Pillars of Eternity II - Lessons to learn

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HiddenX

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Eurogamer reports that Josh Sawyer will re-examine Deadfire before starting a new game in the series:

Low Deadfire sales means Obsidian would have to "re-examine the entire format of the game" before committing to Pillars of Eternity 3

Will there be a Pillars of Eternity 3? It sounds like the series' design chief wants to work out what went wrong with the last game before taking on another sequel.

Old-school role-playing game Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire was critically acclaimed but sold poorly compared to its predecessor and other, similar games. Obsidian's Josh Sawyer has said he wants to work out why before committing to making Pillars of Eternity 3.

"That is not something that I get to decide, but I do think that the relatively low sales of Deadfire mean that if we consider making another Pillars game in this style, we're going to have to re-examine the entire format of the game," Sawyer wrote on his Tumblr.

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More information.
 
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Ideally, they take a look at Outer Worlds and realize, "Oh, hey, people enjoy a game more when it's not bugged to hell on launch - Amazing!"
 
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It was bugged, but for Obsidian, it was one of their better launches I would say.

My opinion, Deadfire sold badly because large part of audience was disappointed by first game. That logically caused low initial sales of second game, which ironically turned out to be much better game at the end. And with turn-based mode its quite epic actually. It makes combat system much less messy, to such extent, its actually enjoyable.
 
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Well I recently completed this game, and I was rather impressed, enjoyed it far more than I did the first game. Too bad it turned out like this for them.
 
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"My opinion, Deadfire sold badly because large part of audience was disappointed by first game."

This. I hit the level cap on the first and stopped playing immediately. I really dislike level caps.
 
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What turned me off was at first the RTwP system. But ok, that was what people claim to like.

Once they implemented the Turn Based mode I tried the game. Turn Based mode felt horrible.

However even before that I had a friend of mine who read the back of the physical box tell me how silly the story description is. And I totally agree: Mighty Heroes are going out chasing a god…really? Can't you finally make some story which is a bit more down to earth and easier to get into?

Furthermore:
-Enemy AI was really bad.
-Game really doubled down on complexity right on character creation, which made it kind of overwhelming and frustrating from the start (e.g. dual classes).

So I finish almost every game I start (see my webpage at ndnw.net) this game however I aborted.
 
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I've played both games the first one I've played through Completely 4 times, the sequel twice. I actually did prefer the second game more and felt like it was a pretty fun. I'm sad to hear it didn't do as well because I did feel it was overall a better game.
 
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Yes, the poor initial reception of the first game likely played a significant role. It became much better with the White March editions, but first impressions matter. As to the game itself, I think the biggest mistake was the physical manifestation of a deity. It would have been more fun just to explore the setting without that hanging over everything. Also, I wasn't all that thrilled to be playing a game with a piracy setting; not really my favorite genre. The second edition game mechanics were fine, and the character building was much improved.
 
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DJ said:
"My opinion, Deadfire sold badly because large part of audience was disappointed by first game."

This. I hit the level cap on the first and stopped playing immediately. I really dislike level caps.
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Similar here.
Neither Pillars I nor II were bad games, but after the first one, many didn't really feel the need for another entry.

The character system lacked the impact of much better systems (even DnD is better), but it was serviceable and the class combining in PoE II was pretty cool.

Turn-based mode in PoE II was indeed quite nice. In theory.
In practice, the game is filled with way-too-easy filler combat to the brink (just like the first game). Which is meant to pad the game in real-time mode already.
In turn-based mode, it takes even more time, slowing the game almost to a maddening grind in some locations.

Instead of just throwing pushover encounters at the player around every corner, they should have gone for fewer, but more challenging encounters - similar to D:OS1&2.

They could learn these lessons for a PoE III, but if anyone is left who would buy a PoE III, that's another question.
 
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PoE II was vastly superior to PoE in all ways except, perhaps, balance.

If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that you can't expect a sequel to do better if your prequel isn't great.

Also, yeah, you have to design your game around your combat - when it's 90% of the game.

If you want a proper TB/RTwP dual implementation - you have to think it through from the very beginning, especially in terms of balance.

Based on PoE II and Outer Worlds - I'd say the main improvement would be proper challenge and intricate mechanics.

Ironically, considering the core experience was never designed for it, the Kingmaker TB mod is just about perfect - though they do have the advantage of the core rule system being designed for TB combat.

Too bad the majority of Kingmaker content is essentially trashmob combat in boring places.
 
