Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[None]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

Sorry but posts like these are cope. He's a tall dude who works out, that look gets top tier West Coast art hoe pussy if he wants it.

Truly the owner of a rippling physique:

Infinitron DYEL? Someone has gotta, because it doesn't look like Sawyer does much himself.

 

[Volourn]

Lol He blames old skool.fans fir his choices even though he bashed and mocked them while changing things fir no reason. Like the ol muscle mages. How is that old skool dnd fans' fault? Nobody asked fir that bullshit. Not surprising coming from someone who absolutely hates dnd and old school Rpger's. Lol

 

[roshan]

He felt stifled because he had to hold to his own company kickstarter mission statement about retaining an old school philosophy as a modern day successor. He isn't stifled by the fans, he is stifled by his boss, but not willing to publicly state it as such. If he wanted a new direction, say so in the kickstarter prior to the launch. If it doesn't generate the money, what does that tell you?

By Pillars 2 he can't plausibly say he had to compromise in any meaningful sense. That was quite a leap away from Pillars 1 in just about every category. I'm not even against him doing his own thing if he had the funding for a crpg project that allowed him a true blank canvas. If I were asked to do something I wasn't all in on I would either ask to be put on a different project or just simply do my job as paid.

Nostalgia may be a powerful thing but even in the case of WoW classic, much of it is an appeal to a great design philosophy that got left by the wayside without the developer even knowing they've abandoned it, or worse no longer knowing why it was appealing. Unlike seemingly most here, I actually do like PoE1 quite a bit. I just find this public lamenting to be misguided and nonsensical.

How did Pillars 2 change, mechanics wise, from Pillars 1?

 

[Zanthia]

He was definitely a good looking guy and you can't even say he's aging badly or anything.

Absolutely can. He was attractive 10 years ago, when he looked 30 years younger.

 

[roshan]

Lol He blames old skool.fans fir his choices even though he bashed and mocked them while changing things fir no reason. Like the ol muscle mages. How is that old skool dnd fans' fault? Nobody asked fir that bullshit. Not surprising coming from someone who absolutely hates dnd and old school Rpger's. Lol

All the things that made Pillars shit were a result of him thinking he knows better than all the fans. Pointless spells that do nothing, characters running helter skelter in combat, irrelevant % effects, no hard counters, per encounter abilities that you tediously spam over and over, autoresurrection, no combat xp, retarded gamist system that produced muscle mages, general uninspired everything, bad itemization, etc.

And it's weird that after not listening to the fans and botching everything, he now wants to blame the same fans for his lack of success! What a mangina!!!

 

[whydoibother]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

Sorry but posts like these are cope. He's a tall dude who works out, that look gets top tier West Coast art hoe pussy if he wants it.

Hay babe, yeah I know Chris Avellone. I might call arrange for you to see him... but what are you going to do for me first?

 

[Butter]

How did Pillars 2 change, mechanics wise, from Pillars 1?

Per-rest resources were all changed to be per-encounter (exception is the added Empower ability). The Endurance mechanic was removed, and characters get a full heal after every combat. The only lasting consequences from any given encounter are injuries that you sustain if your health drops to 0. There are no more camping supplies, but you can consume any generic food while resting (Why is resting still a mechanic? Only Josh knows.) to remove all injuries.

Buffs and debuffs were completely reworked. Now every buff and debuff is tied to an attribute and given a tier from 1 to 3. Tier 1 Perception buff removes Tier 1 Perception debuff, or downgrades Tier 2 Perception debuff to Tier 1, etc.

Damage reduction was completely reworked to be more abstract. Now every weapon and spell has a penetration value, and this is compared to the target's armor value for the specific damage type. If penetration is < armor, damage is reduced by 25% per point missing. If penetration is 2x armor or higher, damage is increased by 30%.

Concentration and Interrupt were reworked. Concentration is now a buff that completely protects you from one instance of Interrupt.

