Very few games have first person hack-n-slash combat that feels good. The ones that come to mind are Vermintide and Dark Messiah. So far Avowed's combat just seems very Skyrim-esque.
Dishonored has great first person combat I don't understand the sentiment of first person melee combat can't be good when games have done it in the past maybe not in RPGs but is accounting for dissonance really worth having weightless combat?I don't think so.
The thing I've noticed between Outer Worlds and Avowed is that Obsidian has taken a tact of...playing it safe, post-Deadfire. The thing about Obsidian RPGs that goes unsaid is that while they're almost always acclaimed in *hindsight*, when they release, they're usually (a) a huge mess and (b) REALLY experimental story-wise. The thing with Outer Worlds and Avowed is that it seems that they're trying to scope their ambitions more and play it a *lot* safer in order to, y'know, actually get the game made and done in a timely manner and to have a release that isn't a horrifying disaster. That said, I think part of why we haven't seen that much from Avowed's UI and RPG systems is that we know for a fact they were originally trying to make Avowed a multiplayer open-world title before seeing high-profile catastrophes in that space and going, "y'know what? Why don't we just...not do that?" Which implies that they had a lot of reworking to do.
true, but each time people have such huuge expectations. the TOW before it was even out was talked about like the nxt coming of FONV. this game after one trailer was already the ES killer. people know how good obsidian are, and i guess under MS they expected them to move to a AAA size game, when infact they have just been left to it by MS and nothing much has changed. this game is another AA game in the same scale as ToW or even grounded.
Besides, the reason TOW is bleh has nothing to do with size or budget constraints, or at most it's a minor point. Its systems are just not well designed. The quests are mostly awful. The gameplay offers little. Even character customization is a bit of a joke. These were things they could have done better with little to no extra investment.
It's honestly just a return to the world of Eora that I'm looking forward to with this game. I loved the world building from PoE and Deadfire and I just hope Obsidian can do it justice with an engaging storyline. For my sake, the rest of the game can be serviceable as long as the narrative is good. That won't be good enough for most other players though, and that's understandable.
I was sad to see they got rid of classes for skill trees but hopeful they'll execute it right. What I really want them to show next is the combat depth, build diversity possible and how many skill trees there are.
Regarding the future of the IP, I believe that BG3’s success may revive Microsoft’s interest to fund a Pillars 3 game. I hope that’s the case, at least.
That's what I was going to say. I really hope because of BG3 CRPGs will have a another boom in popularity. I think many people who are new to CRPGs and picked up BG3 would love WotR, Kingmaker, PoE, Tryanny, DoS and many others.
Double edged sword for me. I think the success of BG3 will indeed get more companies greenlighting CRPGs similar to BG3. Sadly, I think they'll want to copy the formula down to turn based combat, and the RTWP style old school Baldur's Gate like titles won't be happening. I like turn based just fine, but I also just really, really love RTWP CRPGs. If Avowed does poorly though, the Pillars universe is dead. Microsoft will just fire everybody, and shut the doors on any future potential games set there. As they showed this week, they don't care.
It will absolutely be turn based. Though I like RTWP, turn based has been proved over and over again to be more successful as far as feedback and sales from the majority of the audience@@acronen
This game feels very much a gamble, which feels odd to say. I'm very very happy to be back in that world and this is a company that can deliver a great game. But there's something about it that has me hesitant. The whole part where you said that we've seen alot, but haven't seen the systems at play hits it on the head. But I guess we're still a little early on.
I think the problem is people forget that this is not the same company that made New Vegas or PoE. It's full of completely different people. I have a feeling this game is going to either fail or *barely* break even. All we've seen so far makes it look like a skyrim-like, which is not a good sign due to how bad Skyrim is.
To me the biggest red flag is a dev comment in an interview (I believe from Eurogamer). Obsidian's actively comparing Avowed to The Outer Worlds, emphasizing the similarities. Personally I find The Outer Worlds the definition of an "okay" game, so that's not very hopeful. There already seems to be a lot of damage control involved.
The only time the used Outer Worlds as a comparison was when talking about how zones function. And even then, there was another Obsidian dev coming out to say he was surprised to hear that, since zones in Avowed are supposedly much bigger than the big ones in Outer Worlds.
@@jmmywyf4lyf How so? They have showed ONE small (optional) area within one single zone so far. You have seen absolutely nothing to even base this assumption off.
@@jmmywyf4lyf That sounds like a pretty groundless assumption, to be honest. Just because you have seen some smaller areas, it does not mean that you know how big the larger zone is that those small areas are a part of.
I didn’t want to post anything negative on the other video, but I agree that the combat looks stale. Like a very slightly improved Skyrim? But can’t count it out until we get hands on, I’ll look forward to your first impressions video.
Well it's true except for the bow and arrow shooting, it's still more satisfying than most other games in the same genre today. It's not for nothing that people always find themselves as a stealth archer even when that wasn't the plan, it's just too damn fun to pass up.
@@marceelino just based on the "feel", Dishonored, Vermintide, Mordhau. I personally like Witchaven's. There's probably more. The issue with Avowed is even just how it looks (perceived feel) isn't that great.
