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Pillars 1 was a definate success. Pillars 2 much less. Same with Tyranny. There is not a huge market for those crpg games. Pathfinder is doing really well but it's also bringing in a massive existing fanbase of the IP.
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Apr 24, 2022 16:46
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Ither posted:PoE2 is a sequel. It expected you to play the first one. I felt the RTwP was a minus on both Pillars and Tyranny, but I also doubt the first game would have been a Kickstart darling if it hadn't pitched itself as a modern take on the Infinity Engine classics.
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Apr 24, 2022 16:49
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It wasn't the lack of turn-based combat. That's just a section of obnoxious RTwP vs Turn-based crowd screaming it was the one and only reason why the game didn't do well. Josh Sawyer has been pretty clear that they couldn't pin down any one reason why the game didn't perform super well. A shame because Deafire's the pinnacle of those kinds of games. Super well-made and fun.
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Apr 24, 2022 16:50
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I think the problem 2 had was that a lot of people were excited about the idea of 1 and then played it and felt pretty meh about it and ended up missing out on the better sequel because of that, especially if they didn't finish and felt like going directly into 2 would be a problem because of that. At least that's my experience. What I'd be curious to know is how Larian escaped that issue, because I don't think DOS1 was particularly amazing either, but DOS2 was very successful despite that. Even there though, Larian probably did the smart thing by taking the safe route and making BG3 now instead of assuming they could do their own thing again and get guaranteed sales.
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Apr 24, 2022 16:55
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PoE1 fell into the walls of text trap when it came to world building, IMO. And it took too serious a tone about it. The BG and D:OS games have plenty of cheer and gleefully break the 4th wall when they want to. Likewise Pathfinder Kingmaker, it has that irreverent feel.fez_machine posted:Have you heard the good word about Josh Sawyer's In The Name of The Rose inspired investigative RPG that's in development? No, I hadn't. Links? That would be an amazing game to play.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:00
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Dr Kool-AIDS posted:I think the problem 2 had was that a lot of people were excited about the idea of 1 and then played it and felt pretty meh about it and ended up missing out on the better sequel because of that, especially if they didn't finish and felt like going directly into 2 would be a problem because of that. At least that's my experience. What I'd be curious to know is how Larian escaped that issue, because I don't think DOS1 was particularly amazing either, but DOS2 was very successful despite that. Even there though, Larian probably did the smart thing by taking the safe route and making BG3 now instead of assuming they could do their own thing again and get guaranteed sales. D:OS 1 has serious balance issues that just fall through the game's floor midway through, the world-building is inconsistent and the plot is almost non-sensical, but I think the moment to moment gameplay was simply more fun (and less verbose) than Pillars, so it did do way more to sell a sequel to me. That, plus multiplayer and a faster release on consoles probably helped it. Like I played both Pillars and D:OS 1 when they came out, but I didn't bother getting Pillars 2 until several years of goon word of mouth telling me it was good, while I got D:OS2 on release because I was fully on-board with the core gameplay. I genuinely think the D:OS2 has the best combat (and encounter design, that's one serious black mark for both PoE1 and Tyranny) in contemporary party RPGs.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:11
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Divinity Original Sin, especially the second one, absolutely has the best turn-based RPG combat ever. Other CRPGs' combat is so dull I could never get into those Pillars and Tyranny and Pathfinder games no matter how much I tried because the combat just puts me to sleep.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:44
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Divinity: OS 1 felt like a proof of concept that their combat system could work. The actual game itself was pretty bad including a ton of missing QoL features that were common in the early 00s. It felt like aside from the combat, the game was designed by people who hadn't played a crpg since 2000. Even something as simple as learning new abilities was gated behind multiple requirements (earn money, find vendor, see if they have in stock, save/reload and hope for better) It's generally only fun once you really understand the combat system, and know when/where to get abilities and updated equipment. Playing it blind is a insane trial and error grind including not being able to heal characters at all if you can't find a healing spell.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:48
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D:OS2 let me play as a skeleton that made the sky rain blood and then I drank the blood to become stronger
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Apr 24, 2022 17:50
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Yea, DOS2 incredible. I put 78 minutes into PoE and never felt a desire to revisit it.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:51
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I mean for me, the main problem with PoE1 was that it was so loving depressing at the start. Everything is just so gloomy and sad and hosed up, dead babies and soulless children and a tree full of corpses, and there doesn't seem to be any real hope that you can improve matters for anyone and I just never found the energy to get past the first town. PoE2 seems a bit brighter but I can see why folk might bounce off the first one just storywise.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:52
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I liked Original Sin 2 quite a bit but the back half of that game fell apart for me. I should have played on Easy. The combat for the first half was super fun and probably the best implementation of turn-based RPG combat, though I felt like some encounters went on way too long and half the time the battlefield would be consumed by an annoying damage element (or sometimes the insta-kill deathfog poo poo). The way it handled equipment just kinda broke everything for me. Just one level difference made your equipment pretty obsolete, so you couldn't ever get attached to anything. I felt the outlier mechanics attached to it let the core combat down. A lot of good ideas in there that were really fun but when things started getting harder it just didn't do anything for me anymore. The story turned to poo poo as well.