 

[Roguey]

See, this to me is what a lot of the grognard types, blinded by their miffed fury, are missing about the games. Because of that close attention to action speeds in particular, they are much better RTwP games, they flow better than the massaged tabletop of the BG/IWD RTwP games (and even the Owlcat games today). And in some senses, once you get the initially odd-seeming stats ingrained in your mind, even quite good simulationist games (except in the sense that the old games allowed fail builds - analogous to, e.g., a klutzy thief irl - and these games are deliberately more egalitarian and try to avoid that possibility).

The whole detour into RTwP with the BG/IWD was an aberration in fact. Anything based on D&D type rules should always have been turn-based, the way the rules were designed, that's their home. But once RTwP was invented, the possibility of developing game systems around that game mode opened up, and Sawyer tried to rethink it - and with POE2 pretty much succeeded.

I've come to really enjoy POE2 more each time I've played it. POE1 was okay (esp. the DLC) but for me is unbearable to play because of the hideous visual soup. But POE2 is a great game all-round. The fact that it "failed" (though note that because it's a huge game that's always there, its relative popularity has climbed steadily over the years, as non-drama-invested bored players eventually get around to trying it and like it - e.g. there's a steady flow of "Hey this is actually pretty good" YT vids) is not a reflection of its quality, but rather a reflection of the relatively small popularity of RPGs. Once the hardcore audience had given up on the series after the first game, there wasn't much of a natural audience left, and Larian had more or less soaked up whatever fringe normie audience CRPGs have with their surprise, innovative hit and its follow-up.

Big, popular CRPGs are like the saxophone hits of the gaming world, and as my ex. said about those, you're only allowed one per decade

Six second rounds are easier to comprehend. Once you get into the realm of measuring time in fractions of seconds, it's clear the system designer doesn't actually expect or even want you to pay much attention to it.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Ironically I feel like NWN was a good compromise for a lot of the design qualities that modern crpgs have been trying to do. IE was already old like 3 years after BG1 came out and noted as such in gaming media. Things were different back then though, less resistance to anything that seemed even remotely old-ish and every game was expected to involve something new and refreshing. PoE tried way too hard. I don't hate the game, and I don't hate playing it. But I never felt I was "into it", as I was even in middling crpgs of the late 90s and early 00s.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

"It isn't my fault that Pillars of Eternity 2 failed. I wanted to make the ultimate CRPG, but stupid Baldur's Gate fanboys forced my hand."

Honestly, PoE does look like an Infinity Engine game, but it does not feel or play like the Infinity Engine games. It is its own beast. It is Sawyer's beast. He owns these fucking games. Period.

 

[rojay]

See, this to me is what a lot of the grognard types, blinded by their miffed fury, are missing about the games. Because of that close attention to action speeds in particular, they are much better RTwP games, they flow better than the massaged tabletop of the BG/IWD RTwP games (and even the Owlcat games today). And in some senses, once you get the initially odd-seeming stats ingrained in your mind, even quite good simulationist games (except in the sense that the old games allowed fail builds - analogous to, e.g., a klutzy thief irl - and these games are deliberately more egalitarian and try to avoid that possibility).

The whole detour into RTwP with the BG/IWD was an aberration in fact. Anything based on D&D type rules should always have been turn-based, the way the rules were designed, that's their home. But once RTwP was invented, the possibility of developing game systems around that game mode opened up, and Sawyer tried to rethink it - and with POE2 pretty much succeeded.

I've come to really enjoy POE2 more each time I've played it. POE1 was okay (esp. the DLC) but for me is unbearable to play because of the hideous visual soup. But POE2 is a great game all-round. The fact that it "failed" (though note that because it's a huge game that's always there, its relative popularity has climbed steadily over the years, as non-drama-invested bored players eventually get around to trying it and like it - e.g. there's a steady flow of "Hey this is actually pretty good" YT vids) is not a reflection of its quality, but rather a reflection of the relatively small popularity of RPGs. Once the hardcore audience had given up on the series after the first game, there wasn't much of a natural audience left, and Larian had more or less soaked up whatever fringe normie audience CRPGs have with their surprise, innovative hit and its follow-up.