PoE2 had some great realistic depictions of overall weaponry, how to wield them, for instance how to hold a buckler+sword. They did a great job of including historically correct terms ( for instance half-swording, where you grab your sword to create better tip control for precision - penetration - or to use as a lever in wrestling-range) and I was pleasantly surprised that I could create, for instance, a master of deflection-swashbuckler in a semi-realistic way! I would expect similar nods to actual medieval/renaissance combat, while still being an action RPG, in this game; although it so far looks debatable with how the shield moves in the gameplay-videos. I absolutely adore the graphics style, it is reminiscent of old-school -90s rpg's. I am really looking forwards to this one. Great breakdown, by the way :)
And also of course, the sweet realistic looking armour. The ships were a treat, the Pacific-islands world building - including the villages and cities/clothing/dialects/ etc. To me, PoE 1&2 is peak gaming
They made such a strides to realistic depictions because Josh Sawyer is a huge medieval history and war nerd. He is not involved in Avowed and so I expect that to take a backseat unfortunately.
@@frankfrankfrankfrankfrank that is so sad to hear. I specifically liked the subtly grounded realism of the Archipelago and the script managment. Hopefully the game ends up as having the correct feel
I don't know, what worries me most is that the story and the lore take the protagonism they deserve. The one conversation that appears seems to be more straightforward like in the newer fallout and i really enjoyed the rich conversation options that poe1 and 2 had.
Chris Avelone wrote for Obsidian for years including for games like new vegas and poe. He's no longer there (see The Outer Worlds for example). The writing, the engine, and many many other things, will be incredibly similar to TOW. Which isn't baddd. But it ain't Obsidian anymore. It's a bunch of other people wearing the name. It is not the team that gave you those greats.
@@animalmother9143 He wasn't there for Deadfire either. I'm a big fan of his work but his contributions are a bit overstated he wasn't solely responsible for the writing in Obsidian games. New Vegas and the first Pillars of Eternity he had more minor contributions (a few companions Cass, Durance, Grieving Mother and overseeing a couple of the DLCs specifically for NV). Kotor 2 was his baby and I think the MOTB expansion for NWN2 is also primarily his but I could be wrong since Planescape Torment was his baby too and it has a very similar feel to it.
You say he wasn't responsible for every word written and that's correct. He was however, the lead writer, meaning the other writers wrote in his style and he approved all the work they did. It's all his by extension. Aside from things he obviously didn't do. I would say his influence in severely understated when it comes to his writing contributions. @@CrazyxEnigma
i think the thing that worries me the most about Avowed is I'm worried the same thing that happen to the Outer Worlds will happen to Avowed, people are describing Avowed as a sort of "Elder Scrolls-like" when that is intentionally not what the game is now because Obsidian studios does not have the resources to do that, same like how Outer Worlds is not an equal to previous fallout games (at least in terms of scope). I am also somewhat worried that this shows a shift in Obsidian studios development and we'll never see another a crpg by them but I think that's just my anxiety. I do hope we'll get a sequel to Pillars 2 Which was wonderful but didn't do well financially.
I mean Pentiment already showed that Obsidian is still full of talented people, and they're implementing a lot of the same dialogue mechanics in Pentiment, another thing to keep in mind is that Pillar's co-writer is the design director for Avowed.
I agree, the comparing of Outer Worlds to New Vegas wasn't inherently wrong but some people just don't seem to get the mechanical appeal of bethesda style RPGs and why smaller scope/less detailed worlds just don't hit the same way.
Your right about outer world but this logic doesnt apply to avowed as they have since been aquired by microsoft and have all the budged they need to make avowed. They have doubled in team size since outer world and job listings for obeidian have said that they are working on a AAA game
@@woozie3241 i mean budget is what you use to pay the talent to build the game. they don't have the numbers or the requisite experience (yet) to make the game. What kept Larian studios from making a game like Baldur's Gate 3 in 2012 wasn't money, they had to learn how to make the game by first making D:OS 1 and then OS2. (in other words even if they had that kind of budget when they were making the first original sins, they still would not have been able to make baldur's gate 3). Anyway have a good day!
@@woozie3241 I agree basically but keep in mind that when they started to conceptualize Avowed they hadn't been bought up yet so the budget was tight. They're not gonna change the whole scope of the game mid development. I am more curious to know why after the rather muted reception of The Outer Worlds they decided to make another "Bethesda but tiny" RPG.
Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time. I love the setting, the writing and the rpg system and I am still excited to return to Eora but my biggest source of trepidation is what you pointed out: The RPG system. What I loved about PoE was their unique stat system and how there take on the classic fantasy classes. We have seen some Wizard and Druid Spells in action but I worry about how they implement stuff from the other classes. I was disheartened to hear that they are going the Classless open skill route because their classes were so cool in Pillars of Eternity and I don't think that you will be able to implement all the things we saw in PoE to Avowed. How will the Cypher skills be implemented? Will you be able to Chant and what would that look like? Are we going to get Druid shapeshifting? I loved the Deadfire multiclass system because you could mix and match in creative ways not usually seen in most fantasy systems (My Druid/Paladin was a really fun support Tank and I got to combine two of my favorite classes that normally don't multiclass well) so the Classless system will support that more so but still, just really worried about if I am going to like the RPG system just because there are so many unknowns and I want to know more past the ambiguous open skill tree type format.
While it's not a gamebreaker for me, I'm a little bit disappointed that there seems to be no third person view. I personally just prefer third person in games where melee combat plays a bigger role and in action rpgs generally (I want to see my character!). While there are exceptions, most of the time melee combat in first person just feels like "swinging your weapon around like a mad man".
Not casting spells from a grimoire seems really lame. Imagine a pure wizard class that just has a huge backlog of spells to destroy enemies with, instead of the various flavors of wands they seem to have.