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Apr 24, 2022 17:56
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Jimbot posted:I liked Original Sin 2 quite a bit but the back half of that game fell apart for me. I should have played on Easy. The combat for the first half was super fun and probably the best implementation of turn-based RPG combat, though I felt like some encounters went on way too long and half the time the battlefield would be consumed by an annoying damage element (or sometimes the insta-kill deathfog poo poo). The way it handled equipment just kinda broke everything for me. Just one level difference made your equipment pretty obsolete, so you couldn't ever get attached to anything. I felt the outlier mechanics attached to it let the core combat down. A lot of good ideas in there that were really fun but when things started getting harder it just didn't do anything for me anymore. I can definitely see this. I haven't tried it since they did the giant overhaul so maybe it's better but there was definitely some gear issues. Which is not the worst thing because using telepathy and jumping around to secretly steal poo poo and find hidden chests kept me pretty geared up but still, the end game items never felt as super as they ought to have at that stage
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Apr 24, 2022 17:59
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Antigravitas posted:I have, but I'm taking Outer Worlds as an omen.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:00
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PoE 1 had pretty good combat imo but it was definitely tuned by old school infinity engine fans. There were some design oversights that needed a second opinion. Like you have to give your front-line fighters as little armour as possible and have your squishy ranged members decked out in heavy armour. This is because the AI will automatically target the group member with the lowest defenses, even if said AI is a mindless slime. Or how stat bonuses from equipment don’t stack but there isn’t any tooltip to inform the player of this. Nobody liked that mechanic in Baldur’s Gate 2, why did they carry it over?! IIRC that was patched later. E: there was even a weird design regression where they removed the status indicators for debuffs on npcs that were in the IE games. So you had to pause and mouseover a party member to see what debuffs they had. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 24, 2022 |
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Apr 24, 2022 18:05
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Fruits of the sea posted:PoE 1 had pretty good combat imo but it was definitely tuned by old school infinity engine fans. There were some design oversights that needed a second opinion. Like you have to give your front-line fighters as little armour as possible and have your squishy ranged members decked out in heavy armour. This is because the AI will automatically target the group member with the lowest defenses, even if said AI is a mindless slime. Yeah, all these games are currently in their 'final' version, either enchanced, director's cut, whatever. Divinity OS at launch apparently didn't even have an area map or something crazy like that.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:11
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While I hated most of my time with both D:OS 1 and 2, I don't see much that 2 improved over 1. The only big change was the armor system, which mostly just made it optimal to focus your team on one damage type. And I think the combat system is absolutely dreadful in both of them past the very earliest levels. Pretty much every character having a teleport (multiple for your characters because why the gently caress would you not?) and teleport other being always available meant that positioning was completely meaningless, you just jump whereever, then teleport all the enemies into a single pile for aoe. Any fancier long range plays with the teleporting start to feel like pure cheese where I on multiple occasions accidentally dropped aggro mid-encounter leading to a free full heal while the enemies stay dead. Unless you go out of your way to spend a ton of very precious action points you could have spent on damage just controlling the environment, the environmental effects just end up with the eyesore of everything always being on fire, as both poison and oil burn. The oilrig fight in 2 would be funnier if that wasn't like half the fights in acts 3-4 anyway. The one thing the games have going for them, and to be fair it is a big one, is that they're designed without many filler fights. Of course in practice, thanks to the horribly balanced massive numbers stat+loot scaling, most fights past the first area of both games end up being meaningless filler anyway.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:26
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PoE2 definitely has a lot going for it, and I'm certain there's an excellent game in there, but holy poo poo it's just so drat wide that I keep getting bogged down and lose my pace every time I try it. I'd take on some random quest to bring a thing to some island, straightforward enough, but then I arrive there and it turns out the island is huge and has a dozen important people with a dozen quests that in turn lead to new people and quests and so on.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:38
