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ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist

mitochondritom posted:

It's a solved problem (i.e just make it go away, or make groups like Pillars did). Why does it exist. Ugh.

And it's not like this issue was solved just by PoE. Dragon Age Origins is probably the most famous game that tries to evolve D&D systems vibes without the irritations. Like Pillars it has grazes to escape all kind of problems of D&D, it solved prebuffing by turning all the long-term buffs into modal ability eating mana/stamina, it had perks for fighting styles instead of weapons. It might have been balanced poorly but it had none of PF issues and didn't seem to lose much. I think people don't remember it doing this stuff because it was overshadowed by narrative novelties of this game and also changes (and lower quality) of later games. Not trying to diminish PoE take on d20 here, just saying that removing all the things that don't work for a PC adaptation of d20 ideas is not novel at all.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

They're bound by using 1st edition pathfinder. It's just outdated.

This I don't get. I understand they already made some changes for PC adaptation, and a lot of systems like Kingdom/Crusade/Mythic paths/Some classes weren't in the original tabletop game, at least not in this form. I'd understand the desire to keep it pure and close to the scripture if they made some sort of a module constructor a la Neverwinter Nights, but they didn't do that. Also I understand WH Rogue Trader (an Owlacat game I've actually finished and enjoyed) is very iconoclastic against the tabletop rules. I hope Owlcat's next endeavour into Golarion tries to be good instead of being true to form. I enjoy their take on a simpler kitchensink fantasy world.

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Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
This morning I was listening to some podcasters answer the question "What can tabletop learn from video games and vice versa." Tabletop still has a lot to learn from video game design, but as for the reverse, I don't think there's anything.

Radia
Jul 14, 2021

And someday, together.. We'll shine.

chaosapiant posted:

What is the IE Mod exactly? I've got the Enhanced UI installed for Deadfire and like the color coding stuff it does.

It has a bunch of stuff I don't care about in it, but it has a lot of QoL stuff too, like "you can pick up maybe a third campfire supply if ur good on the way home" and "wanna move zippy fast while sneaky beakying? ok here u go!!"

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Halloween Jack posted:

This morning I was listening to some podcasters answer the question "What can tabletop learn from video games and vice versa." Tabletop still has a lot to learn from video game design, but as for the reverse, I don't think there's anything.

Nah. Tabletop design iterates faster and there are fewer barriers to entry, so there are just lots more ideas.

The main thing I'd like to see more games.adopt from *modern* tabletop is design simplicity: give me a ruleset I can understand drunk. Just because you have a big complicated math engine doesn't mean you have to use it (pillars blows this btw).

The biggest best thing 5e did was collapse a bunch of poo poo into advantage, bounded accuracy, and attunement slots. The system is still loose enough to allow for a lot of stuff but it all collapses back down into a system you can still understand while drunk or stoned, and that's a great thing.

mitochondritom
Oct 3, 2010

ilitarist posted:

And it's not like this issue was solved just by PoE. Dragon Age Origins is probably the most famous game that tries to evolve D&D systems vibes without the irritations. Like Pillars it has grazes to escape all kind of problems of D&D, it solved prebuffing by turning all the long-term buffs into modal ability eating mana/stamina, it had perks for fighting styles instead of weapons. It might have been balanced poorly but it had none of PF issues and didn't seem to lose much. I think people don't remember it doing this stuff because it was overshadowed by narrative novelties of this game and also changes (and lower quality) of later games. Not trying to diminish PoE take on d20 here, just saying that removing all the things that don't work for a PC adaptation of d20 ideas is not novel at all.


Yeah, that's a fair point. I did enjoy Dragon Age Origins overall. Been thinking about it a bit and I have realized my stance is pretty wishy washy. I dislike how 3E did all that and like how Pillars approached it. But, was considering how Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim did things too and I don't really like the merging of the "skills" to one vs two handed (anticipation of picking weapon vs spell for ES6 as the only two options). I guess I don't know what the hell I want.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


5e using bounded accuracy actually isn't a point in its favor, because it works out to fighters missing just under half the time.