It is a pity they ditched the class system of PoE2. I really think that that was the best iteration of multiclassing i've ever seen in a CRPG (although i havent played BG3 yet, so i dont know what goes on there).
It's not Medieval fantasy, it's renaissance fantasy. that why you see things guns, canons, huge ships and the focus on conquering overseas territory in this setting.
One of my good friends who works in game dev as a senior QA told me that for the games he’s worked on, UI is one of the last things to be finalized. Now, there’s no way of knowing if this is also the case with Avowed, but I’m going to assume that it is for the sake of argument. If this game is actually releasing in the fall - and not being delayed - then my assumption would be that the marketing team came in and said “we need something to show for this upcoming design direct.” They can’t show the character creation if the UI isn’t finalized. They can’t show much of the systems either. Inventory, stat screen, map, all that stuff. So what CAN they show? Combat doesn’t need UI for a basic showcase. The animations aren’t looking too great, but maybe we can get around that by focusing on magic with its flashy effects. So they get some footage of basic combat against basic enemies. But that isn’t enough for a ten minute video. So they have to get some kind of dialogue fixed up. I can only assume they pulled from an early area of the game, since the enemies are just goblins but lizard-y. So they get an early quest with the most basic characters imaginable with a mock up UI that will do the job well enough. All of this is likely wrong. I am not a game dev and I know nothing about how this all works. If anything, I’m being pretty naive in the hopes that Obsidian had to pull together something quickly for this showcase and didn’t have everything ready to show us the actual RPG systems we care about. Maybe they really just thought this all looked fantastic and trotted it out happily. I really hope this isn’t the case because it just looks so choppy. At the end of the day, as long as the writing is good and the character building is interesting and extensive, I’ll be happy. The combat is not a deal breaker for me, but I can totally understand if it would be for others. I’m cautiously optimistic. That’s been the case since it was announced and it is still the case now. Fingers crossed!
The gameplay footage has had "Alpha gameplay" displayed in the top left corner so I'm hoping the animations get smoothed out and enemies react more to getting hit come the full release. I don't play Obsidian games for the combat so serviceable is good enough for me.
While I agree Obsidian games are not about combat, so far they only focused on the combat for this one and it's not looking great, wonder how's everything else gonna be if they are afraid of showing it doesn't it?
@@smattonellus8354 The focus might not be combat, but Outer Worlds showed their quest and world design is lacking and if the thing you do 90 % of the time, namely combat, is boring, people will leave. I wouldn't bank on the game surviving on "Bethesda-like game" magic.
Considering Deadfire is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, of the "new" cRPGS I really dig the art style, especially in regard to color palette. As far as combat, I never anticipated something I'd love. First-person combat never feels right to me, especially like you mentioned when it comes to RPGs. A lack of expectations leads to (hopefully) a lack of disappointment. My one reservation has to do with companion AI in combat. From the scant video I've seen of the male Aumaua companion trying to "help" in combat... I'm definitely trying to lower my expectations there.
Couldn’t agree more with what you said. Deadfire is my favorite as well. But for me, it’s third person that doesn’t feel right. I far prefer 1st. However it’s the plot and immersing myself in eora that I’m lookin forward to. I just hope there’s decent mod support
@@robjamysan718 Neither of those are really statbased in the same way and have many more discrete factors so it's easier to handle combatwise (plus the animations are often for feel moreso than anything, chaff dies in one hit regardless). Also they have a total lack of actual RPG elements and more complex world building for a reason, the focus is on the horde, and that horde is pretty intensive regarding the engine and the design of gameplay mechanics (because if you are off then the PC characters either stomp or die immediately). It's just not really a project I feel would work, if only because you'd need Fatshark and a studio like Obsidian to go half and half, and the competing design aims would likely cause the project to fall apart. Dark Messiah is an example of a good FP RPG-lite combat system, you don't have that many enemies, but the enemies that you do have are strong, fast, and above all an active danger. That's how it should be done, you can have creativity and an extended arsenal that can be upgraded, but you need proper challenge to test it against. It's the same methodology good Turn-Based/TT RPGs utilize, a limited selection of well placed/selected enemies that create a combat puzzle you need to actively work on to solve.
I'm happy for every game that's isn't based in dark woods and eurocentric medieval cities. That's why I hope the next elders scrolls takes place in hammerfell or elwyer
I really don't get why so many people are saying the combat looks basic? The quick animations when you switch loadouts seems to suggest to me that Avowed's combat will focus on switching loadouts to respond to different tactical situations. The ability to dual wield so many different kinds of weapons and switch them on the fly already feels like a massive upgrade on Skyrim (which we've known from the start was the game Feargus wanted to emulate) We've also seen Pillars specific spells like Pull of Eora in other trailers which will probably make for chaotic encounters Then add in elemental affects, combos, and companion characters who can fill different roles in combat, and it already seems like a pretty fleshed out system. Not to say it won't feel simplistic but I just struggle to understand how people can judge that off a few minutes of gameplay when it looks like there's actually a lot going on under the hood.
@armelior4610 crazy, rich, had a renewed fanbase along with it's core fanbase... DOS2 most likely outperformed both PoE games 3-4 times on its own. All in all, BG3 was a "safe" game for Karina after they had made hit after hit in the same genre.
imo it looks and feels "off" a bit. personally cant say graphics dont matter, if i dont like the way it looks or its style/ polish then i just cant look past it like its not a factor, it affects my enjoyment.