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Perestroika posted:PoE2 definitely has a lot going for it, and I'm certain there's an excellent game in there, but holy poo poo it's just so drat wide that I keep getting bogged down and lose my pace every time I try it. I'd take on some random quest to bring a thing to some island, straightforward enough, but then I arrive there and it turns out the island is huge and has a dozen important people with a dozen quests that in turn lead to new people and quests and so on. It seems like that but it's only the one main island where that happens. Everywhere else you might get 2-3 extra things to do at most. The DLC Islands are the only other ones like that but they are sort of their own entire section.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:56
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KNR posted:While I hated most of my time with both D:OS 1 and 2, I don't see much that 2 improved over 1. The only big change was the armor system, which mostly just made it optimal to focus your team on one damage type. You skipped the whole part between where the fight starts and when all enemies have their armor broken, which is the whole fight. If you can teleport your enemies then that means that their armor is already broken and they're already not an issue.
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Apr 24, 2022 19:00
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Jack Trades posted:You skipped the whole part between where the fight starts and when all enemies have their armor broken, which is the whole fight. The endless self-teleports were the bigger issue, but you still need to spend plenty of actions to disable/kill broken enemies, and it's almost always best to start that by teleporting them onto unbroken ones.
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Apr 24, 2022 19:05
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KNR posted:The endless self-teleports were the bigger issue, but you still need to spend plenty of actions to disable/kill broken enemies, and it's almost always best to start that by teleporting them onto unbroken ones. If by "issue" you mean that it was extremely more fun than two groups rolling dice at each other until one falls over, which what most CRPGs devolve into, then yes, I agree.
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Apr 24, 2022 19:11
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Wait, what the gently caress Humble? It's also not just a visual bug, since clicking on custom after selecting the default or extra charity shows the same amounts  
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Apr 24, 2022 19:23
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Please sir, we're just a small charity here at Humble Bundle owned by the same guys who own IGN.
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Apr 24, 2022 19:25
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Jack Trades posted:If by "issue" you mean that it was extremely more fun than two groups rolling dice at each other until one falls over, which what most CRPGs devolve into, then yes, I agree. Between teleporting making positioning less meaningful and armor deprecating actions that aren't just damage, I'd say the bigger difference in most fights in D:OS is that they start there instead of devolving into it. The exceptions are some more gimmicky fights like the 3-way final Fort Joy fight, the oilrig or the deathfog wizard in act 4. But I already said the proportion of interesting set pieces to meaningless filler is the one very good thing about D:OS 2. Unless you overlevel by even a single level which trivializes many set pieces.
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Apr 24, 2022 19:28
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I will admit that late game level scaling in D:OS2 is the worst part of it, which is why on replays I used both the more unique uniques mod and one that neuters level scalling to a point where there is almost none of it. Larian did reduce level scalling in Enhanced Edition compared to release and one of their Gift Bags (essentially official mods) allow you to upgrade items.
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Apr 24, 2022 19:35
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E: wrong thread, don't mind me!
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Apr 24, 2022 19:37
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Fruits of the sea posted:E: wrong thread, don't mind me! I shall never forgive you
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Apr 24, 2022 19:47
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Did anyone ever have a good breakdown of what exactly went wrong with the writing in PoE 1? I've heard "blocks of text" "grimdark and edgy" "kickstarter NPCs" and "Chris loving Avellone", but none of that really captures just how dull everything about that game is.
