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Originally Posted by Umbra
Fixed camps are always going to be immersion breaking if there's considerable distance to cover on a map.
DA:O was particulary bad - I mean it's ridiculus to think that the party is walking halfway across a kingdom to do a quest, then walking all the way back again to the same camp to sleep! They're spending more time travelling than there are hours in the day!
That said, the map isn't so huge in BG3. Except for the underdark, we could have a temporary camp there rather than climb a mile long ladder twice each day!

Eh, in DA:O the camping place wasn't really as recognizable as the one they've chosen for BG3 (no temple, beach or anything like that, just a tiny lake).

The travel was also instantaneous unlike when you moved from place to place, and the camp wasn't even in the traveling map but out of it in the top right corner, so i just imagined they'd set it up wherever.

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I hear anecdotal comments on how Larian concentrated only on the beginning of their DOS games which resulted in the end being a mess. I fear the same of BG3.

I understand they can’t and shouldn’t reveal all the game in EA but limiting to levels 1-4, I think is very shortsighted. Even if Larian manages to balance the game well up to level 4, a lot changes from level 5 and up. And without extensive testing, the second half of the game will be broken and unbalanced.

My other fear is Larian is aware of what I just wrote and has decided not to reveal level 5 because the game is broken due to all their homebrew rules. That concerns me that there’s a lot of things still untested and unbalanced which means the game is nowhere close to completion and Larian may just push it forward anyways since they can’t stave off launch forever.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
I hear anecdotal comments on how Larian concentrated only on the beginning of their DOS games which resulted in the end being a mess. I fear the same of BG3.

Yeah, at least for me, the ending are a mess. First game's ending was glorified escort mission "Beat down boss & co, while keeping NPC alive". Second ones was better,but still faze 2 starts with boss AOE'ing whole party, in my case wiping it out(this could be a "Git gud" moment).

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
My other fear is Larian is aware of what I just wrote and has decided not to reveal level 5 because the game is broken due to all their homebrew rules. That concerns me that there’s a lot of things still untested and unbalanced which means the game is nowhere close to completion and Larian may just push it forward anyways since they can’t stave off launch forever.

This is my biggest fear as well. I am afraid they know combat, abilities, spells, and feats are broken come level 5 and higher with their current homebrew rules, that's why they limited it to lvl 4 so they have more time the tweak/change all the classes/abilities/feats/spells to feel more "flashy/fun" and/or still feel like a progress in power.
EDIT:
Of course they most probably know what their changes entail and mean for stuff still to implement, e.g. Smite, Reckless Attack, Sharpshooter, War caster, etc., I just don't like the idea of everything changed and then be ridiculously out of balance/not interacting anymore.

And that it feels like a linear, small world with only a handful of rather small zones we visit one after another like walking through an amusement park, not like a grand, epic journey.

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I don’t know if DOS1 ever had an early access. I would assume no because I’ve never heard of it having one, only DOS2.

Oh, checking news articles indicate it did. Which is weird because everyone considers the first act to be the worst part of the game over there, due to awkward pacing and dumping you into a city with little direction on what to do. Then again, DOS1 played far more like a traditional tactical turn based RPG with lots of exploration and puzzles compared to DOS2, which went completely all in on the combat in comparison.

DOS1 actually let you travel between all previous areas of the game too (and had quests that would crop up in all areas from time to time, along with the fact that it was very possible to wander into a new area, realize you can’t do anything yet, then come back later through a different entrance when the plot moves there). DOS2 permanently locked you out of previous areas when advancing to the next chapter. Though it makes sense considering the far higher stakes in the second game, being literally chosen by gods, while the first game’s protags were a pair of reincarnated magical murder mystery detectives.

(The dual protagonist nature of the first game was super unique. You could have them argue with each other, and even have persuasion checks against each other. You would even get different endings for them based on how you had them react to each other, and they had personality flags in their character sheets based on what dialogue choices they took. Said flags actually conferred certain substantial combat bonuses, but I can’t remember what they did.)

Honestly, I hold the opinion that DOS1 is a better game than DOS2 in everything but the graphics, arguably the cheeky writing, and the combat. And even then, I preferred the cheeky writing at times over the full on cringy edge that DOS2 leaned way too hard into at times.