Big, popular CRPGs are like the saxophone hits of the gaming world, and as my ex. said about those, you're only allowed one per decade

Six second rounds are easier to comprehend. Once you get into the realm of measuring time in fractions of seconds, it's clear the system designer doesn't actually expect or even want you to pay much attention to it.

I thought the six second round was an abstraction made necessary by the turn-based nature of D&D? I mean, technically all actions are taking place simultaneously, but because each player (and each npc/monster) acts according to initiative, some people/monsters get to react to what other people/monsters did on their turn. Making things more complicated, 2nd edition D&D used "turn" to mean "10 rounds."

I grew up on it so I'm completely comfortable using a system like that but it's hard to call it "easier to comprehend" than using actual units of time that everyone, whether they've played D&D or not, can understand.

I get why Sawyer was trying to make his own systems rather than piggybacking off of games that were originally designed to be turn-based. The "market" said that RTwP games sold better and that's what the IE games he was trying to "capture the spirit of" used, so if he had to make a RTwP game he figured it would be better if he stopped trying to force the square peg of RTwP into the round hole of rule sets that were designed around turn-based play by using rules designed around real-time combat from the ground up.

I don't think he succeeded but I still enjoyed the Pillars games for the most part.

 

[gurugeorge]

See, this to me is what a lot of the grognard types, blinded by their miffed fury, are missing about the games. Because of that close attention to action speeds in particular, they are much better RTwP games, they flow better than the massaged tabletop of the BG/IWD RTwP games (and even the Owlcat games today). And in some senses, once you get the initially odd-seeming stats ingrained in your mind, even quite good simulationist games (except in the sense that the old games allowed fail builds - analogous to, e.g., a klutzy thief irl - and these games are deliberately more egalitarian and try to avoid that possibility).

The whole detour into RTwP with the BG/IWD was an aberration in fact. Anything based on D&D type rules should always have been turn-based, the way the rules were designed, that's their home. But once RTwP was invented, the possibility of developing game systems around that game mode opened up, and Sawyer tried to rethink it - and with POE2 pretty much succeeded.

I've come to really enjoy POE2 more each time I've played it. POE1 was okay (esp. the DLC) but for me is unbearable to play because of the hideous visual soup. But POE2 is a great game all-round. The fact that it "failed" (though note that because it's a huge game that's always there, its relative popularity has climbed steadily over the years, as non-drama-invested bored players eventually get around to trying it and like it - e.g. there's a steady flow of "Hey this is actually pretty good" YT vids) is not a reflection of its quality, but rather a reflection of the relatively small popularity of RPGs. Once the hardcore audience had given up on the series after the first game, there wasn't much of a natural audience left, and Larian had more or less soaked up whatever fringe normie audience CRPGs have with their surprise, innovative hit and its follow-up.

Big, popular CRPGs are like the saxophone hits of the gaming world, and as my ex. said about those, you're only allowed one per decade

Six second rounds are easier to comprehend. Once you get into the realm of measuring time in fractions of seconds, it's clear the system designer doesn't actually expect or even want you to pay much attention to it.

I never found that a problem. I mean basically RTwP is pre-emptive gameplay, you're in a state where the "main" feeling is realtime, with instances of frozen time that you choose, so if you're regularly pausing to anticipate trouble, having the timings of things in bite-sized chunks the way they are, so you know how much time till the next thing (e.g. till a buff runs out, in the inspection window top left), flows really well. It doesn't matter that it's a got fractions of a second in that time, what matters is that whatever length of time it is, it feels right in the context of doing that kind of pre-emptive pausing when you're dipping in and out of realtime. Bear in mind that a second can be quite a long time subjectively (think of "One mississippi, two mississipi," etc.), so parts of a second aren't that difficult for the brain to get a handle on in realtime.

Timings, stats, etc., that are relatively easily calculable in your head go more with turn-based gameplay, I think.