The bedrock design goal of 5e is actually nostalgia, and the nostalgia they are targeting involves a significant slice of the classes just whiffing. Compare to pf2e, where fighters crit more often than they miss, or other systems where they don't even roll to hit, they just roll damage -- because fighting is their thing, and they should be good at it.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

wiegieman posted:

5e using bounded accuracy actually isn't a point in its favor, because it works out to fighters missing just under half the time.

The bedrock design goal of 5e is actually nostalgia, and the nostalgia they are targeting involves a significant slice of the classes just whiffing. Compare to pf2e, where fighters crit more often than they miss, or other systems where they don't even roll to hit, they just roll damage -- because fighting is their thing, and they should be good at it.

Again though Gloomhaven solves this quite elegantly by just moving to "miss on a 1 only" and also "decks not dice."

D&d has always broken down above level 12 or so anyway, it has nested layers of issues.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

mitochondritom posted:

The above is the sole reason that I can't abide the Pathfinder games. It's so absurd that you can't just use the cool stuff you find because I didn't have the foresight to spec into some niche weapon from level 1, and if you don't have 3+ feats, well, you're just hosed son.

It's a solved problem (i.e just make it go away, or make groups like Pillars did). Why does it exist. Ugh.

I think this mod helps, and is barely cheating imho.

https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/217?tab=description

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
Recently I've played WH40K Rogue Trader and it reminded me of Tyranny in terms of narrative. I think Tyranny does best this whole narrative about how you're an adventurer going into dungeons but you're also a leader of a geopolitical power. Its worldbuilding and choices are much more interesting than RT even if the writing is somewhat uneven. But maybe I'm just picky when it comes to fantasy Bronze Age worlds, I think that Age of Decadence writing is atrocious but people seem to love it.

Anyway, Tyranny is an Obsidian RPG I've played the least (well except for Dungeon Siege 3) because I didn't like the combat. It has a classic issue of allowing me to play in a boring but effective way, like turning all your characters into healers, which makes the fights long and boring and safe. To spice things up I decided to not do that and try Trial of Iron. It probably sounds trivial to some of you but I don't really do such self-imposed challenges in games and I have no dreams about The Ultimate, and I'm grateful to PoE2 allowing me to have 100% achievements without ever touching metagame options. Anyway, my unarmed lightweight brawler Ironicus died in Act 2 in some fight with nameless enemies when I decided to switch to party members I haven't tried on my first playthrough. This felt cool and meaningful and fulfilling. I felt the urge to start again but then I realized that out of 8 hours I've played 6 hours were spent on talking to people thinking about options. This is one of the last RPGs I've played that has vast dialogue trees allowing you to ask every street vendor what's his opinion on some of the important historical events. In most games like that you can ignore most of the conversations on replays but here the reputation system works in such a way that the best thing you can do is make eveyrone love AND hate you, as most actions/options fill these separate bars giving separate benefits and very few lower them. The beast inside me that craves effective play even if it bores me to death demands going through every conversation and clicking all the options and reading all the lore again and again - and this part gets old even on the first playthrough, no matter how interesting Voices of Nerat is you get enough of hearing about him after 14th character tells you he's a creep. The game is supposed to be replayable but sadly this part makes me hesitant to start again.

Which made me think of Pillars of Eternity 2 which is a game I call at night when I'm drunk. Its conversation model is similar to previous games but really it's closer to Mass Effect or Dragon Age 2-3 - you mostly have natural conversations with people and you only go through the list of questions with designated guide characters or when you discuss aspects of a specific issue. Knowing how much fights you can skip in this game I guess it's a much easier game to Iron Man through but also much harder game to properly Iron Man through doing everything and not backing out of fights. So maybe that's what I try again while promising myself I will not attempt fighting digsite drake.

Writing this post I've also realized that both in PoE2 and Tyranny you can turn off conversation hints telling you about reputation gain which would probably make conversations feel less like a whackamole, and also make you less bitter about missing some possible gains cause you might as well have missed some conversational traps. You know what, I'll go and do that. Thank you for listening, dear PoE2 thread. The only problem is I can't think of a name as good as Ironicus.