I enjoyed the latter half of the first game way more than the second. Especially the ice realm chapter which felt like a true adventure, wandering through a frozen kingdom looking for warmth and shelter, having to fight and move with the threat of a persistent slowing effect without any nearby heat source throughout. That was probably my favorite part of both games. DOS2 environments were rather samey in comparison.

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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
I don’t know if DOS1 ever had an early access. I would assume no because I’ve never heard of it having one, only DOS2.

Oh, checking news articles indicate it did. Which is weird because everyone considers the first act to be the worst part of the game over there, due to awkward pacing and dumping you into a city with little direction on what to do. Then again, DOS1 played far more like a traditional tactical turn based RPG with lots of exploration and puzzles compared to DOS2, which went completely all in on the combat in comparison.

DOS1 actually let you travel between all previous areas of the game too (and had quests that would crop up in all areas from time to time, along with the fact that it was very possible to wander into a new area, realize you can’t do anything yet, then come back later through a different entrance when the plot moves there). DOS2 permanently locked you out of previous areas when advancing to the next chapter. Though it makes sense considering the far higher stakes in the second game, being literally chosen by gods, while the first game’s protags were a pair of reincarnated magical murder mystery detectives.

(The dual protagonist nature of the first game was super unique. You could have them argue with each other, and even have persuasion checks against each other. You would even get different endings for them based on how you had them react to each other, and they had personality flags in their character sheets based on what dialogue choices they took. Said flags actually conferred certain substantial combat bonuses, but I can’t remember what they did.)

Honestly, I hold the opinion that DOS1 is a better game than DOS2 in everything but the cheeky writing and the combat. I enjoyed the latter half of the first game way more than the second. Especially the ice realm chapter, that was probably my favorite part of both games.

I absolutely agree with everything you just said. In particular I remember the diversity in terrain and how it actually affected gameplay. IIRC unless you took steps to counter it I think in the desert region you were constantly slowed and in the ice realm you were always chilled.

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DOS 2 is a severed flawed game and I could never understand how it got that much praise.

I hoped that BG3 would be created based on the originals mechanic rather DOS 2, which was not the case.

Larian is not listening to feedback and my fear is that they continue to do so, as they did in DOS2 EA.

If changes were not made in the first 6 months of EA development, chances are that we will not see many changes going forward.

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
DOS 2 is a severed flawed game and I could never understand how it got that much praise.

I hoped that BG3 would be created based on the originals mechanic rather DOS 2, which was not the case.

Larian is not listening to feedback and my fear is that they continue to do so, as they did in DOS2 EA.

If changes were not made in the first 6 months of EA development, chances are that we will not see many changes going forward.
Not trying to attack you, but if you don't believe that they listened at all in the past and that they have not been listening thus far... why even be a part of the EA and be posting feedback? Just asking.
I know that they aren't likely to do exactly what I, personally, want them to do... but I have to have faith that they are listening and are taking all of our feedback into account. I have to believe that whatever game emerges from the other side of all this, that it will be infinitely better than it would have been without our input as a whole. I just... I have to.

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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
. . . Honestly, I hold the opinion that DOS1 is a better game than DOS2 in everything but the cheeky writing and the combat. I enjoyed the latter half of the first game way more than the second. Especially the ice realm chapter which felt like a true adventure, wandering through a frozen kingdom looking for warmth and shelter, having to fight and move with the threat of a persistent slowing effect without any nearby heat source throughout. That was probably my favorite part of both games. DOS2 environments were rather samey in comparison.
I completely agree. DOS1 is superior to DOS2 in everything except graphics. Yes DOS1 cheeky writing that might not appeal . . . however the story was much better put together than the total mess that was DOS2. And everything about the DOS1 combat was better, with a wonderful balanced system and hand crafted encounters.

That is one of the things I love about BG3 . . . despite various warts . . . the combat system is much closer to DOS1 than the mess of DOS2.

My only 'worry' about BG3 is for the story. If Larian completes a compelling main story (and side stories for the companions), then the combat, environments and whatever else won't matter. I'll enjoy it. If the story is rubbish, then I'm not going to care regardless of how good the combat is. Its ALL about the story!