This just seems like fantasy Outer Worlds to me, which was not great either(at least IMO). Going the basic Skyrim RPG route after bangers like Pillars of Eternity is pretty disappointing.
@@Notsram77 You can enjoy bad games, nothing wrong with that, it's called guilty pleasure. But let's not pretend a game is good simply because you like it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Avowed. I recently watched your lore series for Eora. When Avowed was announced, I must admit I was hoping that it would do what Morrowind did well, but hopefully even better. But maybe they are going for something completely different, which of course can turn out great too. If they are doing a genre switch, with a mass appeal as the main goal, then I think I'd prefer a third person action adventure RPG similar to Witcher 3. But I suppose they have experience with first person view games, so there'd be less obstacles. Thinking back at PoE, I must say that they made a true challenge for themselves. Introducing the player to a new RPG system with its own rules, a completely new world and setting, with its own lore, and of course a story, with its plot and characters. And I totally understand that one would love to create something unique, with the love and care that true art deserves. But on the other hand, as a player either needs to be able to play and replay a lot, and/or have lore prep and rule system boot camp, to really make the most of the experience. It is an art in of itself, to introduce the player in an elegant fashion, to all these aspects of the game. To play cRPGs (and some other types of games) in the way I'd like to, to get completely absorbed in it, is a time luxury I simply can't afford at the moment. Sorry for the wall of text comment, but I'd like to thank you for making these videos, especially the ones you call "rambly". So, thank you! :)
Idk why, but I feel like Avowed will be kind of like The Outer Worlds. A smaller-scope RPG game, that is just... okay. And in gaming, I feel that's like the worst thing that can happen. That is your game being just a forgettable game, even having a bad game would be better, because people would talk about it.
Yea they really messed up with how few enemy types were in Outer worlds and the questing and world feel to the point that after almost 100% the game prior to the dlcs…It made me hate the game as I was bored to no end. It also makes me like Cyberpunk though albeit Cuberpunk atleast has some more better things I just feel the need to express disdain for them.
The Outer Worlds was my biggest disappointment of 2019. Story was based on ONE joke, plot twist was revealed halfway through if you did sidequests, gameplay was ok at best. I really wanted to like it, because I loved Deadfire and Tyranny, but it wasn't meant to be
Small games are better than bloated games, but The Outer Worlds was just simply mediocre and I hope they don’t give my favorite fantasy RPG universe the same treatment
The melee combat looks pretty bland. The best first-person melee combat I've seen so far is actually post-DLC Cyberpunk 2077. The combat had speed and weight, which honestly impressed me. Hopefully, Obsidian can tweak the combat a bit before release. That said, I didn't play Skyrim for the combat, so if they can balance out the combat with other things, I might be willing to try it, depending on reviews.
For me when comes to melee first person it's Kingdom come. third person is Ghost of tsushima. First person Gunplay is Rage 2 and Third person Gunplay is Maxpayne3.
I'm overall liking the overhaul to Cyberpunk but it honestly feels like they sacrificed more satisfying and intuitive ranged gunplay to make melee more viable. I'm not a fan of the way they made even the most basic npcs more damage spongy. Seems like making combat "feel good" is a highly subjective thing to accomplish.
@@sieda666 Very True for me games like Last of us, RDR1, Maxpayne 3, The Warriers, Far cry Primal, Kingdom come and Ghost of tsushima are recent games I played on their highest difficulties and they were all well designed and not Spodge like.
Usually, i do not follow game news. Im very much gamer that plays the best games of the last decade, rather than new games. But this game has creeped into my periphery. I played both Pillar of Eternity games last year. As a fan of those games, I'm ready for more!
The game itself? No one said that, not even Mortim in the video. The FP combat of Vermintide is what they used as inspiration for Avoweds combat. Whether that’s a good or bad thing or something they’ll even be able to replicate only time will tell.
i play vermintide 2 today and the footage from avowed does give off a familiar vibe they are completely different games (vermintide is a horde game where you cut down scores of enemies in a matter of seconds) but vermintide 2 does feel like a cousin to rpgs due to the character customization and different builds you can do
It's ironic that Obsodism wanted something more mainstream because they thought traditional CRPGs couldn't sell well... and then BG3 came out. Regardless of your opinion on BG3 or PoE, I know a ton of people who got into CRPGs because of BG3. Also, I get that character height differences in first person might be hard to implement for various races.....so don't make it first person then. Part of the fun of Pillars is making a new character, and getting rid of the more unique races (and dwarves) is just going to make the game blasé. Also curious if Godlikes are considered in the human/elf customization. Technically height shouldn't matter there, but who knows if Obsidian will implement them.
They didn't just "think" CRPGs didn't sell well. They literally experienced that first hand. Larian is a huge AAA studio. Not every ( then still independet) developer can just spend that many years, that many resources and that much money on a genre that typiciall doesn't sell well.
Honestly? Obsidian lost their touch. There I said it. :) They wanted to do something more mainstream and they did alright. I believe they don't have the talent and passion anymore to deliver a CRPG with a deep scope and they know it themselves. I want them to be that company of old, but deep in my heart I know that's not the Obsidian of today.
@ohmnesia OK, I edited my comment to 'couldn't'. But my point was more so that BG3 got more people interested in the genre. I don't fault Obsidian for not thinking that, as it's tough to know what things will take off in this industry. Not merely selling well, but becoming an internet phenomenon.
I have never heard of this game until I found this video through your Graven review. Your content is nice - seems well informed and concise - and you've shown me a game to be interested in. Much appreciated!