No Dignity
Oct 15, 2007

ilitarist posted:

The only problem is I can't think of a name as good as Ironicus.

Chip

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist

For some reason the memory of Chip and Ironicus was erased from my mind and I just came to it by modifying an evil wizard's name to make him more of an iron man. Thank you for this reminder.

ilitarist fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Apr 24, 2024

v1ld
Apr 16, 2012


Ferronious, Ferronious Monk.

Weak pun on iron, but I like it so much I'm going to use it.

Re conversation trees. I'm replaying The Witcher 3 and one of the mods I'm trying for the first time is Automatic Dialog Picker.

There's a linked video, but essentially it just picks all the non-consequential dialog options for you. This works beautifully since TW3, like KOTOR and other games of that type, has fully voiced and animated cutscene dialog where picking options is actively interrupting what would otherwise be a neat cinematic moment. It stops and gives you control when the only options left are consequential choices.

Works well because of the style of dialog in that game. While playing it I was thinking of how it works apply to other games and its not going to work for text games at all I think.

But it did also make me think that sometimes it's nice to have a game that doesn't gamify dialog at all.

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
The purist in me says of course you have to gamify dialogue, we are playing an RPG here, we need stats and numbers everywhere. But with Tyranny as an example I see a system that is mostly about clicking all the options that make numbers go up. And if you hide the numbers you will frustrate first-time players a lot, especially in a game like Tyranny with unconventional morals and player role (as in unlike in most RPGs it reliably pays to be a dick). Tricky!

I think Mass Effect 3 had an option to automate conversations? I never used it but it's probably similar to a mod like that. This makes sense as an option in games like that.

Woolie Wool
Jun 2, 2006


I like the more eccentric aspects of D&Dlike game design and would rather not see such games dumb down their rules for people who don't like d20/Vancian systems

Avalerion
Oct 19, 2012

ilitarist posted:

I think Mass Effect 3 had an option to automate conversations? I never used it but it's probably similar to a mod like that. This makes sense as an option in games like that.

It had a "narrative mode" where you were pretty much invincible and stuff died in a few hits and "action mode" where it automated all the rpg elements (didn't even get to make a character or pick a class), conversations were just cut scenes to got you to the shooty bits faster.

Insurrectionist
May 21, 2007

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Nah. Tabletop design iterates faster and there are fewer barriers to entry, so there are just lots more ideas.

The main thing I'd like to see more games.adopt from *modern* tabletop is design simplicity: give me a ruleset I can understand drunk. Just because you have a big complicated math engine doesn't mean you have to use it (pillars blows this btw).

The biggest best thing 5e did was collapse a bunch of poo poo into advantage, bounded accuracy, and attunement slots. The system is still loose enough to allow for a lot of stuff but it all collapses back down into a system you can still understand while drunk or stoned, and that's a great thing.

I disagree about this, it's really valuable for tabletop because it works to facilitate the social and multiplayer aspects of the game. But a regular CRPG built on those principles would bore me to death to play solo. I appreciate 5e at the table even if its not my favorite, meanwhile it's the biggest issue I have with BG3 and Larian actually added a variety of extra stuff to fiddle with there beyond the base ruleset like the tadpoles, equipment mod synergies, etc.

v1ld
Apr 16, 2012

ilitarist posted:

The purist in me says of course you have to gamify dialogue, we are playing an RPG here, we need stats and numbers everywhere. But with Tyranny as an example I see a system that is mostly about clicking all the options that make numbers go up. And if you hide the numbers you will frustrate first-time players a lot, especially in a game like Tyranny with unconventional morals and player role (as in unlike in most RPGs it reliably pays to be a dick). Tricky!

I think Mass Effect 3 had an option to automate conversations? I never used it but it's probably similar to a mod like that. This makes sense as an option in games like that.

It works in TW3 since until you get to the last DLC all dialog options are informational or purely conversational except for the marked yellow ones which are choices and some of which have consequence (including 4-5 that change Ciri's ending). Conversation in this game does a fantastic job of fleshing out the world and the characters in it, most of all Geralt since he is emphatically not a blank slate for you to write on.