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Originally Posted by LukasPrism
I absolutely agree with everything you just said. In particular I remember the diversity in terrain and how it actually affected gameplay. IIRC unless you took steps to counter it I think in the desert region you were constantly slowed and in the ice realm you were always chilled.

Yeah. I say all this as someone who played 1 after playing 2 as well, so this isn’t some nostalgia thing either. The first game had really good environmental variety, so I hope BG3 is far closer to DOS1 in that aspect.

The first game had some really good scenarios too. Some were a straight miss, like the mine stealth sequence that put you in what I remember was an unwinnable fight if you were caught, until you got far enough to obtain the plot device that finally allowed you to even damage your pursuers. But it also showcased the variety in even different parts of the same dungeon, because that mine was actually connected to a volcano (or the elemental plane of fire, I don’t exactly remember), and your ultimate goal was a hidden library deep within that also had a barrier protecting everything within from the erupting flames.

Most others were clever, like the late game town overrun by a massive group of bandit cultists of some sort. After some investigation, you learn that they’re split into two factions and that both would immediately try to kill you if they knew what you were. You could either go in and try to wreck them immediately, or discreetly try to play both factions against each other by doing various tasks for their leaders aimed at undermining each other. The latter culminates into a glorious city-wide brawl between both factions, with the remaining faction that you choose to support swearing allegiance to you afterwards.

There was nothing like this in DOS2, which again was straight combat all the way. Though to be fair, it's hard to do proper puzzles and well thought out alternate solutions to avoid combat when DOS2's sheer mobility, armor system, and instant full heal bedrolls trivializes most environmental hazards outside of combat, and the combat was the #1 selling point of DOS2 to begin with, so doing anything to discourage that would have been probably been seen as a black mark by most of the community.

To the people in the back who have only played DOS2: Do give DOS1 a try. It’s well worth it despite what the internet might say about it being objectively worse than 2, because that’s simply not true. If anything, it will give you a direct frame of reference on differing design philosophies between both games of the same series.

I just had a thought. What if someone tried to remake all of DOS1 into DOS2’s engine via modding?

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Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
DOS 2 is a severed flawed game and I could never understand how it got that much praise.

It's genuinely good game. Perfect? No. But it's not as bad as you are making it sound.

Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
I hoped that BG3 would be created based on the originals mechanic rather DOS 2, which was not the case.

Baldur's gate 2 is 20 years old now. DnD has had 3 new editions since then, changes from the originals were bound to happen. For now i don't see anything that different(given i never finished BG2), apart from turn based combat.

Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Larian is not listening to feedback and my fear is that they continue to do so, as they did in DOS2 EA.

Why? What feedback should they listen to? People constantly nagging about turn based combat? Or how it isn't carbon copy of BG2?
While there are problems with few mechanics(height advantage), they did remove surface effects from cantrips when people asked for it. You must also remember that not all feedback is good feedback, sometimes people want changes that would be detrimental to the game as a whole.

Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
Honestly, I hold the opinion that DOS1 is a better game than DOS2 in everything but the cheeky writing and the combat. I enjoyed the latter half of the first game way more than the second. Especially the ice realm chapter which felt like a true adventure, wandering through a frozen kingdom looking for warmth and shelter, having to fight and move with the threat of a persistent slowing effect without any nearby heat source throughout. That was probably my favorite part of both games. DOS2 environments were rather samey in comparison.

Now that you mention it, yes first one had more environmental variety than the second. I genuinely liked that it forced me to change tactics in those areas.

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Originally Posted by The_BlauerDragon
Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
DOS 2 is a severed flawed game and I could never understand how it got that much praise.

I hoped that BG3 would be created based on the originals mechanic rather DOS 2, which was not the case.

Larian is not listening to feedback and my fear is that they continue to do so, as they did in DOS2 EA.

