these barely relevevant descriptions, lore dumps etc. (latest Torment and Tyranny being the biggest offenders, they were litteraly filled with text vomit).
Of course your VO will be hard when you place all the information in text instead of game world. Just reduce lore dumps, place the not neccessary info into gameworld instead of conversations and make conversations more interesting by adding more choices instead of text dumps.
@ this is just a case of bad writers being hired by people who don't know any better.
That you for your candor, honesty, and deep look behind the curtain in an industry full of charlatans and liars.
I continue to have nothing but respect for John. He’s a damn legend.
What a Legend. And POE2 is such deep complex incredible game that it made me appreciate real time with pause. I thought I liked turned based...but looking back I realised that I never finished one (xcom,divinity). Because turn based combat becomes slow and boring very quickly. And POE2 you can make it as fast as you want and it looks amazing and visceral. I now regret not buying it on launch and not supporting Obsidian (I didn't liked POE1 at all).
Very informative! Partial VO may be more powerful to emphasize the important part of the storyline. I don't think we should give in to lazy people who are afraid to read more than a few words per hour, let's give them some practice so they can read again! Aligning one's standard to a large audience can only lower it.
On a side note, not sure who managed the setting of this talk, but 1) please no brightly-colored ads just next to a screen that must show dark scenes! and 2) avoid distracting people with a troll and his camera (what does this guy think he's doing anyway?).
Sawyer sounds like his harshest critic
I don't get the obsession with full VO, especially for side characters. It's not that important and we know it means that it'll prevent important rewrites and the quality will suffer from it.
Because games evolve. I don't mind reading but I do prefer Full VO, its more immersive and gives characters to feel more like people.
@@wofuljac "Because game evolve" is the stupidest answer. "Why is this console spewing acid in my face randomly?" "because games evolve!"
The rest of your answer makes more sense, but it is still a very high price to pay, especially for indie/mid-range devs.
@@gargamellenoir8460 Games do evolve like all art. People these days are used to Full VO from other modern rpg games like Final Fantasy, Witcher, Elder Scrolls. This isn't the days of Baldur's Gate 1 where few lines are spoken. It's like a modern movie will go back to the 1920s of silent films, most people would be like "what the heck?".
@@wofuljac that's like saying games should always be 3d because games evolve. Very stupid argument. I've enjoyed the story more of games with no VO compared to VO games. I dont care much for having to wait through a long VO line anyways when I have a ton of things i need to read to process info.
@@ChamplooMusashi Nope, cause 2D also evolve. Compare Rayman Legends to the first Mario Bros.. Keep in mind I'm just saying that most people don't like dated things, I don't mind reading. I like Old School Boulder gate games or Final Fantasy 6 or Fire Emblem on 3DS.
I must be an anomaly, since I liked ship combat, but was annoyed by the full VO, as all characters inevitably sounded the same at some point. There is a limit to how much even experienced voice actors can stretch their acting.
It's so weird that that is an expectation. I recently played Disco Elysium FC, and while I loved it, I was a bit put off by the constant VO, I can read the less important parts you know.
@@fafofafin that was added in the like later edition iirc because of the popular demand
I didn't get why the companions system was not well received. If you played Pillars of Eternity 1 you know that Aloth is a bit serious, gloomy and bland, that is what I liked about him and I'll always use that guy in my party, it's abvious that he would rolls his eyes everytime you said something dumb.
About the Xoti vs Pallegina, well.. that is how things works in real life, people can get so mad about the opinions of others that they will explode in a matter of seconds, for example, put a far right wing x a far left wing, those two will eat their guts in 6 minutes, that is how people work.
So I would say that the companions were a success I'm actually thinking about buying Pillars 2 now.
Just finished pillars 1 on the switch can’t wait to play 2 in March, great game to play on a handheld
Deck to deck combat rocked and quite honestly if you're really really good you can defeat much higher level ship crews and get
some twinked out gear. My next playthrough I'll be doing a lot of early deck to deck fighting for loot and gold.
Josh! Pillars of Eternity is a magnificent game. Do not listen to critics!
I just always hated trying to shoot a fireball in rtwp and having my melee guys walk into the aoe and enemies walk out of it by the time the wizard shoots it off. If I was a wizard who was taking time to summon the energy to shoot a fireball I would simply aim the fireball *after* I had it ready to go and not commit to aiming it *before* it was ready.
Great point!