I think the 3-valued dialog systems (light, neutral, dark) of KOTOR and ME were my least favorite. Dialog is a primary means of fleshing out the world, characters, plot, you name it. When you're reading the words and seeing character build and stat effects instead I think you lose a lot of that fleshing out and cheapen the whole experience.

FNV with its faction impact was my favorite because that's what you expect dialog to do - impact people. But changing the color of your lightsaber through words is an unexpected bit of physics!

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist

v1ld posted:

I think the 3-valued dialog systems (light, neutral, dark) of KOTOR and ME were my least favorite. Dialog is a primary means of fleshing out the world, characters, plot, you name it. When you're reading the words and seeing character build and stat effects instead I think you lose a lot of that fleshing out and cheapen the whole experience.

FNV with its faction impact was my favorite because that's what you expect dialog to do - impact people. But changing the color of your lightsaber through words is an unexpected bit of physics!

KotOR and Mass Effect where quite bad at it because a lot of dialogue was about playing mini-game about finding which option gives you the right morality points. When I see a system like that I just try to play naturally and not to game it. But this was before I played Mass Effect 2 where if you had not enough points in one of the morality bars you couldn't resolve internal problems in your team which ultimately led to (somewhat) bad ending. The bad ending itself was somewhat cool, but the way you get there but not sticking to being calm/angry all of the time was very disappointing.

Pillars of Eternity 2 has shades of that, but unless you're playing a Paladin you don't get much out of sticking to certain behaviors. If anything, I'd say it's too easy to quickly gain reputation enough to get all the benefits from it, mosto of the checks I saw just see if you're, say, honest level 2 out of 4.

(By the way, there are extremely cool interactions in PoE2 where you can say something dumb or offensive and people dismiss it because of your "clever" reputation, they just think you're some kind of joker)

Tyranny is somewhat similar to Mass Effect/KotOR in that you get real gameplay benefits from reputation scores, it's not just a flavor and even not just gating of certain quests. I thought it's a pity that PoE2 reputation system is so low-impact (but I say this as a coward who never played in such a way so that they're chasen by faction assassins) but with Tyranny I see why this works. In Tyranny the objectively right way to play is to pester everybody and tell them all the options that will cause loyalty/fear reaction. Sometimes you can even chose both options one after the other, as in "I think you did right thing in that backstory you just told me [Loyalty gain]" and then "Judging by that backstory you're a whimp [Fear gain]". It's not like you lose a lot of bonuses if you speak naturally instead of picking the right options, but you still do lose bonuses.

FNV is hard to complain about but I feel its dialogue often fails to provide a good motivation for a player. Also the game is full of talkative bigger than life characters and you're rarely allowed to tell them they're full of poo poo, which is not really a problem cause you can convey this message with a rocket launcher.

isk
Oct 3, 2007

You don't want me owing you

ilitarist posted:

FNV is hard to complain about but I feel its dialogue often fails to provide a good motivation for a player. Also the game is full of talkative bigger than life characters and you're rarely allowed to tell them they're full of poo poo, which is not really a problem cause you can convey this message with a rocket launcher.

For me, the dialogue and the player responses are the motivation. It's liberating. I'm not motivated to think about min-maxing a gauge. Quest rewards muddy this a bit, but it is one less factor. Overall, it's easier to pick what's cool or funny or interesting

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
I meant that FNV doesn't give my character an opportunity to explain their narrative motivation through dialogue option and it doesn't suit otherwise cynical game. Other Obsidian games do it great, including Tyranny.

Woolie Wool
Jun 2, 2006


Finished a playthrough as a wizard/rogue siding with Captain Aeldys, my first playthrough on Veteran and my first in turn-based mode (I did a paladin playthrough on Classic difficulty way back in 2018). I was really surprised how easy this game is on Veteran, especially after the first island. The Engwithan Digsite was pretty tough, but after that it was almost entirely smooth sailing (:dadjoke:) until the end. I feel like TB suffers from not having an attacks-per-round mechanic like D&D does, as martial characters do a lot less damage than casters and this disparity only gets worse as the levels rack up.