If changes were not made in the first 6 months of EA development, chances are that we will not see many changes going forward.
Not trying to attack you, but if you don't believe that they listened at all in the past and that they have not been listening thus far... why even be a part of the EA and be posting feedback? Just asking.
I know that they aren't likely to do exactly what I, personally, want them to do... but I have to have faith that they are listening and are taking all of our feedback into account. I have to believe that whatever game emerges from the other side of all this, that it will be infinitely better than it would have been without our input as a whole. I just... I have to.

Pillars of Eternity 1 was loved, but then in Pillars of Eternity 2, you had the same type of crap talking as I see in here alot, verbatim. Lack of immersion, linear, Poor development of classes, Poorly developed/implemented game mechanics...I mean any of that sounding familiar? All that even though it has a 89% rating. But the band keeps playing lol. Now it seems that same record is going on here. My guess would be sometimes people just want to hate on something, and they just rotate the same kind of post on different RPG forums. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of legit, well thought out critiques in regards to actual balance issues. But then you have the same old group of people that want to tear it down, or have some hate on for Larian. I guess it is the edgelord thing to do...

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DoS 1 definitely did have an early access. I spent many hours playing it.

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Originally Posted by The_BlauerDragon
I fear that the emphasis on the multiplayer experience will eventually leave those of us who prefer to play solo twisting in the wind.

That's one of my concerns too and also apparently the reason given for no day/night cycle in game. I'm not quite sure of the logic behind it but there you go.

Other things that I would be disappointed to see remain unchanged from their current state:

- No day/night/weather/calendar/clock. Seriously can't get my head around the fact that we won't get to experience anywhere in the game world at night *face palm*.

- Party control mechanics.

- Themepark feel to the map.

- Resting system/static camp.

- 4 person limit in the party.

- Combat ie. high ground advantage, Super Mario jumping, buffs/debuff spells being redundant, etc.

- Homebrew 'cool' factor implementations taking precedence over core rules, thus throwing balance out the window.

- Unnecessary cinematics - not every minor interaction requires one, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
Originally Posted by LukasPrism
I absolutely agree with everything you just said. In particular I remember the diversity in terrain and how it actually affected gameplay. IIRC unless you took steps to counter it I think in the desert region you were constantly slowed and in the ice realm you were always chilled.

Yeah. I say all this as someone who played 1 after playing 2 as well, so this isn’t some nostalgia thing either. The first game had really good environmental variety, so I hope BG3 is far closer to DOS1 in that aspect.

The first game had some really good scenarios too. Some were a straight miss, like the mine stealth sequence that put you in what I remember was an unwinnable fight if you were caught, until you got far enough to obtain the plot device that finally allowed you to even damage your pursuers. But it also showcased the variety in even different parts of the same dungeon, because that mine was actually connected to a volcano (or the elemental plane of fire, I don’t exactly remember), and your ultimate goal was a hidden library deep within that also had a barrier protecting everything within from the erupting flames.

Most others were clever, like the late game town overrun by a massive group of bandit cultists of some sort. After some investigation, you learn that they’re split into two factions and that both would immediately try to kill you if they knew what you were. You could either go in and try to wreck them immediately, or discreetly try to play both factions against each other by doing various tasks for their leaders aimed at undermining each other. The latter culminates into a glorious city-wide brawl between both factions.

There was nothing like this in DOS2, which again was straight combat all the way.

Yeah I am going through a DoS2 play through again right now. I played it a while back, but I wanted to see if there was anything to the accusation that BG3 was just DoS3. I mean it has it's flaws, but I am enjoying it. After I play through that, I am going to do the same thing with DoS. So I guess I am playing in backwards as well. But I like doing that sometimes, so I can appreciate the changes and advancements. The only game I can never go back to 1 (without some serious mods) is Mass Effect. Those controls just kill me, even though it has the best story out of all 3, I just can't deal with those terrible controls back in the day. I was totally ruined to the play mechanics of ME2+. I mean the irony is, as much hate as ME:A gets. That had the best combat mechanics out of all of them. But that is off topic.

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Originally Posted by Innateagle
Originally Posted by Pandemonica
Originally Posted by Innateagle
Apart from what's already been mentioned, the whole camp and quick rest system. The former's so convient it's jarring, and the latter i just don't like too much.

I'd like it all much better if the camp was a fixed location on the map, like in DA:O, while rest on the field worked like in Pathfinder:Kingmaker.