My main concern is always going to be the writing. As a longtime fan of Obsidian games, I can live with janky gameplay to some extent (KOTOR 2, Alpha Protocol), as long as the writing holds up. They talked quite a bit about choice and consequence - which is good - but it all depends on the implementation. Going by recent history, we have Pentiment (which was brilliant), and The Outer Worlds (which was meh). We won't know until it's released, but my big fear is that it'll be closer to The Outer Worlds (a full AA release) than Pentiment (Josh Sawyer's passion project).
I think going first person is a huge mistake. People love seeing their characters in RPGs. It's why miniatures are so fun and popular in D&D, and why nearly everybody created their own character rather than use an origin in BG3. It saddens me, because I don't think the genre shift will kill the Pillars universe, but I do think the shift to first person will.
I don't know if we're the rule and not the exception, but I agree. I want 3rd person and I would have been interested in this game if it had 3rd person.
What they should be looking hard at when it comes to the combat etc, is Dark Messiah of might and magic. Still have yet to play a first person rpg with as satisfying combat/skills. THough, that being said. I'd be perfectly happy with morrowind style rpg combat too.
Agreed. When I first saw it I hoped it would be similar to Dark Messiah. The dark, gritty look in the initial footage raised my hopes too. The newer footage isn't looking hopeful in that regard. The combat doesn't look polished and the overly bright saturated colours make it seem like it won't be a very mature game (executives like a PG13 rating for maximum marketability)
I bought PoE2 three times. It is my favorite crpg. I hope there’s a PoE3, but in the meantime, I shall enjoy avowed for what it is, whatever it is. Immersing myself in the world of Eora is what I’m looking for. Give me a good plot, and I’m happy. Graphics matter little to me.
I totally agree with you, what worries me is that it looks a little bit empty. Poe2 felt really alive because of all the diferent factions with diferent interest, diferent cultures etc it felt really grounded and cohesive. I wish they can replicate that feeling in a land that is more empty and wild.
I'm glad that you highlighted the lack of info on stealth so far. I couldn't even imagine wanting to play this game if it doesn't have stealth mechanics, so this has had me more and more concerned with every reveal/trailer/interview that fails to mention it.
I´m very fine with the graphics, don´t know why people would complain, certainly it´s a little cartoonish but nothing to exagerated, and I´m loving the colours which is something I also liked in The Outer Worlds, even if NPCs were a little stiff (let´s be real, most action RPGs tend to have that problem) it was a pleasent game to look at, and I certainly prefer coloured games to one colour filters ala Fallout 3. The combat though, like everyone is saying it seems to be extremelly static, I don´t know why but despite games like Dark Messiah, Mordhau or Kingdom Come, most action RPGs seem to mostly just add more animation, but nothing has changed since Oblivion, it´s still just a numbers calculation happening on the back while you just keep pressing action and block. I haven´t seen any bows so I guess archer build is out, seem like it´s gonna force a lot of us to play mage builds which looks a little better and more fun.
I don't like first person so I might be biased, but I think it's very not suited to melee combat. It works better with projectiles. For me it also has to do with the character's physicality contributing to melee, and that doesn't exist in first person. I wholly agree with you on the PoE feelings. Like the world but the games weren't hits for me, I felt largely it was down to characters/relationships, so hopefully they could work on that. This game really reminds me of older RPG lite "dungeon" crawlers, otherwise.
Honestly I find player arguments about not liking the art style are thoroughly self-indulgent. The devs are making a game in the universe of their creation, it is THEIR art style I want to play, I don’t expect them to change something so fundamental to match my tastes.
Hey Mortym! You mention that Pillars 3 has little chance because 1 and 2 didn’t sell well, which is true. Do you think that the big success of Baldur’s Gate 3 could mean more popularity to CRPGs in general? And so being seen as less of a risk by developers?
Generally speaking sure, but developers don't make financial decisions at large companies so it's not actually up to the devs. BG3's development and the resources that went into it were a colossal risk that Larian, as a private company, was able to decide for itself was worthwhile which just isnt how large coporations beholden to shareholders operate.
I'm definitely waiting to see the skills and rpg elements. So I'm not really hot or cold on this game. Side note, I have absolutely no faith that DA Dreadwolf.
Something almost no other gamers think about is how those of us with low vision/various visual handicaps perceive these games. I had a stroke a few years ago which very much affected my ability to perceive differences in objects, etc. Dark dungeons are almost unplayable for me now, which sucks because I used to actually mod my games to have DARKER dungeons for realism's sake. That said: I *love* Avowed's incredibly vivid color palette. It makes it SO much easier to distinguish locations, enemies, environment, etc. I applaud them for straying from the incredibly blah "grimdark" visual style that has been done to death for over a decade now. Yeah, it's a little cartoony, but at least it's something *different*....AND it very much helps those of us with reduced vision.
These 1st person RPGs have by far the worst combat. Why not go third person and implement some kind of combat system that isn't "swing swing swing" or "back up and cast".
On PoE3 I would point out a) BG3 affects everything re: isometric cRPGs going forward and b) Josh Sawyer recently tweeted "Can someone please give me $120m so I can make PoE3?". Only half jokingly IMHO. To me the big problem Deadfire suffered was the attempt to switch from "Open Zone" to "Open World" and that the ship combat, on which it was hoped the open world game play would largely turn, fell flat. Avowed is said to be back to "Open Zone". This works better for narrative I think. Also monster level balancing.