Some funny thing about this is this probably happened in real life, where some artillery dude or archer probably miscalculated their aim and hit his own allies. Thing is, in TB, it is assumed that every round consists of 6 seconds right, at least by PnP, then translating that into 'real time' is difficult because 6 seconds is a very long time for a warrior to just stand by while waiting for the wizard to cast and calculate the trajectory of the fireball aimed at a charging enemy. I mean, what if the enemy is right at your allies' noses and your wiz/sorc aimed that fireball at the enemy's face?
That's my take on the whole RTWP vs TB debate.
B but ITSH FOR BALUNCE /sarcasm
Josh, don't give yourself too much of a hard time about it. Yes on reflection some things could have been different to make the game even greater.
I really love the game but my major gripe was the fact that the item variability was quite low and nerfed to the point of really omly Benefiting accuracy and damage. The other thing would have been a better stronghold.
That's a strange critique, the item variability is not low at all in PoE2, it actually gets kind of ridiculous and out of control the items that have a number of spells and unique effects attached to them, and the item upgrade paths are quite varied.
@@mediumvillain Yeah that is a weird critique considering the gear I have.
Im playing pillars 1 for the first time cuz i just discovered it (after not paying attention to obsidian since kotor2) and its soo good im gonna purchase poe2 the second i complete it
The anti Todd Howard himself. I love this guy's work.
Such a good underrated undersold game ! A shame really.
Me watching in 2x playback speed so that his time doesnt run out
Josh is a fantastic game designer and a captivating speaker. I love listening to all his insights from creating RPG's for the better part of the past 25 years. ❤
Pillars 1 and 2 are among my absolute favorite games to play. Most of the general game design feels basically perfect to me, but what really enchants me is the world of Eora. The writers responsible for it did a wonderful job building a detailed and believable fantasy setting from the ground up. It's leagues ahead of other contemporaries, such as The Elder Scrolls or Divinity games (subjectivity notwithstanding).
So while I'm saddened to hear a Pillars 3 might never happen, it seems Avowed will be set in Eora, which will be a nice consolation prize for me.
I like Deadfire combat and DLC story, But main story is really disappoint.
Couldn't agree more. Somehow almost everything in Pillars 2 is either good or even awesome, it's the main story that is really disappointing. It's a true shame that so many good elements "only" end up serving such a disappointing story.
Eothas was super interesting to me so I don't get this thinking at all
The part where you finally meet up with him and the music matches the mood perfectly was one of the best moments in any RPG I've played since FF6 and BG2.
@@Merknilash No epic boss fight and my watcher can't do anything just watch this asshole destroy the wheel, even I can call Wael stop him, he still destroy the wheel.
@@Merknilash I agree that Eothas is interesting, but the main story by itself still wasn't thrilling. I was much more interested in what the council of arch-mages was up to for example and seriously wished the game/main story would have been about them. Other aspects like this seemed to have more potential somehow.
Obsidian have done this a few times. PoE1's story is really short, almost everything you do has nothing to do with the main story other than sharing themes (souls, mainly) and the late-game revelations are really things that should be in the first quarter of the game that set up the story, not the conclusions. It's also the same in The Outer Worlds in which, again, the core plot has about 4-5 chunks spread out through loads and loads of things that aren't focused on the same narrative but instead tell smaller, separate stories - and then it just ends when you think it's actually finally getting going. New Vegas did a much better job, to be fair. It does seem to be a general WRPG issue where the narrative goes like "intro/premise -----loads of unrelated stuff----> main plot pick-up ------loads of unrelated stuff---> revelation about "what's really going on" -> end.
Pretty much every Bioware game has this thing where it sets up the end of the game at the start (e.g. find Sarevok, stop Loghain, stop Saren) then all the middle of the game is simpy getting into position to do that, then you do it. The end. You don't get an ongoing plot with waves of revelations and new developments. I wonder if it's because LotR is so pivotal in the Fantasy world and that's the epitome of that; we need to destroy the ring and stop Sauron, so they do. The rest of the plot is just speed bumps along the way to realising that goal - the goal doesn't change or develop and the middle is just basically a loading screen between "aim" and "execution".
What a interesting video, found it out of luck. I didn't played Pillars 1, got straight to Pillars 2 and I partially regret that decision... but either way, I absolutely loved this game, one of the best world buildings I've seen, the combat is fun, interesting characters, great writing, etc.. My only criticism is related to the ship combat, the management of the ship itself is just fine, I like that... but the combat, not so much, it felt overwhelming, I only tried two times or so. I guess this is a early game reward for players willing to learn the system, they can defeat a high level ship through these mechanics. I just skip it entirely. Later you get strong enough to just board the ship and resolve the encounter like if it is a land battle, I forced my way, had a good time. Besides that, I have nothing else negative to say about this game, it's really good
Can someone who's watched the presentation tell me if there are any PoE 2 spoilers in the speech?