You do realize that in DA:O you could quick travel to camp just the same is this game right? The only difference is you could have a random encounter porting to camp.

Nah, you couldn't. You had to access the map by reaching the area's edge/traveling point, and then you could go to camp. Couldn't teleport to it from the middle of a city, or from the deeproads.

In BG3 you press M from the Underdark and bam, you're there.

Yeah but if you remember, their area "maps" were tiny as hell. The map you would have to access in BG, even in the EA, is way bigger than anything in DA:O. Are you sure you had to access the zone entrance/exit because I could have sworn you could pull up a quick map and in the top right corner there was a small square with your camp that you could click on.

*edit*
Just looked it up, you could fast travel:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2mp270/how_do_you_fast_travel/
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/950918-dragon-age-origins/52147284

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Originally Posted by Pandemonica
Pillars of Eternity 1 was loved, but then in Pillars of Eternity 2, you had the same type of crap talking as I see in here alot, verbatim. Lack of immersion, linear, Poor development of classes, Poorly developed/implemented game mechanics...I mean any of that sounding familiar? All that even though it has a 89% rating. But the band keeps playing lol. Now it seems that same record is going on here. My guess would be sometimes people just want to hate on something, and they just rotate the same kind of post on different RPG forums. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of legit, well thought out critiques in regards to actual balance issues. But then you have the same old group of people that want to tear it down, or have some hate on for Larian. I guess it is the edgelord thing to do...

My understanding is that Pillars of Eternity 2 also sold poorly. Now... I loved that game, so you won't hear me bad mouth it, but from the standpoint of a developer and a producer the sales numbers are really important. The 89% rating isn't helpful if sales are low...

With regards to criticism of BG3, I think that people are certainly entitled to express their opinion, provided they do it in a polite way. It is fine with me that you disagree with me on the state of combat in BG3, and I am happy that you enjoy it. However, I do not personally like the state that it is in right now, and I will say so in forums dedicated to the game. I certainly do not mean my criticism to be an attack on you or anybody else that happens to enjoy the game.

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Originally Posted by dwig
Originally Posted by Pandemonica
Pillars of Eternity 1 was loved, but then in Pillars of Eternity 2, you had the same type of crap talking as I see in here alot, verbatim. Lack of immersion, linear, Poor development of classes, Poorly developed/implemented game mechanics...I mean any of that sounding familiar? All that even though it has a 89% rating. But the band keeps playing lol. Now it seems that same record is going on here. My guess would be sometimes people just want to hate on something, and they just rotate the same kind of post on different RPG forums. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of legit, well thought out critiques in regards to actual balance issues. But then you have the same old group of people that want to tear it down, or have some hate on for Larian. I guess it is the edgelord thing to do...

My understanding is that Pillars of Eternity 2 also sold poorly. Now... I loved that game, so you won't hear me bad mouth it, but from the standpoint of a developer and a producer the sales numbers are really important. The 89% rating isn't helpful if sales are low...

With regards to criticism of BG3, I think that people are certainly entitled to express their opinion, provided they do it in a polite way. It is fine with me that you disagree with me on the state of combat in BG3, and I am happy that you enjoy it. However, I do not personally like the state that it is in right now, and I will say so in forums dedicated to the game. I certainly do not mean my criticism to be an attack on you or anybody else that happens to enjoy the game.

Dude, I never said against me. Personally, even if someone was attacking me, I wouldn't care lol. I am talking about the people that have actual critiques of the game, and then the other people that are just hating on it, and use "critiques" to just bash it". I mean I know that you know what I am saying. I mean there is a few posters I don't agree with in regards to their issues, but I can respect the time and informed posts they write in regards to it. Personally, I think your back and forths about advantage have been educational. There is a couple posters in here that I go back and forth with (especially in regards to VA because that is important to me like specific numbers are to them), but for the most part, I respect their point even if I don't agree with it. Then, there is another group, that just hate it all and have made up their mind, and just want to talk trash.

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Originally Posted by Pandemonica
Originally Posted by Innateagle
Originally Posted by Pandemonica
Originally Posted by Innateagle
Apart from what's already been mentioned, the whole camp and quick rest system. The former's so convient it's jarring, and the latter i just don't like too much.