Captainicus
Feb 22, 2013



Woolie Wool posted:

Finished a playthrough as a wizard/rogue siding with Captain Aeldys, my first playthrough on Veteran and my first in turn-based mode (I did a paladin playthrough on Classic difficulty way back in 2018). I was really surprised how easy this game is on Veteran, especially after the first island. The Engwithan Digsite was pretty tough, but after that it was almost entirely smooth sailing (:dadjoke:) until the end. I feel like TB suffers from not having an attacks-per-round mechanic like D&D does, as martial characters do a lot less damage than casters and this disparity only gets worse as the levels rack up.

Martials only deal less if you have zero rogues/half rogues

Rogue with deathblows + sneak attacks (both scale up with PL) starts at +150% damage on attacks and that only gets better as you add on the damage from any active skill. Granted, there are other classes than rogue and they may disappoint you that they don't get +150% damage for free but that is the way it is

moot the hopple
Apr 26, 2008

dyslexic Bowie clone
Pure bonus damage matters more on turn-based, while in real-time, action speed and recovery modifiers as well as free/extra attacks account for a big portion of martial DPS. Luckily, these are ingrained and quintessential features of all martial kits. Fighters get recovery reduction and free attacks with kills, Rangers get bouncing attacks and access to a Dexterity Inspiration, Monks get action speed and free attacks on crits, Barbarians get action speed and increased/instant recovery with kills, Paladins can get a Dexterity Inspiration, and Rogues get counterattacks on enemy misses. After a certain threshold once you've addressed all the other issues that may be holding your martial classes back such as not having enough accuracy to land your hits or enough penetration to get through enemy armor, these action speed modifiers and free attacks can be the more important coefficient for dealing maximal weapon damage. I do think that certain casters with their high level spells can end up dominating the battlefield in terms of damage by the end game, but a martial class properly built for DPS who's been dealing damage consistently throughout the span of the game doesn't get obsoleted since it's always useful to have someone who can swing a sword or shoot a bow once all the spell casts have been spent, not to mention all the additional things martial classes do such as forming battle lines to block off enemies and hold aggro. I've played custom parties made up of min-maxed characters, and oftentimes a properly specced martial build manages to finish the game with more total damage dealt than the pure nuker caster in the party.

(This is on the real-time, though, so much of the above of that makes these classes able to hold their own in the originally designed ruleset gets unfortunately bastardized in the conversion to turn-based).

Woolie Wool
Jun 2, 2006


Captainicus posted:

Martials only deal less if you have zero rogues/half rogues

Rogue with deathblows + sneak attacks (both scale up with PL) starts at +150% damage on attacks and that only gets better as you add on the damage from any active skill. Granted, there are other classes than rogue and they may disappoint you that they don't get +150% damage for free but that is the way it is

I did have a half-rogue for my PC but the other half was wizard so I alternated between nuking people with Ninagauth's Shadowflame and shanking people with Strike the Bell/Killing Blow backstabs and did way more damage than anyone else in the party :v:

moot the hopple
Apr 26, 2008

dyslexic Bowie clone
To be fair, that will often be the case for everyone's main character when compared to story companions and if you're not going for more of a support character yourself. It's not surprising to be the damage leader when your main is guaranteed to be in the party for all fights and you can customize all aspects of their build, including their attributes and their subclasses which makes a significant difference. On the other hand, companions are mostly balanced and not super optimized to a dagger's point like a min-maxed munchkin main can be. Their multiclass and subclass options and even their attribute spread are dictated more by story considerations like their personality and background. They're perfectly serviceable even on POTD, and some companions with unique subclasses can be quite powerful and do things unique to them (like a chanter Tekehu with meta gear), but a player specced main can be more powerful by a magnitude compared to your average companion, which I guess is mechanically and narratively justified for someone possessing a strong soul like the Watcher.