I love Sawyer's input on everything, and I haven't had the chance to get into PoE 2 just yet (due to life).
There is no spoilers and the presentation is awesome. Definitely watch it )
@@xXneorlinXx Awesome man, will get on this immediately! Thanks!
@@xXneorlinXx o7
He's talking about this game as if it was a bomb Deadfire overall is an excellent RPG
Nah. It's pretty mediocre, way to many issues. Divinity 2 and pathfinder kingmaker are actually good.
@@johnathanera5863 Pathfinder kingmaker is garbage and divinity 2 is overrated.
Yes, my opinions are valid and yours are not.
Deadfire was good, but it bombed financially. Part of the reason why there is no POE3 yet despite that players wanted one is that Obsidian is quite unsure if it would have the same great review/worse sales than Deadfire.
Also to @Johnathan Era , I never really liked DOS and DOS2, especially the latter with its overreliance or obsession with surface effects AND the way that the game throws too many trash mobs at you that makes you turn off the game because TB + too many mobs = a nightmare waste of time.
Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous is actually good if not for their kingdom/crusade mechanics, while Baldur's Gate 3 is buckling under the weight of Larian trying to implement 5e rules with their homebrew DOS/2 rules. They already made blunders during BG3's early access, like loaded dice, again the obsession with surface effects, and weird things like having jump, evade, disengage, hide as BONUS actions instead of being a specific feat for specific classes. Larian advertised BG3 as a modern way to implement 5e in a CRPG, but it seems like all they want is to make a DOS2 clone.
@@johnathanera5863 Kingmaker is not good whatsoever. If anything it's pretty bad. From the horrible late game, to the atrocious kingdom management, to the boring quest design, I'd hardly even call it mediocre.
@@johnathanera5863 Divinity 2 is overrated garbage and Kingmaker is generic garbage. In any case, both of them are garbage compared to POE
Really sheds light on a ton of stuff that people love to discuss on reddit.
I shit talked poe 1 and 2 a lot, but this puts some things into perspective. I really disliked the setting but it had tons of potential. Josh had it rough.
Just out of curiosity what did you dislike about the setting?
Because I really loved it
@@terbentur2943 stupid pirates / Hawai adventure clown fiesta for kids.
@@robosergTV fair enough I really enjoyed the setting though but that's a matter of taste
@@terbentur2943 Don't get me wrong, I am playing POE 2 for the first time now with all the DLCs on the hardest difficulty and I enjoy it. But you can't deny the overall theme with pirates is childish at times.
@@robosergTV Again it just boils down to taste. Pirate themes can be done pretty serious I think it does not really have to do with the setting. You can totally argue that the story and presentation was more on the light side and I would not disagree. I personally just enjoy pirate settings since they are something else in fantasy unlike the 999th iteration of medieval fairy tail land.
Hey it’s Arcade!
VO was worth it.
a big barrier for me re: the ship combat is that i.... do not know a single thing about ships. the combat DID have tips, but not clear enough ones in my experience? like they still assumed you had some rudimentary knowledge of ships and i didn't even have that lmao. it sort of threw you right into it. having some sort of integrated tutorial experience for a first time playthru could have made it better, perhaps (but as was said in the presentation: quicksaaaaand...). HOWEVER the ship combat was also generally easy enough to avoid; i just always chose normal combat on board the ships instead (which was a good resource for grinding/saving up $).
People must have gotten hyped over the ship combat because it is a minor part of the game to me and fine as is. Granted I just played both games this year.
I started PoE recently and I wish I had half of these quality of life little things when I was playing BG or IWD. I mean, fast/slow/normal speed? come on! What a joy it is to explore and run around in this game.
@@fafofafin Same here. It should be s standard feature.
Great talk, kind of feel sad about the hint at the end concerning the TB vs RTwP combat.
Always loved RTwP, unfortunately it's becoming more and more unpopular these days. THough, I really can't figure why, it always seemed to me more 'modern' than TB mechanics.
I think he covered it in this speech: RTS use to a much more popular genre meaning a larger proportion of the gaming population understood that sort of system. These days there's more players out there who aren't use to that (for a party-based game) and much more use to that in turn based games.
Plus each character in PoE on average can do more in each fight then they did back in BG. So there's kinda more to do with 4 characters in PoE then there was with 6 characters in BG (spellcasters would get all the management, other characters you'd just position and let fight).
Having said that I much prefer the way RtwP feels in this games as well, so I'm a huge fan of there still being series like PoE and Pathfinder doing it. I'm extremely sad BG3 won't be RtwP.