BriefDArt said:
Too bad the majority of Kingmaker content is essentially trashmob combat in boring places.
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Disagree on this. You can easily avoid random encounters and still get 100+ hours of the gameplay.

I found Deadfire full of shit trash combats though
 
purpleblob said:
Disagree on this. You can easily avoid random encounters and still get 100+ hours of the gameplay.

I found Deadfire full of shit trash combats though
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I'm not talking about random encounters :)

I'm talking about how most of the game I've played has boring locations and what amounts to endless trash mob fights.

That said, I've only played around half of it. I've exhausted my interest, sadly.

Then again, I'm a big fan of intricate dungeons and puzzles - and there just wasn't enough of that kind of thing.

You spend most of your time roaming the map, hoping for something cool - and most of it is just yet another small overland map with trash mobs, crap loot or trivial conversations. Then you go back to yet another Kingdom event.

Maybe it gets better towards the latter half?

I did find the overarching plot interesting, though.

But it really felt like 80-90% filler to me.

To me, PoE 2 felt a LOT more diverse in terms of distinct locations - and I much preferred the full-speech presentation.
 
Andrew23 said:
My opinion, Deadfire sold badly because large part of audience was disappointed by first game. That logically caused low initial sales of second game, which ironically turned out to be much better game at the end. And with turn-based mode its quite epic actually. It makes combat system much less messy, to such extent, its actually enjoyable.
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This exactly! I was super-hyped for PoE and was disappointed. Especially with the "let's change the char systems for change's sake." Muscle wizards... yeah.

The second one did a lot right and was much better out of the box, but opinions were already set because of the first one.
I will play it once more with turn-based and see if combat also becomes better.

Anyway, I guess PoE is dead as a isometric RPG. It's more likely to see a 3D-RPG set in the universe. With Outer World's success and what not.
 
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Haven't finished the first 1st or 2nd games, and make no excuses as new games keep pulling me away. Shame the series is in trouble but they have a publisher & newer IP's.
 
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Andrew23 said:
My opinion, Deadfire sold badly because large part of audience was disappointed by first game
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While I loved the first game ... I definitely think that this is the thing they need to study!

Way too often in business people fail to look for root cause but instead look at 'coincident events'.
 
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Andrew23 said:
My opinion, Deadfire sold badly because large part of audience was disappointed by first game.
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I was one of those. Bought the first, its strategy guide and lore book. I was super pumped for a modern BG. I felt the combat was incredibly tedious and way to frequent. I couldn’t make myself care about the characters or this new little universe that was trying to be just a little different from the standard forgotten realms without being too different. I never bought the sequel.

I am curious for a sales breakdown pre and post turn based mode though. I know every new sale can’t be attributed to the turn based mode, but it would be interesting. I’ve thought about buying POE2 since then, but I just don’t care about their universe.
 
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BriefDArt said:
PoE II was vastly superior to PoE in all ways except, perhaps, balance.
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Please never ever ever tell Josh that he needs more balancing. Hes already afflicted by this disease.

Also, welcome back. I missed you :)
 
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Wisdom said:
Please never ever ever tell Josh that he needs more balancing. Hes already afflicted by this disease.

Also, welcome back. I missed you :)
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Thanks ;)

His idea of balance is terrible, I agree. It seems to be one of zero flavor and overly complicated mechanics amounting to, somehow, everything being drone-like and watered down.

But PoE 2 was way too easy, way too soon.

The problem was that, unlike PoE, the game actually worked as intended - and both RtWP and turnbased modes functioned just like you would expect.

Which, unfortunately, revealed how little effort they actually made in terms of a proper challenging and thoughtful set of mechanics.

That said, I found combat very entertaining. I much prefer active abilities to mostly-passive abilities, which is another weakness of the D&D/Pathfinder system.

While the actual character building is infinitely superior and more nuanced in D&D/Pathfinder - combat is really just a bunch of passively powered standard attacks - unless you happen to be a spellcaster.

That's a little boring, to be honest.
 
I feel the need to confirm the sentiments of the issue being the blandness of the first game.
People hurried to support and purchase it because of the nostalgia trip but were ultimately disappointed and stopped carrying about the franchise.

The could still reinvent everything but it's probably dead now.

I remember forcing myself to play it through, especially after getting to the final act.
I went online and others felt the same. The story just didn't grip people among other things.
Wasn't a bad story I think but was executed very poorly.
 
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