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Apr 24, 2022 20:30
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This is probably part of the story and Ropekid would probably correct me but IIRC they did almost all the worldbuilding and writing before they started on the game, hence the massive infodumps. They had time to do a LOT of lore. Plus it was a Kickstarter game so there was a fair bit of bloat as they kept on hitting milestones. The devs are on record saying they wanted to integrate the Endless Paths megadungeon and associated stronghold better, but couldn’t because of time or budget constraints. To their credit the game was released pretty much on schedule and without extreme crunch so their project management was on point. E: Hwurmp posted:I shall never forgive you If you enjoy rehashing tedious conversations about rtwp rpgs, this is my attempt at an apology 
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Apr 24, 2022 21:45
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I wouldn't call the writing grimdark and edgy. It's just dark, but with lots of signs that things can and will be better in the future (player willing). There's just too much writing, probably due to the Kickstarter goal creep throwing everything out of balance. The game feels unbalanced in pacing, in world building, and where it places its moments of world building. A lot of party interactions are great, though. Eder approaches Kim Kitsuragi in terms of likeability. I liked them enough that I can still remember their names, which I can't say for D:OS or Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
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Apr 24, 2022 22:03
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The first act is definitely poorly paced and has a lot of info dump lore. Things really start to move as a brisker pace once you get to Defiance Bay - basically Act 2.
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Apr 24, 2022 22:06
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v1ld posted:PoE1 fell into the walls of text trap when it came to world building, IMO. And it took too serious a tone about it. The BG and D:OS games have plenty of cheer and gleefully break the 4th wall when they want to. Likewise Pathfinder Kingmaker, it has that irreverent feel. It's called Penitent https://www.windowscentral.com/new-upcoming-xbox-exclusives-project-midnight-compulsion-and-pentiment-obsidian
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Apr 24, 2022 22:33
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As I recall in one of Ropekid's dev talks he thinks an important factor was how unpopular RTS games are now. When BG/IWD/etc were released, it was during the period where RTS games were practically the most dominant genre. People had the RTS conventions stuck in their brain and were excited to see them in an RPG. Today, RTS is pretty niche and even people who look back fondly at BG don't actually enjoy the RTS gameplay anymore. The idea of BG revisited was exciting but not actually playing it. So, people were satisfied with PoE 1 (very similar to how people reacted to Grimrock 1 vs 2). I think comparing PoE to D:OS isn't great not only because it's TB vs RTwP but also D:OS had multiplayer. Obsidian considers that a huge reason for D:OS' success and I believe Sawyer said that Urquhart has stated that any sort of PoE-ish game in the future has to have multiplayer as well. A better comparison is Kingmaker since it's pretty similar to PoE but did a lot better sales wise. Especially its sequel actually did far far better which is significant considering how much PoE's sequel sales plunged. Kingmaker does have a much lighter tone than PoE. I don't think Pathfinder is known outside of pnp circles (unlike D&D), but it does have an established fan base. Kingmaker does open with much less exposition. Kingmaker also hangs a lot of gameplay off a strategy layer that some online people complain about but perhaps a more general audience found it a nice change of pace. I feel like Kingmaker also has choices and consequences more prominent than PoE. In general Kingmaker is a bit less slavish to BG traditions. PoE 2 patched in a TB mode eventually but it's extremely awkward and has to be set from the game start and can never be altered. Kingmaker 1 had a very popular mod that added a very slick TB mode that could be toggled at any time. Owlcat recognized this and patched it into the game before the console release. The sequel launched with TB mode a first class option alongside RTwP. It really is a very slick TB mode better than any TB/RTwP toggle I've ever seen and I'd be curious if Owlcat has heuristics on how popular the two modes are.
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Apr 24, 2022 23:04
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Jimbot posted:The first act is definitely poorly paced and has a lot of info dump lore. Things really start to move as a brisker pace once you get to Defiance Bay - basically Act 2. Really? My experience was always the exact opposite. Act 1 sets up a very unique (and admittedly grim and miserable) atmosphere, introduces pretty interesting hook for the story that also gives you a sense of urgency and almost every quest and side-quest you come across is interconnected with main plot and the situation you are in. In comparison, Act 2 is like crashing into a brick wall in the middle of a sprint. You are in generic fantasy big city, there are hundreds of meaningless side-quests everywhere and the "hook" for main quest can be summarized as "there are some things, somewhere that you should probably go and check at some time for some reason". There is simultaneously so much to do that you don't know where to begin and no reason to begin doing anything at all. Almost every re-play of PoE 1 that I attempted crashed and burned at the beginning of Act 2.