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


also someone who got the opportunity to deliberately and intelligently recreate themselves from the ground up, with the possibility of it being retroactive depending on how much juice berath put into it

moot the hopple
Apr 26, 2008

dyslexic Bowie clone
Uh yes Berath, I reviewed my character sheet and am now ready to return to my previous, true form of an 8 foot tall orlan with 20/20 vision, the speed of a gazelle, and a 1000 lbs bench press

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
Hey here's some video that might be interesting to you all. Josh Sawyer did these vlogs from time to time, so I hope we can see more of this kind of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B4ohziRWKo

Meanwhile, I've finished my Iron Man/Normal but Expert Mode playthrough of Tyranny on my second try. This game has a truly inverted diffuculty curve, I feel like magic system is most responsible for it, so it was very anticlimactic. Just like with most similar RPGs this game gives you more appreciation for PoE2. One interesting element of this game is a conquest mode, which is a part of the character generation. You need to play the game a few times not just to understand how much it affects, but also to understand how misapplied this feature was. Most player don't even finish one playthrough, and this Conquest thing makes zero sense on your first playthrough - at least it didn't for me, I clearly saw it more like a personality test and starting abilties choice. The game tries to highlight your choices by putting [Conquest] label everywhere but it doesn't do much till you replay the game back to back and see how much has changed. Something like that would make much more sense if you had some sort of prologue where you get familiar with the environment before you decide on the world state.

PoE2 has something similar with the PoE1 consequences. I haven't touched PoE1 since the release of PoE2 and I probably won't, but luckily you can change the world state using the PoE2 itself. I did a playthrough where everyone was dead (yes, even Eder, which makes waking up in the beginning a little awkward) but in general I found this feature annoying, cause I don't remember the details of my older playthrough. At one moment the game even highlights this when some NPC says he remembers you from PoE1 and you can say oh yeah I remember you and he say dude I just saw your party on the street passing by. I hope theoretical PoE3 doesn't try to do this world state stuff, maybe just ask the player if he remembers who controls Deadfire and what did Eothas do in the end.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang

ilitarist posted:

Hey here's some video that might be interesting to you all. Josh Sawyer did these vlogs from time to time, so I hope we can see more of this kind of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B4ohziRWKo

I love those videos, and I can't get enough of them. Tim Cain does one almost every day as well (they've been linked in this thread from time to time I believe) and they're also great. It's always interesting when the developers give you their perspective on <insert topic here> ; it's always very thought out and not some random decision like some armchair game designers can post sometimes ("Ugh, Josh must hate fun because he made it more difficult to make game-breaking builds in Pillars vs how it was in BG1"). I'm sure devs don't have time (or the need nor will) to justify every single thing that was criticized in their games, but when they do, I find it's always interesting to listen.

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
It's a thankless job I imagine. I've seen too many game developers who were memefied by taking their words out of context. Tim is extremely polite and also isn't involved in anything controversial (you may not like his latest project but you wouldn't call it bad) and Josh is not afraid to speak his mind and is edgy enough I wonder how he manages to not make someone angry enough to start riots. Just recently because of Fallout TV show I saw a click bait title saying "FNV director doesn't care about Fallout lore" with the context being Josh talking like an adult about things beyond his creative control.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang

ilitarist posted:

It's a thankless job I imagine. I've seen too many game developers who were memefied by taking their words out of context.

Yes, I agree and appreciate their efforts even more because of this. You need a very special kind of thick skin to be able to take that kind of criticism - but just putting out a game exposes you to that. A lot of time people miss the point by a mile and it would kill me to be "misunderstood" so much. So I think they already have that sort of mentality where they (the named devs) somehow manage to deal with that stuff, so putting out videos explaining stuff might not expose them more than they already are.

moot the hopple
Apr 26, 2008

dyslexic Bowie clone
The terrible news today about Microsoft's closure of some Bethesda studios has me a bit worried about their ownership of Obsidian :ohdear:

I hope Avowed and OW2 can perform to whatever metric they need them to.

Wicked Them Beats
Apr 1, 2007

Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

The first Outer Worlds sold over 4 million copies, Grounded was apparently a huge success, and I don't know sales numbers for Pentiment but it was critically well-received. The fact those last two were made on shoestring budgets doesn't hurt, either.