Dear Josh
Please make Pillars 3...
Sincerely,
A loyal fan
I loved poe 2 Josh. The thing that killed sales was the constant delaying, which killed the hype.
"bg/iceinddale and pillars one had a 6 character party" i would have countered with NWN 2 only had 4 so look at it you get one more than one less.
vault boy baby!!
I only have 4.5 hours in PoE 2 and have never really played this type of game very much. Not a big fan even though I did like the classic FF type turn based games. This game is probably excellent, but it's tough to figure out, and may not be my cup of tea. Anyway...I really enjoyed this presentation.
I wonder if the advancements in AI voice generation will help lighten the load for dev teams expected to provide full VO...?
Also, hope Josh is feeling refreshed after directing Pentiment, it was an amazing game 👍
I agree, Pentiment is a great game.
Josh seems happy in a more advisor type of role now; Obsidian has shed many of their older developers so it will be interesting to see how the company plays out this next decade
I love how DOS2 has become what Joe Rogan is to podcasts to CRPGs.
53:10 I worked on Victoria 3 and we did team play days, we'd try multiplayer (until it crashed) then move on to single player. Lots of backstabbing and wars.
Ok, Josh... if anyone can put together a player based game that can make it's creators and modders money, maybe you are the man. I have been making adult content for fallout. A very long time. I do not want to give my work away. Been mucking about with Project Brazil Map... the scaling is messed up. Wish I had the 1.3.1 .esp. The map was wasted and and incomplete. If anyone from Radian-Helix out there that has an early esp would post it on the moddb.com site that would be cool. I unwrote the master file trying to get at the landscape scaling and what not and because I just hate duplicate files.
The RTWP combat system in Deadfire was amazing. Good improvement over BG/IWD. Turn-based is such a slog and an instant turnoff for me. Also the reason why I never got into Divinity Original Sin. Personally I have no idea what is wrong with the writing as some people claim. Maybe it is because I am European that I don't see it ....
Would love to watch but just started playing Poe1. Thumbs up anyway, great company!
Main thing I kindaoff disliked about PoE2 was... TOO much balance. I mean they tried to balance it all so hard, that even with 60 possible classes they all started to feel very similar to each other. They were all just different means of doing almost same dps, and nerfing all the really powerful items to dust in later patches made it even worst.
I mean how can I do some fun and unique build around weapon which does explosions if it triggers only 5% of time. I had full encounters without my weapon doing anything interesting.
All the fights were eventually dumbed down to "rush my characters in and start casting the strongest spells/abilities available", because hey, they immediately refresh after encounter ends, so why bother with tactics, caution and resource management right...
That and classis CRPG lore dumbs :D Otherwise its cool game, I definitely plan to play it again with all DCLs in TB mode
Where’s my Pillars 3….
Never happening. Josh has said the last couple years Pillars 2 was a big flop for him and the company has entirely changed losing/gaining employees. Now he seems happier taking the advisor role more. Avowed is the current year PoE3 for better or worse..
@@circlesnare3671 Actually the most recant thing he said about PoE2 was that in the long term in was profitable
"...after I shipped Deadfire I was pretty burned out because Deadfire sold, initially it sold very poorly. It reviewed very well but it sold very poorly and I was really burned out about it. Overtime it actually sold quite well and it is very profitable now thankfully, it just took several years."
From Origin Story "Josh Sawyer (Pentiment) on Art, History and What Will Be Remembered", timestamp is around 13:55
@@jankieek8218 If you watch his recent streams, the man just seems bitter and jaded. He constantly gets asked these questions and his demeanor always changes from happy to melancholy.
I think the initial failure and broken launch of POE2 really got to him. I mean can you blame him? You give little pieces of yourself to something bigger just for people to crap all over it (For good reason mind you).
I don't think he has any desire to work in the full fledged RPG space ever again, judging from his demeanor. He has no desire, whatever desire he had left was killed when deadfire launched.
You can actually watch his pre-release backer videos when deadfire was still in beta. His personality was completely different.
@@mikeity2009 yeah he does seem to be really jaded with the cRPGs and iirc in one of the recent interviews he even says that he probably isn't the best person to make a Pillars 3 or anything of that type because he isn't on the same wave lenght as modern audience for them.
Man probably genuinely thinks that as well which is understandable looking at how things went but sad non the less.
Hm... This stuff really bothers me. Because ultimately it should be about the quality of the game and not what the standard or the expectations are. Thats the biggest mistake an artist can do or not?
