E3 2018 Video Interviews
 

Obsidian was at E3 despite not showing off anything new, but did a few interviews.

Adam looks 20 years older than he is… Where are you Project Indiana news! :anxious:

Must be very proud indeed. If we measure Deadfire success on much it's talked about here on the Watch I'm giving Obsidian … like 2 more weeks before shutting it's doors.

Also, like the first DLC should be out in like less than a month, right? And they are not ready to talk about? Really?

Not to mention I expected at least some Caynarski news, but it might not have been up to Obsidian in the end, seems like T2 did skip the entire expo for some reason.

Well, to be fair, it's an isometric RPG, with complex systems that scare off casual players. Whereas D:OS 2 was everyone's sweetheart for a good month when it released, its systems are vastly more simplistic and easier to pick up.

Face it, if Baldur's Gate were released today, it would probably have the same [lack of] success. Sitting down for a 60-100 hour campaign and building up an entire party of characters with stats/feats/multiclassing is never going to appeal to more than a niche audience in such a fast-paced, short attention span marketplace.

The wait continues it seems. Hopefully Gamescom 2018 in August will have news.
Yep D:OS 2 was bought by the casual RPG market and POE 2 wasn't. Also like you said if Baldur's Gate was released today it wouldn't sell as good as D:OS 2 either.
Nice Codex attitude there but that's nothing new is it?:rolleyes:

I thought PoE2 has extremely easy combat so why would that scare casuals off?

I found that a lot of PoE's systems were actually dumbed down in Deadfire. Which along with the full VO and the upcoming console ports feels like an attempt to appeal to the masses.

Yet the Codex has over 400 pages of Deadfire threads, and here there's less than a 10th of that. Maybe the forums could use a bit of codexian attitude?

It's not like I actively wish for an Obsidian demise. At least not until I hear more about Indiana.

Must be all that 2D. In my view, Obsidian tried very hard to appeal to a more general public with Deadfire and they should have been all over it.

It's not extremely easy, anybody claiming that is either cheesing or a liar. Most gamers wouldn't have the patience to get off the tutorial island on PoTD after the last patch

How? They added multiclassing, subclasses, alchemy, overhauled stealth, more skills and abilities, ect. The systems are deeper than the first game, non-debatable.

The next free DLC called Scalawags was released this week.

Link - https://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_…2ed6e89a68e0b8
Patch 1.1 was released with this pack also.

Link - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101…s-for-1100035/

Most gamers don't play PotD.

Your other point is debatable - more things doesn't exactly translate into depth or substance. I also really disliked the whole spells=skills concept of the skill tree. But both points are moot - no game that can autoplay itself should be accused of having any sort of depth.

Are you claiming you can autoplay the game on PotD?

I think he saying that any game that allow you to program the AI of your party members to the smallest behavior is devoid of any depth.

I don't see how that means the game has less depth. It just removes excessive micromanagement, which has always been a problem with RTwP games. Besides, you can't win every fight relying on just the AI. You need to adapt to different encounters.

You admiting the game has only depth if difficulty is ramped up to the hardest mode that 99% won't bother with?

I never had trouble micro managing my party members in Infinity and those had depth that didn't require artificially boosting enemies. If a game requires both maxing the difficulty and level scaling to fix encounter design then there's something rotten at the core to begin with and no amount of patching is going to change that.

It's stupid to complain about a game being too easy when you're not playing on the hardest difficulty. Which by the way, not everyone finds it so easy on lower difficulties. I've already seen people complaining that story mode is too hard for them.

And reversing your argument, the infinity engine games were significantly easier, even though their difficulty was more heavily balanced around RNG.

In the sea of all this back and forth, I would just like to point out that my original comment never referenced "difficulty", but rather complexity and the decreased demographic that brings about.

There will always be a market for difficult yet rather simplistic games - Dark Souls shows that.

A game should not offer depth only on the highest difficulty setting. In any case, Deadfire being too easy would be a huuuge improvement since it basically played itself. While that could have changed in the ongoing patching - I'm sorry, but I'm not touching it until all the dlc's are out and there's some kind of final-ish version out - I still view the whole thing as an unfixable broken mess and with level scaling and upping the difficulty not an improvement, just an extremely lazy design.

I disagree with that premise. Like I said, there are people that find story mode hard. PoTD on low levels can be a brutal experience for even the most veteran players.

And to set the record straight, difficulty ≠ depth. Not when referring to game systems.

Which difficulty did you play on, before or after patch 1.1?

As bland and easy the combats were on vanilla Deadfire, what good does a great system do ?

I did play on Normal, no patches, no level scaling. I did not go looking for a particular challenge, but I did not expect the walk in the park it was. PoE1 did throw the occasional curveball, but nothing like this. Probably should have tried Story mode, that's the first one I hear is hard on anybody.

Uh huh, that's why you have no credibility. If you're going to trash the game for being too easy then you had better of played on a higher difficulty than normal w/o level scaling.

Anyways, Patch 1.1 made the game signifigantly harder. It added more enemies to every mob on veteran and PotD, and nerfed most of the OP builds and equipment.