I'd like it all much better if the camp was a fixed location on the map, like in DA:O, while rest on the field worked like in Pathfinder:Kingmaker.

You do realize that in DA:O you could quick travel to camp just the same is this game right? The only difference is you could have a random encounter porting to camp.

Nah, you couldn't. You had to access the map by reaching the area's edge/traveling point, and then you could go to camp. Couldn't teleport to it from the middle of a city, or from the deeproads.

In BG3 you press M from the Underdark and bam, you're there.

Yeah but if you remember, their area "maps" were tiny as hell. The map you would have to access in BG, even in the EA, is way bigger than anything in DA:O. Are you sure you had to access the zone entrance/exit because I could have sworn you could pull up a quick map and in the top right corner there was a small square with your camp that you could click on.

*edit*
Just looked it up, you could fast travel:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2mp270/how_do_you_fast_travel/
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/950918-dragon-age-origins/52147284
Neither of your links contradict what @Innateagle said. In DA:O, you can fast travel directly to camp, but only from the world map screen which you can only bring up in certain areas. You have to walk to the physical exits of most areas (e.g., Orzammar, Circle Tower) in order to make use of this fast travel.

It's the BG3 equivalent of having to physically walk to the glyphs in order to teleport from glyph to glyph.

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Originally Posted by Pandemonica
Pillars of Eternity 1 was loved, but then in Pillars of Eternity 2, you had the same type of crap talking as I see in here alot, verbatim. Lack of immersion, linear, Poor development of classes, Poorly developed/implemented game mechanics...I mean any of that sounding familiar? All that even though it has a 89% rating. But the band keeps playing lol. Now it seems that same record is going on here. My guess would be sometimes people just want to hate on something, and they just rotate the same kind of post on different RPG forums. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of legit, well thought out critiques in regards to actual balance issues. But then you have the same old group of people that want to tear it down, or have some hate on for Larian. I guess it is the edgelord thing to do...

The failure of Pillars 2 is a difficult thing to quantify. There are a lot of reasons but it’s hard to tell what was the main factor. I’ve seen people blame everything from the setting to the open world design.

I recall during initial release that the Reddit community’s reaction to the story pacing and companions were lukewarm at best, and the common opinion then was that the only things 2 did better than 1 was having full voice acting (a huge financial drain and obviously in response to DOS2’s success), better graphics, and combat design.

But the writing was universally considered worse (with many saying the main character had no real agency, most of the companions felt like extensions of their factions whose goal was to manipulate the MC for political ends instead of simply being themselves, romances were awkward and shoehorned in without a thought, and that the entire main story was clearly written under the assumption that there was going to be a sequel, which was really the height of hubris), which is a death sentence for a direct sequel to a game in a niche genre whose main selling point was the writing to begin with.

The real factor was probably something much simpler though. I recall the game was crowdfunded through something called Fig instead of Kickstarter, and apparently that only came about because one of the major Obsidian heads owned majority share for that platform. So in the process of trying to avoid fees, they lost major advertising power.

Nepotism and hubris kills projects.

(It’s also widely reported that PoE2’s ship combat was something that was shoehorned in by upper management, and that the developers wanted to get rid of it. So that was a mismanaged resource sink on top of everything else.)

Contrast to Kingmaker which had the most disastrous launch of any recent cRPG in existence, but it recovered in the end due to the devs’ immense effort in fixing it, and most players recognized a good unique experience underneath all the bugs. It was a complete experience front to back, compared to PoE2 advertising a season pass DLC package right before release, and whose narrative partly ran under the assumption that you’d purchase and play through that content.

Kingmaker was further helped by the efforts of some amazing modders even without official mod tools who basically added in enough extra features that would qualify to be expansions by most standards. Such as the turn based mode that granted the ability to switch between both TB and RTwP at will, even mid combat, that is now an official standard for the series moving forward. Now it enjoys great word of mouth, and the sequel ended up raising more than DOS2 did through Kickstarter somehow.

Last edited by Saito Hikari; 24/02/21 11:53 PM.
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