 

[WhiteShark]

Six second rounds are easier to comprehend. Once you get into the realm of measuring time in fractions of seconds, it's clear the system designer doesn't actually expect or even want you to pay much attention to it.

On the contrary. If every action takes six seconds and every effect lasts for a multiple of six seconds, it may as well be turn based. The only real reason to make it RTwP is if actions and effects have varying durations.

 

[Roguey]

I grew up on it so I'm completely comfortable using a system like that but it's hard to call it "easier to comprehend" than using actual units of time that everyone, whether they've played D&D or not, can understand.

It's just more things to keep track of. In the Infinity Engine games, a spell like bless is 6 rounds/36 seconds always. In Sawyer's games, the base is 20 seconds but it can be a little less or a little more depending on the caster's intelligence.

On the contrary. If every action takes six seconds and every effect lasts for a multiple of six seconds, it may as well be turn based. The only real reason to make it RTwP is if actions and effects have varying durations.

There is a clear difference in feel playing the Pathfinders in real time or turn based.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

If audience doesn't like experimenting and trying new rulesets, I wonder how does Soyer explain the success of P:K and P:WOTR which are basically grognard porn games.

 

[Immortal]

It's weird seeing the Sawyerites who were shilling his slop 8 years ago - now turn on him.
Better late than never.

If audience doesn't like experimenting and trying new rulesets, I wonder how does Soyer explain the success of P:K and P:WOTR which are basically grognard porn games.

This. I love experimenting with new builds / designs / rulesets.. just not sawyer builds / designs / rulesets.

 

[rojay]

I grew up on it so I'm completely comfortable using a system like that but it's hard to call it "easier to comprehend" than using actual units of time that everyone, whether they've played D&D or not, can understand.

It's just more things to keep track of. In the Infinity Engine games, a spell like bless is 6 rounds/36 seconds always. In Sawyer's games, the base is 20 seconds but it can be a little less or a little more depending on the caster's intelligence.

I don't disagree, but I get the motivation to build a new system designed for real-time combat rather than trying to adapt a system that is inherently turn-based to RTwP. I didn't like the combat systems in the PoE games because they were chaotic and part of that is probably because I was turned off by how opaque everything seemed to be. I remember at some point I figured the whole thing out sufficiently that I could win the game on higher difficulties, but I didn't enjoy the learning process as much as I should have.

On the contrary. If every action takes six seconds and every effect lasts for a multiple of six seconds, it may as well be turn based. The only real reason to make it RTwP is if actions and effects have varying durations.

There is a clear difference in feel playing the Pathfinders in real time or turn based.

Isn't the real reason to make RPGs real-time because that's what developers believe the market wants? I love the IE games, but I sometimes have this daydream that Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil had been cooked for another six months or a year, released in a polished state and that we could have played three or four more games in that engine.

Alas.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

The biggest difference is concurrent vs sequential when it comes to rtwp vs tb. Real time means you have parallel actions, while turn-based is typically sequential with very limited options of interruptions. The pseudo turns in BG and also in the NWN games gave the parallel actions some structure, which was helpful to since you could easily judge the situations and it kept things manageable. PoE lacked that and the fractional times were a mess that added to the chaos. Its much easier to estimate outcomes if there is some standard like the six second round. The systems in PoE1/2 are needlessly convoluted and unintuitive. For example something which should be very basic, like the calculation of attack speed. Do you remember how it worked exactly in PoE1/2 without looking it up again? Compare this to the clarity of attacks per round in the infinity engine games. The attempt to make the "ideal balanced" system led to an convoluted mess that is neither intuitive nor engaging.

 

[Delterius]

If audience doesn't like experimenting and trying new rulesets, I wonder how does Soyer explain the success of P:K and P:WOTR which are basically grognard porn games.

I mean, that's not a contradiction. If the audience 'doesn't like experimenting and trying new rulesets', then it's not a shocker they'd enjoy D&D 3E The Revenge, innit. Kingmaker and Wrathfinder are closer, at least, to IWD2 than either Pillars.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

This. I love experimenting with new builds / designs / rulesets.. just not sawyer builds / designs / rulesets.