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Apr 24, 2022 23:19
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FuzzySlippers posted:PoE 2 patched in a TB mode eventually but it's extremely awkward and has to be set from the game start and can never be altered. Kingmaker 1 had a very popular mod that added a very slick TB mode that could be toggled at any time. Owlcat recognized this and patched it into the game before the console release. The sequel launched with TB mode a first class option alongside RTwP. It really is a very slick TB mode better than any TB/RTwP toggle I've ever seen and I'd be curious if Owlcat has heuristics on how popular the two modes are. As a player who cares less about narrative story in RPGs and more about mechanics, challenge, combat, character progression, and the emergent storyline that comes from interacting with the game's mechanics, both pathfinder games are in my list of top CRPGs of all time and this is a big part of the reason why. I've always been bad at RTS games and tracking six individual on-screen units and what they're doing and about to do and what they've been affected with is too much for me, even when I can pause I have a hard time parsing the on-screen action when the game is unpaused and they rarely have a good enough UI to easily be able to tell what's going on with each unit. But purely turn-based RPGs lose my interest whenever I have to fight my umpteenth weak chaff encounter and sit around waiting through turns, and they often completely throw off my personal pacing when I'm starting to get interested in some non-combat stuff and then I have to fight a slow turn-based battle. Both Pathfinder games would be an absolute slog if they were purely turn-based. Having the option to play in real-time through the meaningless chaff encounters and switch to tabletop-authentic turn-based for anything that's a challenge or where I need to manage my resources is what it took to make CRPGs consistently fun for me all the way through.
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Apr 24, 2022 23:26
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deep dish peat moss posted:As a player who cares less about narrative story in RPGs and more about mechanics, challenge, combat, character progression, and the emergent storyline that comes from interacting with the game's mechanics, both pathfinder games are in my list of top CRPGs of all time and this is a big part of the reason why. I've always been bad at RTS games and tracking six individual on-screen units and what they're doing and about to do and what they've been affected with is too much for me, even when I can pause I have a hard time parsing the on-screen action when the game is unpaused and they rarely have a good enough UI to easily be able to tell what's going on with each unit. But purely turn-based RPGs lose my interest whenever I have to fight my umpteenth weak chaff encounter and sit around waiting through turns, and they often completely throw off my personal pacing when I'm starting to get interested in some non-combat stuff and then I have to fight a slow turn-based battle. I think that's on point, because PoE1 and Tyranny have absolutely atrocious encounter design, with a lot of trash fights in featureless plains meant to attrition you in games with plenty of camping supplies and no time pressure. It also has relevant setpiece fights where you do have to think and feedback in the game feels awful to me, even in slow motion or while constantly pausing. Pillars 2 has better encounter design, but it is not really on a level I'd consider good.
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Apr 25, 2022 00:25
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Xander77 posted:Did anyone ever have a good breakdown of what exactly went wrong with the writing in PoE 1? I've heard "blocks of text" "grimdark and edgy" "kickstarter NPCs" and "Chris loving Avellone", but none of that really captures just how dull everything about that game is. IIRC it's because they went with their first draft.
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Apr 25, 2022 01:24
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im trying to remember the name of a game. it was a 3rd person action rpg i think with maybe annoying survival mechanics that could be played coop split screen. i think it came out around the same time as greedfall but i may be wrong. i thought it was called outlander or outlands or something but thats not bringing it up anyone know what game im talking about?
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Apr 25, 2022 02:15
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Kly posted:im trying to remember the name of a game. it was a 3rd person action rpg i think with maybe annoying survival mechanics that could be played coop split screen. i think it came out around the same time as greedfall but i may be wrong. i thought it was called outlander or outlands or something but thats not bringing it up Outriders? There wasn't really any survival mechanics in that though. Edit: I don't think you could do splitscreen either
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Apr 25, 2022 02:17
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