I’m finding the art style complaints interesting, because I also have criticisms despite not having played either of the PoE games. So, in my case it’s not due to comparisons. I just think some of the colour choices are overkill. Is the sort of thing that probably looks amazing in concept art (if that rad box art is anything to go by), but in-game it’s just a little too much and it makes elements like the glowing funghi stand out from the rest of the environment, like it’s been imported from a different game or something. Not really getting the complaints about the combat, it looks fine to me. People always say that melee combat in games feels “floaty” or not “heavy” enough but are rarely able to explain what they actually mean by that.
It worryingly follows a pattern of big rpgs that have come out in the last couple decades that have lauched poorly, and that is how little they've shown of the actual nuts and bolts and gameplay loop, if they won't show something, there's a chance they have nothing to show.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts - quite interesting to hear. One of the things that concerns me about Avowed that I haven't seen come up much is only having human and elf as race choices, which is a bit boring and disappointing after POE1 and POE2.
I appreciate the coverage of this game. It wouldn't even be on my radar if not decently covered by a few key channels I like. Mort's coverage pairs well with RPG Division's. Different personalities and shticks. For me, helpful and entertaining. And sensibly-lengthed, esp for an upcoming title.
This reminds me of something simple from the xbox360 eras, and that’s okay! I’m still playing BG3 which is an ultra complex, ultra immersive RPG. Dragon’s Dogma will scratch the middle action RPG itch. And this Avowed game will be that chill, casual first person romp through a known world (I love the Pillars series). I’m all for it boys!
I think Avowed is releasing in an awkward climate. Post BG3, I bet this colorful setting would have gotten a lot more buzz as a CRPG. I think the 3D action crowd is leaning more Elden Ring these days, expecting something more subdued and visceral. But hopefully Avowed lands well, and by this time next year people are talking about copying it's homework instead.
Based only off of what has been shown Avowed looks like it could be an alright or decent game. It really sucks that all of the details that draw the line between alright and amazing just happen to be all of the details that haven't been shown off or really focused on in promotional material for this game. I want to love it, but with the development struggles this game allegedly had and Microsoft's current track record with IPs for companies it has recently acquired I really don't think I'll be doing anything but waiting for responses to this title a few weeks after it has released before deciding on playing it. Like; I really need to see the RPG in this RPG made by RPG A-List Company Obsidian to know if I can buy this, cause if the RPG elements of this game are watered down or shallow the gameplay shown otherwise just doesn't seem anywhere near worth the hype beyond expecting an alright game. The last Obsidian Game I played had RPG elements as deep as *Bringing a Companion with you to kill everyone she cared about in edgewater at the command of a bunch of corporate executives because they disagreed with edgewater having any sort of freedom and said companion (Parvati) not seeming to care about it at all during the latter half of the Outer Worlds*. So until I can see the RPG worth the hype of advertising it as an *Obsidian* game; I'll just wait.
Thanks for the video. I certainly agree that graphics aren't the most important part of a game, there is still something about show don't tell. It's one thing to read something looked visceral, and another see something visceral. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
I’ve said it once I’ll say it again, if the godlike are not a playable race that’ll be a crime against rpg’s no one wants to just play as some stinking human or elf
Just because it's an RPG doesn't absolve all the combat sins. It's 2024, the combat should just be better executed. There's no real excuse for such a significant part of the gameplay loop to look this poor.
Yea I felt that Fallout 4 atleast for shooting did combat decent enough. And with animations on enemies mainly the animal/mutants they did well on the end.
I would imagine the avoidance to the word stealth comes down to the fact that games like this (thinking skyrim, fallout 3/4, outer worlds etc) really don't have indepth stealth mechanics as apposed to something like Dishonored. So really it is setting expectations.
First person swordplay is usually pretty meh. I have learned to not be bothered by it. That has two bonuses. I am not bothered by the majority and I really enjoy when it is done well. The twin wand gameplay does look really interesting though.
My only worry about this game is the quality of writing and consistency of art style direction. If they nail these two, I'm sold. Combat is just an accessory to the experience and if it turns out to be a-la-Skyrim, that's more than enough for me.
I'll admit, as someone who enjoys fantasy races, I was disappointed by the news Avowed would be cutting the six playable races of Pillars 1 and 2, down to just humans and elves.
Im cautiosly optimistic about this game, and i really hope it ends up being a success for Obsidian, my only gripe with it, and this is just personal opinion, is that i dont enjoy 1st person rpgs as much and i wish it would have been 3rd person.
I think this game doesn't look ambitious at all. It looks basic, magic that they showed doesn't look impressive, only two races available and it won't be an open world. When I saw the first teaser I was expecting much more, now it seems like we'll get Outer Worlds but fantasy.
The kobolds (Xaurips) look so weak in combat that it feels like murdering helpless animals. Makes me feel more sad than excited. 😔 It could be especially when the character uses the wand to blast one dead and it just keels over. It's like you're in Harry Potter killing some muggles with avada kedavra. But maybe it's a commentary on how "adventurers" are really violent wanderers travelling to far away lands and enacting violence on the creatures there? 😂 (As Dimension 20's Arthur Aguefort so eloquently described them)
They're Xaurip and they're usually pretty low-level. Which is even more surprising since the area shown is meant to be the third area you get to, so I'd expect beefier enemies by that point.
i think about deadfire sales , in obsidians recent doc they said it broke even pretty fast, but didn't keep going. it wasn't until later that it actually made them money, and actually done pretty well. it just took way to long by that point. As for avowed. Games still way off. in a interview the other day they said they wanted to just focus gameplay first as its what gets most attention and that having ur first info be able dialogue and stats isnt really the best idea, but that info will come later on. I think we're going to get a solid TOW style game thats abit deeper but dont expect much more. its got what 200 people working on it. bg3 had around 2k . so yeah i think many just expected this to be the nxt big AAA game, its not, its still the same small obsidian team doing a AA game.
