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Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
It isn't "pretty good" when everything is happening in microsecond intervals and there isn't even a filter. Even then, you aren't looking at the combat log the entire combat to know what is going on and you really can't, you have to pause constantly, read the combat log, unpause, pause, read the combat log etc. How is this a clear and intuitive system? The UI in general being terrible at conveying any kind of useful information doesn't help.
this isnt exclusive to poe. This is all retatardation suffered by most if not all rtwp

The BGs had "Rounds", ie 6-sec turns. Which made them much clearer to read through. I am not blaming Josh for deciding to get rid of them, it looked like the obvious thing to try. But the roundless system doesn't work out quite so well.

I think he nixed rounds so he could add action speed and recovery as additional mechanics, and they are (IMO) extremely cool.
Additionally it removed the degenerate gameplay which the rounds mechanics had, the running around like a monkey with no cost part.

It's obvious it resulted in readability issues for majority of players though, the question is how you would combat/add the above while retaining fixed 6 sec rounds?
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
As far as I remember from PoE, recovery times were different for each individual/weapon, weren't they? So there was no "organize your tactics around X-sec intervals" (for EVERYONE). This is a huge difference. The 6-sec intervals gave perspective to the action sequence, helped players organize their tactics along time. I agree that the short duration of the actions and effects in PoE added to the problem.

I thought that Rounds were nixed to solve the fake-attack-animation issue. Anyway, I don't know how recovery could be combined with rounds, it would probably cause more problems that it is worth. There is Weapon Speed (which translates to attack delay and initiative) in BGs, and I am content with it.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,889
As far as I remember from PoE, recovery times were different for each individual/weapon, weren't they? So there was no "organize your tactics around X-sec intervals" (for EVERYONE). This is a huge difference. The 6-sec intervals gave perspective to the action sequence, helped players organize their tactics along time. I agree that the short duration of the actions and effects in PoE added to the problem.

I thought that Rounds were nixed to solve the fake-attack-animation issue. Anyway, I don't know how recovery could be combined with rounds, it would probably cause more problems that it is worth. There is Weapon Speed (which translates to attack delay and initiative) in BGs, and I am content with it.
Both action and recovery times are too short and influenced differently by your stats, what you are wearing and what weapons you are using or what spell you are casting. Add to that as you said that each character has independent action and recovery times and you get an unreadable clusterfuck where you need to pause at least once per second to able to direct your team efficiently.
 

Sensuki

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
9,799
Location
New North Korea
Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
I thought that Rounds were nixed to solve the fake-attack-animation issue.

The fake animations can be removed in the BG2 engine by the ToBEx mod ; I doubt that was the reason it was chosen.

All the way back to the original KS JES had this idea that wouldn't it be great if the game would do complex math under the hood and the player wouldnt need to worry about it, and attacked the round system in RTwP. One of the aims with the design was to make it easier for newer players to pick up, and I would argue that the design fails hard there.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
It's harder to keep track of for both veterans and new players, so that backfired. Like I said, it feels like it hasn't been playtested in a practical way, it's more theory over actual play. Or at least it wasn't given enough attention and it was designed around telemetry, statistics and a misunderstanding of modern AAA design rather than actual people. Hence the "hello, fellow humans" quality of it. It's not really connected to Josh's desires to change what he didn't like about the IE games, that's absolutely fine and it's much better than not having any vision at all, it's simply an issue of playtesting and tweaking of speeds. The thing I disagree fundamentally with is % action speed, it gets much harder to track everything due to losing the rhythmic nature of the IE rounds and gets harder to balance due to not knowing the amount of actions anyone can perform in any given time span.
 
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Urthor

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
1,872
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
https://www.growly.io/investing-on-fig-insight-from-a-veteran-investor/

Reminder the breakeven point for this game is 593221 units at an average selling price of $23.60. And we are a fair bit away from that.

Obsidian meeting Bioware in the dumping grounds?

The problem is most people would guesstimate based off NPD sales that Mass Effect Andromeda probably was in fact financially successful, despite all of its issues. Andromeda sold extremely well in the physical boxed copies market, which is measure by analysts who track physical retail and sell those numbers to investment banks for $$$, in the order of millions of copies physical only.