Presumably so long as whatever they release outperforms Redfall they'll be fine, but can't do anything about it one way or the other.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Yeah, unfortunately we live in a world where movie studios are routinely just deleting well reviewed, potentially profitable films, just so they can deduct the loss. Late stage capitalism ain't great

Wicked Them Beats
Apr 1, 2007

Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Honestly, Obsidian has been on the knife's edge for well over a decade, so this isn't anything new. They were almost always at the whim of publishers before, and the studio nearly died a few times when major projects got canceled.

Hopefully the shareholders won't demand them as a blood sacrifice. But maybe they'll survive because there's plenty of Bethesda left to cut.

moot the hopple
Apr 26, 2008

dyslexic Bowie clone
What's the most worrisome to me is that Arkane Austin was apparently in the middle of working on already planned and announced content before Microsoft pulled the plug. I don't want to get into the particulars of the development woes of Redfall, I'm just concerned over what kind of expectations Microsoft might have for its acquired studios. It took Deadfire some time after release to become profitable, after all, and I worry if MS has the kind of patience with this recent trend of dev layoffs.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang
I think the expectations for Obsidian might be a little different. They're probably seen as "those guys that make regular as well as weird RPGs we can put on GamePass" and so as long as Microsoft wants a studio to fill that niche/check that box, they're probably safe (unless they gently caress up big time, which I don't see Obsidian do given all the leads are veterans).

But it's like in that episode of Silicon Valley where one of the startup got a huge amount of funding, and the founder starts freaking out because yes, they did get a lot of money but it comes with very high expectations attached. Given Avowed is, I imagine, nowhere near, say, Star Field in terms of budget, Obsidian is probably quite down the list of studios they need to close.

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
I do hope that Obsidian nowadays is great at providing both milkable game like Grounded and widely recognized games that add prestige to the genre in general, like Pentiment and perhaps to a lesser extent Fallout New Vegas. But I kinda imagined Arkane is similar - their games are recognized as artistic, cool and smart, they're regularly on some sort of cool lists.

It's sad that immersive sim genre in general suffers from high publisher expectation. Dishonored games sold 8 million units, and you'd think it's enough for security to save them from going down after one bad game. Similarly 2 newer Deus Ex games sold 12 million units but it wasn't enough for the series to continue somehow.

I don't focus on AAA games that much but immersive sim games are exactly the games that benefit from big budgets, realistic graphics and all that. Party RPGs like PoE2 are nice when they have even fancier graphics, but to me BG3 graphical updates bring very little compared to Divinity OS2, and I happily play Spiderweb RPGs without feeling like I'm playing something technologically limited. Games like Dishonored simulate realistic environments though, if there's any place that needs big budget it's this one, and nowadays it seems only Ubisoft does something remotely close to it with Assassin's Creed series.

Anyway I wanted to play Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice in anticipation of Avowed, but nowadays I mostly play on Steam Deck and this game somehow performs very bad on SD, which is sad.

X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011
Plus the focus seems to be on Bethesda as far as cost-cutting goes (as unfair as that is), the studios acquired in the original buying spree seem to be relatively "safe", so I expect Obsidian to be fine until at least the release of The Outer Worlds 2. Still worried for them and the others though.

And it has definitely tainted my excitement for Avowed and my hopes for some news about their other projects during the Showcase in June. If Phil Spencer and the other executives make an appearance there, I hope that each and every one of their interventions is met with deafening silence.

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mystic pimp
Jul 25, 2014

Formerly-rampant human-coded AI with a sense of humor seeks bipedal oxygen-breathing cyborg for serious relationship in the galactic core. I've got cool guns if you like to break stuff. No yuppies.
I am playing pillars 1 for the first time because baldurs gate 3 pisses me off with its fragile scripting. i got to the end of act 2, gave up after dealing with constant black screens during combat and losing progress due to bugs. anyway everyone I know says pillars is the best infinity engine style rpg but that it's soooo boring. however my experience so far is that the writing is better than bg3 and i love looking at sick icewind dale backgrounds. what the hell is so boring about it... gently caress you if you dont like hanging with eder. also any game with the darklands health system has my attention

mystic pimp fucked around with this message at 19:24 on May 8, 2024

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