Thank you for the review. I loved Pillars of Eternity I and II. At least I think 3500 hours of play justifies my claim. Hoping Avowed will equally addict me.
It looks like a "outer worlds" tier of game. Solid weekend binger, but nothing like a skyrim or fallout style world. The art style seems awesome though. I could see Microsoft greenlighting another pillars game, simply because they seem more likely to farm their IP for new products than most publishers. Not only do they profit from filling gamepass with lots of variety, but they seem to be willing to invest in a large variety of smaller titles as opposed to say Sony who puts all their effort into a handful of big flagship titles.
Combat has never been Obsidian's strong suit and I did not expect that to change with Avowed. What they are good at is AA, deep RPG mechanics, rich story telling, and impactful decisions. What I wanted to see were those RPG mechanics. Show us those skill trees, show us the attributes, show us how they impact dialogue, etc. THAT is what I wanted to see and was disappointed in not seeing them. I am sure that they are there, but I just wanted to see them and how they would work in Avowed. I also wanted to see usable spears, so here is hoping that their next showing shows off what we know them to do.
I think the main issue of this game is the awful marketing. They showed us an amazing teaser when they revealed the game for the first time, and since then everything has gone downhill. Is cool that they show combat, but if it is not that great, maybe is time to show the strengths of the game? They spoke about the story, questing, and writing but never showed if there was actually anything great in it. They also never show any RPG systems, only talk about it, and there is nothing else to see other than janky combat. I think they will end up postponing release into 2025 as this still looks quite raw.
Things I'm hoping for in Avowed: Switch between 1st and 3rd person on the fly. Interesting and permanent companions/followers. Playable Aumaua and other races. Rich character creation/customization and cool armor sets, etc.
I really, really want this to rock. I love PoE and PoE 2 and Starfield made me loose any faith left in their capacity to make a good RPG anymore, so hopefully this is actually good.
I agree that I am looking forward to the game still, but I already know I will try to touch as less as possible the melee combat, its not just the fact that it does not hace any weight as you say, its also that when you hit enemies that little slowmo and that weird yellowish hit animation look terrible, and since Obsidian has already confirmed that pacifist route will not be an option, I know that, while I do wanted to play melee before seeing the gameplay, it will be detrimental for my experience. So hopefully we can see more in the future, and a demo of the game would be amazing, because The Outer Worlds, while not terrible per se, wasnt my cup of tea, especially the writting.So having the chance to actually try it out personally would be a big deal in my decision to get the game or not.
You hit on all 3 of my key concerns and your take on them gave me some things to consider. Also, to be clear there is about a 90% chance that I will be trying this game regardless. Only further marketing amplifying my concerns would derail me at this point. In the spirit of discussion though, I did want to say a few things: 1. Art style. I could not agree more with your position on art. I don't care about the style, the colors or the realism. The one thing I do care about is cohesion (which is the word I think you used). This is where I disagree with you a bit. I am not too concerned that the art matches with previous games in this setting or that there are diverse biomes that are very different (in fact I like that). What I am concerned with is what I see as a drastic difference in the art for the world as compared to the enemy models. The world is detailed and rich while the enemies seemed much less detailed and more cartoony. This combination is what I am struggling with as it feels so "wrong" that it immediately takes me out of the experience. 2. Combat. You make excellent points about what these games are focused on and the inherent limitations of translating the mechanics into visuals. My concern is them not taking the obvious wins. To illustrate what I mean I will focus on "death animations". In the presentation, we saw enemies go down to melee attacks, wands and direct spell casting. There was one freeze and shatter that was cool, but the rest of the time what we saw was the enemy just falling over. I will acknowledge that it can be hard to convey real damage results, but death is death and that is not hard to scale or translate from a number system. Monster falls over is just not good enough for an action oriented combat system in a AA or AAA title in my opinion. I also want to be clear that neither of these problems is, in my mind, unfixable at all. My primary concern is time. I am not confident that this would or could be fixed in the release window they have targeted. But that being said, I am not a programmer or a project director, so I could be very wrong about this. Either way, I am looking forward to the game and I REALLY hope it is successful.
I think the game looks good so far. If there were injury models similar to dead island 2, that would really help the combat feel. Maybe if it gets a sequel?
As a Borderlands fan, and having played CP2077 as a melee build,, the issue I am seeing with Avowed is that combat needs to be sped up. It all looks so sluggish and boring, the enemies have long wind ups, your character is slow, etc. It lacks the visceral intensity that a first person game should have.
I like the clolour scheme, by comparison Skyrim's muted palette was a terrible mistake, having vibrant colours makes the dark gritty areas even more of a contrast :)
My biggest concern with avowed at this point is actually just that we *still* don’t have a specific release date. The reason this worries me is because we’ve seen with big RPG titles before that when you start to see ambiguity or questions of ‘ready-ness’ from the dev team it’s like smoke to a fire. Somethings wrong internally. There’s something they fundamentally don’t trust about the title and it’s delaying the certainty required to green light it. It’s not to say that the game is doomed, but we saw the same thing happen with Starfield. It was supposed to release in 2022, if you can even believe that, and the game still came out half baked and *boring*. Is disavowed in similar trouble?