No point in experimenting with the latter due to Sawyer's autism. His design philosophy is to cap the possibilities of experimentation to potentially having some uncommon yet average quality builds (with any prospective great builds being nerfed once discovered by the devs). Unlike with the Pathfinder titles where you can get some insane builds since Owlcat devs aren't no fun allowed spergs and multiclassing isn't limited to just two classes (which makes it more or less impossible to pull a Sawyer given the vastness of possible permutations that result in builds that can range from subpar to average to great).

 

[0sacred]

West Coast art hoe pussy

that would be an artificial pussy, surely

 

[normie]

Seriously, what is it with him looking like a woman who decided to transition at 60yo. It's even more disturbing than his game design ideas.

He looks like 1970s pedophile who just got released after 40 years in prison.

Sorry but posts like these are cope. He's a tall dude who works out, that look gets top tier West Coast art hoe pussy if he wants it.

I have it on good authority that years of badly sitting on ill fitted bike seats has wrought irreversible damage to his grundel and restricted blood flow to his gonads in a manner that's made them atrophy, turning him into a sort of eunuch with vestigial necroballs

 

[S.torch]

"Honestly, I have to say it felt like the most compromised games I worked on were Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2," Sawyer said. "Because when I came back to that format, I was like, 'Oh, I worked on these two [Icewind Dale] games, and then I worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, and now I have a bunch of new ideas for how differently I would do it if I were doing it on my own.' But they were crowdfunded games and the audience was like, 'No, we want D&D, we want exactly the same experience as the Infinity Engine games.'"

The fact that backers had already paid for an RPG that, in the words of that first Kickstarter(opens in new tab), "pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past", meant Sawyer felt he had to keep Pillars of Eternity retro even in places where he had better ideas. "I did feel a sense of obligation," he said, "but also I felt like I was making bad design decisions ultimately, like I was making a game worse to appeal to the sensibilities of the audience that wanted something ultra nostalgic."

So... you have a super revolutionary, amazing, intellectual, visionary idea, but you crowdfund by appealing to games of the past that, according to you, are no big deal compared to your mega idea, and then you blame the fans of those games for "staking you". You couldn't be more shameless if you tried. How can someone say those were the games he was most committed, to later say they weren't what he really wanted to do? Again, in the end he doesn't accept his responsibility, because he blames the people who supported the project. He doesn't even decide whether the two games were a success or a failure, without knowing who to attribute the outcome of those two possibilities.

 

[roshan]

How did Pillars 2 change, mechanics wise, from Pillars 1?

Per-rest resources were all changed to be per-encounter (exception is the added Empower ability). The Endurance mechanic was removed, and characters get a full heal after every combat. The only lasting consequences from any given encounter are injuries that you sustain if your health drops to 0. There are no more camping supplies, but you can consume any generic food while resting (Why is resting still a mechanic? Only Josh knows.) to remove all injuries.

Buffs and debuffs were completely reworked. Now every buff and debuff is tied to an attribute and given a tier from 1 to 3. Tier 1 Perception buff removes Tier 1 Perception debuff, or downgrades Tier 2 Perception debuff to Tier 1, etc.

Damage reduction was completely reworked to be more abstract. Now every weapon and spell has a penetration value, and this is compared to the target's armor value for the specific damage type. If penetration is < armor, damage is reduced by 25% per point missing. If penetration is 2x armor or higher, damage is increased by 30%.

Concentration and Interrupt were reworked. Concentration is now a buff that completely protects you from one instance of Interrupt.

I don't remember the nitty gritty of damage reduction and concentration/interrupt from Pillars of Eternity, but the first two things you mentioned sound boring, casual and degenerate as hell. No consequences or effects to combat is just nuts. It's incredible that he actually found a way to flush Pillars of Shitternity even further down the toilet!!!

 

[Dadd]

Thankfully his grand vision was realized in Pentiment.