2 million times $40 is 80 million big ones, and whilst nobody will ever know the exact figures given the retail sales numbers are shadily known based off nerds in JP Morgan leaking numbers (this actually happened on Neogaf for years), and how much EA makes off digital, especially console digital sales, it likely made a lot of money even though it was so hamfisted.
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Bioware's problem isn't making money -it's meeting EA's expectations.

Anthem is in the spotlight... if it doesn't sell what EA wills, maybe they dump Bioware looking for a more money-printing studio.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
Bioware shouldn't have sold themselves to EA. I know they did it for higher budgets, but it comes with too many strings attached and EA can easily escort you to the back of the shed.
 

Nano

Arcane
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Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,648
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
Bioware shouldn't have sold themselves to EA. I know they did it for higher budgets, but it comes with too many strings attached and EA can easily escort you to the back of the shed.
BioWare was always gonna be bought, those owners want dem dolla bills.

Wasn't Microsoft also a candidate for buying them? I'm assuming, with MS being the publisher of Mass Effect 1 and Jade Empire. If that was the case, I'd say EA was the lesser evil.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
EA is also the publisher of Ass Defect, I don't know how that works, but there you go. It's undeniable their design principles shifted considerably after their acquisition, though, so the "strings attached" part is noticeable right away. EA shut them down immediately after a single blunder and put the entire IP on ice, so yeah, I don't know what's it like to work under such conditions. A single "failure", even though it has sold over 2M copies, and you are out seems like nerve-wrecking stress that isn't worth it.
 
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Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Microsoft worse than EA? I don't really think so.

Microsoft could potentially have made just another Rare out of Bioware, i. e. leaving them to rot without releasing anything. But since Mass Effect 1 was a big success and all, I don't think that would have been the case. Bioware could potentially have been better off under Microsoft's wing, reinforcing the Western aspect of the Xboxes with their Western RPGs.

Besides, I think that with Bioware games as MS' exclusives, they'd have to sell less copies than being multiplatform with EA.

Aaaaaaaanyway, things aren't looking good for Obsidian with POE2.
 
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Nano

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
4,648
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
EA is also the publisher of Ass Defect, I don't know how that works, but there you go.

Microsoft published the Xbox 360 version before EA's acquisition.

Microsoft worse than EA? I don't really think so.

Microsoft could potentially have made just another Rare out of Bioware, i. e. leaving them to rot without releasing anything. But since Mass Effect 1 was a big success and all, I don't think that would have been the case. Bioware could potentially have been better off under Microsoft's wing, reinforcing the Western aspect of the Xboxes with their Western RPGs.

Besides, I think that with Bioware games as MS' exclusives, they'd have to sell less copies than being multiplatform with EA.
You mean you would've preferred BioWare's games becoming Xbox exclusives? Even with Microsoft's new policy of games being cross-platform on Xbox One and Windows 10, they're still making sure the experience is as miserable as possible with the buggy Windows Store as well as an ungodly amount of DRM.
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Since Bioware circa 2007 was still renowned and all, it could have painted a more interesting picture for the current gen than the pummeling XBone has received from the PS4.

I wouldn't have played the three Dragon Ages, but I think I can live with that ;) Maybe I'd have committed the blunder of buying an Xbox for that (I did buy a PC with the whole purpose of playing Origins).

Either way, if MS did purchase Bioware it was for making exclusives, obviously...
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,648
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
I didn't realize there are people here who actually care about console wars.

I wouldn't have played the three Dragon Ages, but I think I can live with that ;) Maybe I'd have committed the blunder of buying an Xbox for that (I did buy a PC with the whole purpose of playing Origins).
Fuck that noise. Even putting aside the inherent decline in console gaming, one of the great things about Origins was its modding support and the resulting modding community.
 
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Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Oh, I don't care about console wars, I just sit and watch. But back in 2009, I might have considered actually buying a console. Then, maybe not.

My last non-portable console was a 1999 Playstation 1.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
Oh, I don't care about console wars, I just sit and watch. But back in 2009, I might have considered actually buying a console. Then, maybe not.