I don’t like VO, I prefer to read and the voice is just a nuisance . I have been playing RPGs almost all my life and I love a turn based system in some contexts but definitely not in a CRPG . It feels like it’s breaking the action. This is also the reason why I don’t even bother following the development of BG3 which is the first ever title of the saga I’m not buying. No hate, I’ll just pass on it.
A shame that Obsidian shilled out to Take-Two and Epic Store. I guess Chris Avellone's criticism of obsidian's upper management wasn't completely unfounded.
Strongholds are much better than camps
WTF was that intro lol
this is what you get when there isnt a unified vision from the start.
compromises over compromises until you have bland soup.
Ah. The ship to ship combat. The thing that almost made me not get the game at all and I never liked it. As said, that's a different/separate game completely
And full VO just feels so overrated. Not sure why I would want that (mostly knowing that it does add limitations and cost and doesn't really add that much to me). Partial seems reasonable
Hoping Xbox green lights a big budget PoE3 for Josh and the team to do whatever they want
They just announced Avowed will be at most the size of Outer Worlds, so no not happening. People thinking Microsoft was just going to give studios they own unlimited money dont understand the industry
The biggest problem I had with this game… by far… was the all the loading screens… I just couldn’t take it.
"Nerf that build". As soon as he said that I remembered why decided not to bother with the sequel.
He is talking so much about feedback. Has he considered for just one second that maybe people are not part of a collective hive mind? I loved the original POE. It became one of my favorite, maybe all time favorite RPG. So many changes both big and small in POE 2 such as reducing the party size, changing the atmosphere from bleak and desperate to a jolly tropical pirate adventure, changing the focus of the narrative from the philosophical nature of the soul, a possible extinction scenario for the Dyrwood and secret societies to a godzilla statue stomping around, faction politics that resemble the colonization of the New World so much and "romance", having such bland boring companions (3 out of 7 reiterated) and so few of them, the voice acting is hit and miss mostly miss (I rather have no VO than some of the terrible VO this had).
I hated POE 2. It was so disappointing. I have no idea who the target audience for this is supposed to be.
They're a company. These are not really passion products, they're being made with backers and other investors and done under a corporate structure.
Yes, lots of people like PoE. There's people who also really love the changes to PoE2.
And there's a LOT of people who provided some very commonly occurring feedback, as he described in this video.
They were trying to please a general audience but also address the complaints of the type of people who play betas/patches and give feedback. Made it into a hodge-podge of a game. Lots of good, lots of bad. Josh is happy being a less hands-on advisor and the company has changed most employees. Avowed is basically PoE3, and the type of game Obsidian makes now for better or worse.
None of this is true. The guy presenting is just drunk out of his mind,
JK
No comment about the atrocious armor system? ... figures.
Budget was too small. PoE 2 was aiming for AA territory. It needed cutscenes, more polish, like say the dragon age games, or likely the upcoming BG3. Games are more cinematic than in the BG era. The book stuff is offputting for mainstream audiences IMO.
There were too many female military commanders in the game, it created a jarring effect.
Games like Mount and Blade Warband took a better approach to females in martial roles.
Shut up.
It is stated in the first game that the role of women in society varies greatly depending on the culture. They also showed this variety through Sagani, so seeing the Rauatai brass wasn't all that jarring, as it fit the descriptions given by Kana.
God I hope they stick with turn based crpgs from now on. Real time with pause belongs in the past.
So does turn-based, which is even older than RTwP. RTwP done right is just as enjoyable as TB done right.
Not all RTwP. People forget that Mass Effect is RTwP, at any time you can pause, give your companions orders, and even adjust your aim without a care, and people love Mass Effect gameplay. The key was decent enough AI and not too much to manage at a time, so you could focus on the moment to moment of your character instead of constantly needing to pause. It means pausing was "set up for something big" instead of constantly interrupting the flow.
That's adorable because turn based was pushed aside from real time with pause during the infinity engine era for the exact reason you listed.
Turn based is antiquated, boring and slow. Just because you have fewer than 3 functioning brain cells to allow yourself to work out rtwp doesn't mean you get to ruin crpg's for the rest of us.
@@samithonjames370 how about both like wrath of the wrighteous
For me POE1 is a better game than POE2! I did not like the 2 class character or fight wasn't hard as in POE1 or it was toooooo short even with the side story and I did not like 5man groups! POE2 was very customer friendly and that was the problem for me. I liked the struggle in POE1.
"I think people liked our companions overall." NO!
HUGE surprise, Sawyer still doesn't get why Deadfire sucked.
That's exactly what I thought.
Why did it suck then, in your opinion?
metacritic: 89
steam user reviews: Very Positive
"wow this game must sure suck"