Especially after the gaming community has so much been trained to rather play (and have success with !) Action-RPG games. With next to no micromanagement.

Regardless of how I played the game, it's crystal clear even to a no credibility guy like myself that the whole thing is fundamentally broken when a game has one difficulty in a league by itself, for the so-called "hardcore" players, and 3 different story modes, for people that used to enjoy Obsidian games for things beside the combat, like maybe the story and writing. You know, the thing they were famous for.

I don't understand how having different settings for players of different skill levels means the game is fundamentally broken.

I think he is trying to say what's the point of having different difficulties if 3 of them are so easy there might as well be called same thing (I.e. Story mode).

In my opinion default difficulty should be what the developers recommend to average players. If default difficulty in PoE2 might as well be considered story mode, then clearly Obsidian is targeting at mainstream folks, so I don't see how that will scare away people.

Well @purpleblob there has to reason why POE II is not selling as well as other similar games that cant be denied. I'll add that it probably doesn't appeal to certain groups because of no MP. Anyway read Drithius post for more reasons.
So you see it's not difficulty that's the problem.

Easy for him, a veteran of the infinity engine games. It's all subjective.

That's clearly not what he said either. He said the game lacks depth because it's too easy, which isn't credible unless he played on PotD with upscale.

I'd say that's how it is currently. New players would struggle on normal, veteran is for players with experience, and PotD is for hardcore players.

Other similar games that sold well such as?

Not sure what you mean - if the game is only challenging in PotD, how does that prove the game has depth?

1. Baldur's Gate Enhanced
2. Baldur's Gate Enhanced 2
3. Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
4. Divinity: Original Sin
5. Divinity: Original Sin 2
6. Pillars of Eternity
7. Wasteland 2
8. Shadowrun: Hong Kong
9. Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut
10. Tyranny

Some examples for you as the rest sold less like the new Torment: Tides of Numenera flop. Frankly no one is making it up that POE II did not sell as much as the first game.

Also read some of the POE II new-bits for more info.

*I like this game so this is not personal just look at the sale #'s and # of players on Steam.

Pillars of Eternity

Owners: 1,000,000 - 2,000,000
Players: 1,270,320

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

Owners: 100,000 -200,000
Players: 196,437

Again, only if we go by his own subjective experience (although he wouldn't actually know since he never played on veteran or PotD). There are people that think story mode is too hard, and their experience is just as valid.

This debate is idiotic though, so I'm done. Depth ≠ difficulty, and criticizing normal mode for being too easy when there are two harder settings AND level scaling is plain dumb.

Thanks for the list, Couch :)

I haven't played PoE2 but it's a bit difficult to believe complexity of the system alone would have driven gamers away from it (unless you guys claim its a lot more complex than BG/NWN?).

I plan to play PoE2 at some point, but I stayed away from it since PoE1 was so uninspiring and boring (for me).

Still waiting on Maylander's review. Or any of Watcher review. Wouldn't mind hearing several people's point of view :)

I deliberately played on Normal, with No scaling. That mode should be the showcase for the whole game, as the developers envisioned it, among other cosiderations.

I found it lacking. Any supposed depth should be clear on any difficulty mode, as each mode should be presenting encounters to showcase the game systems, not hide them behind expert options and difficulty. Or breezing mindlessly past most encounters.

And yes, if everything is "fixed" with level scaling and extra mob perks, then it is broken from the get go. And just plain lazy as hell.

I also do like different difficulty levels. On games that make it worth my while. Deadfire, with it's encounters that are 99% generic in two room one level dungeons, just doesn't seem like one.

Which is too bad, given their sales and the majority of comments, they should have made PotD the default and all the money that went into appealing to the casuals (VO, ship everything, the "open-world-ness" among the chief offenders) would have been better spent elsewhere. Might have even improved the numbers.

You're a veteran player. They had a veteran mode designed specifically for veteran players. It was envisioned so that veteran players such as yourself would have a difficulty mode to be happy with.

It's your fault that you, a veteran player, decided to play on a difficulty lower than veteran. The developers shouldn't be blamed for your bad decisions.

They busted their ass to overhaul every single encounter in the game, and you call them lazy for doing so? You just sound like a hater at this point.

For the record, they didn't just balance the game through level scaling and boosting enemy stats. They added new enemies to every mob, nerfed OP classes and abilities, added new hazards to many fights, ect. It was the most comprehensive balancing patch I've ever seen, and they are still improving it and adding new challenge modes.

As someone who doesn't focus on combat in games I adored POE2 (and POE1). Great story, loved the companions, the graphics were top notch for this style of game, lots and lots of fine details, depth, and special touches. Only focusing on combat is a big mistake IMO. There is so much more to this game, and POE1 for that matter.

Most of my friends do not play these style of games - they like games like DAI, ME, Assasins Creed, Tomb Raider, and a few Skyrim and FO style. But 4 of them got interested over my images and posts on Nexus, Flickr, and FB. All 4 now own both games and really enjoy them. Was a surprise to all of us. Once you get into the lore and see all the fine detail that went into these games they are damn enjoyable IMO.

Renovations still taking its toll here, but I should be able to make good progress soon! I hope..