My last non-portable console was a 1999 Playstation 1.
The only console i had in my life was this one:
fa046be5429d58e35608fd4ed39cfb4e.jpg
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
This was a bit after the regime fell, the economy did pick up a bit then and I wouldn't say we were poor, but I have no idea how much it cost.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
This was a bit after the regime fell, the economy did pick up a bit then and I wouldn't say we were poor, but I have no idea how much it cost.
Maybe it could have been one of the knock offs. Yeah i do remember those times,maybe that was the best decade for us :),nice middle line between freedom and order. I do remember all the cassettes at the bazaars. 1000games in cassette,buy two now and get third for free :).
 

Flou

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 23, 2016
Messages
869
Location
Hellsinki
Bioware shouldn't have sold themselves to EA. I know they did it for higher budgets, but it comes with too many strings attached and EA can easily escort you to the back of the shed.

I don't think anyone asked BioWare's opinion about the deal. Wasn't BioWare kinda owned by Elevation Partners at that point?
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
Maybe. "Owned" might not be the right word in this case, Elevation Partners is a private equity firm, and they usually deal in purchasing and reselling (struggling) companies. Officially, they were investors in the Bioware/Pandemic partnership, but they might've been the de facto owners. So yeah, they might not have had any choice. Fun fact: John Riccitiello, everyone's favorite president/CEO of EA, is a co-founder of Elevation Partners. He's also the CEO of Unity Technologies, the developers of another fan favorite - the Unity engine. It's very fun how incestuous this whole thing is.
 
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Azarkon

Arcane
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
2,989
I think he nixed rounds so he could add action speed and recovery as additional mechanics, and they are (IMO) extremely cool.
Additionally it removed the degenerate gameplay which the rounds mechanics had, the running around like a monkey with no cost part.

It's obvious it resulted in readability issues for majority of players though, the question is how you would combat/add the above while retaining fixed 6 sec rounds?

You don't have to retain fixed 6 second rounds. All you needed were: clean visual effects, less stacking effects, longer effects that are more significant, slightly slower combat speed, cut the amount of abilities by like 80%, then balance the rest of the game accordingly.

The biggest mistake of Pillars of Eternity's combat system isn't getting rid of the 6 seconds round system, it's the prevalence of a bazillion stacked spell effects that are short lasting and which have poor visual representation, along side a huge addition of per encounter abilities. In Baldur's Gate, you could see a web spell wrap enemies in place, you could see a sleep spell cause them to doze off, you could see a hold monster spell petrify them. The game got by without you having to stack 4 to 5 different detrimental effects on an enemy in order to get through its absurd defenses; it got by without the vast majority of beneficial effects lasting 15 seconds requiring you to keep track of them constantly; and it got by with most of its classes not having to do anything other than click and attack.

A mage armor in Baldur's Gate last, what, 20 minutes? Even the vast majority of 1 round per level effects eventually last through the entire combat by the time you used them regularly. Had you replaced Baldur's Gate's list of spells with Pillars of Eternity's spells, Baldur's Gate would also have a problem with effects constantly stacking on and falling off, and consequently a similar amount of second to second player management.

The perfect description of Pillars of Eternity's system, which I came across in a video review, is that it's not real time with pause, but pause with real time. The only way to play the game is to pause every ability refresh cycle, which isn't synchronized obviously, so you'll be pausing all the time. This completely wastes the real time aspects of the combat, and you might as well go to a turn based system, which is what Pillars of Eternity's game system was actually designed for, with its tedious management.

A 6 seconds round might help make the combat feel less of a mess, but it'd still suck, because you'd still be pausing every round to mouse over effects and click abilities. The only reason the game is at all capable of being enjoyed is because the AI can handle most fights at lower difficulty levels. It is a frustrating experience when you're actually trying to control all 5 or 6 characters.

But this has all been said before, so I'm not sure why we're still repeating it. The system sucks because it's too tedious and complicated for real time with pause - emphasis on real time here because the system was inspired by real time strategy games where a professional gamer managing three marines with no abilities can be considered impressive. Sawyer should've made the game turn-based; or just admitted that he didn't understand what real time with pause is, because it's ridiculous this shit was able to make it through play testing.
 
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