Appreciate all you do. You are an inspiration for new gaming channels. All content is so well presented. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication!
What I would have prefered is also Pillars 3, and if they didn't want to go with top down view again, they could have gone with the Dragon Age: Origins style. As it stands I'm not touching Avowed with the locked first person view hub based locations, no than not for me.
Lots of people hate it because its not coming on playstations but the gameplay looks better than some bethesda old games we loved like fallout 3 , new vegas, oblivion
The with the art i think alot ool have with the game is that its looks very different from the CGI trailer we seen a couple years ago where that felt more dark and gritty while this is more vibrant and colorful two different feels for the game
Just on the art direction, I think it is going to be hard for Obsidian to top PoE2. The Deadfire Archipelago was a great concept that really matched up with Obsidian's skillset. It's not so much a melting pot as it a patchwork quilt of the different cultures of Eora, which is kind of perfect for an RPG. And it has a clear historical reference point with the Colonial Caribbean which is something that Obsidian works really well with. The Living Lands are, at least in my mind, kind of without any real world reference. They're supposed to be so teaming with life that you might find anything there. Otherworldly locations and abominations of life sound more like From Software territory to me.
Could be wrong but it sounds to me like the Amazon Forest on steroids. At least that's how I envisioned it from the brief descriptions of it in the other games.
Personally speaking you hit the nail on the head with the "state of ip" chapter. I played Pillars 1 and 2 at release and story wise are probably in the top 10 best crpgs ever made for me. I was super excited when Deadfire came out and I feel absolutely nothing for Avowed. It exists, I don't hate it but I don't care for it at all. I just want PoE3 ffs, not this Skyrim like first person rubbish. It's a pass for me. Also, there is no coming back from it: if Avowed flops it' the dead of the IP, if it's a success it means more Avowed and not a crpg.... which is dumb, since BG3 demonstrates that there is a market for crpgs and it's a big one. PoE is dead, long live PoE
I was just reading an interview with the two lead developers posted by Eurogamer. Not a single straightforward answer, which is not encouraging. The only hint I got that's semi-hopeful is that they are using The Outer Worlds as a baseline for many game systems. And while TOW is a game that I do like, I am not sure that its game systems were that good.
Loved Pillars of Eternity I & II, even with the RTWP-Combat. So won't write this one off, yet, but would have preferred another CRPG. This looks like they took a watered down approach to a more casual action type game. Hope I'm wrong, though. Obisidian alway excelled with complex "core games". System- and mechanics-heavy with a lot of focus on story, lore, characters and world building.
Very few games have first person hack-n-slash combat that feels good. The ones that come to mind are Vermintide and Dark Messiah. So far Avowed's combat just seems very Skyrim-esque.
Agree and dark messiah is still the king in my eyes 👌🏻
But Avowed already seems to have much more complex combat mechanics than Skyrim.
@@ohmnesiait looks the same to me
Dishonored has great first person combat I don't understand the sentiment of first person melee combat can't be good when games have done it in the past maybe not in RPGs but is accounting for dissonance really worth having weightless combat?I don't think so.
@@SkylarTrahan Then you might wanna boot up Skyrim again, because your memory is playing tricks on you.
The thing I've noticed between Outer Worlds and Avowed is that Obsidian has taken a tact of...playing it safe, post-Deadfire. The thing about Obsidian RPGs that goes unsaid is that while they're almost always acclaimed in *hindsight*, when they release, they're usually (a) a huge mess and (b) REALLY experimental story-wise. The thing with Outer Worlds and Avowed is that it seems that they're trying to scope their ambitions more and play it a *lot* safer in order to, y'know, actually get the game made and done in a timely manner and to have a release that isn't a horrifying disaster.
That said, I think part of why we haven't seen that much from Avowed's UI and RPG systems is that we know for a fact they were originally trying to make Avowed a multiplayer open-world title before seeing high-profile catastrophes in that space and going, "y'know what? Why don't we just...not do that?"
Which implies that they had a lot of reworking to do.
Generally yes obsideon has played it safe but pentiment is a notable exception. It’s pretty much the opposite of playing it safe now a days.
true, but each time people have such huuge expectations. the TOW before it was even out was talked about like the nxt coming of FONV. this game after one trailer was already the ES killer. people know how good obsidian are, and i guess under MS they expected them to move to a AAA size game, when infact they have just been left to it by MS and nothing much has changed. this game is another AA game in the same scale as ToW or even grounded.
@@ronuss Them marketing it as made by the creators of Fallout and the team that made New Vegas did nothing but fan the flames of hype.
Besides, the reason TOW is bleh has nothing to do with size or budget constraints, or at most it's a minor point. Its systems are just not well designed. The quests are mostly awful. The gameplay offers little. Even character customization is a bit of a joke. These were things they could have done better with little to no extra investment.
The Obsidian of today is not the Obsidian of the past. The company is irrelevant, what matters is the people running the place.
It's honestly just a return to the world of Eora that I'm looking forward to with this game. I loved the world building from PoE and Deadfire and I just hope Obsidian can do it justice with an engaging storyline. For my sake, the rest of the game can be serviceable as long as the narrative is good. That won't be good enough for most other players though, and that's understandable.
I was sad to see they got rid of classes for skill trees but hopeful they'll execute it right. What I really want them to show next is the combat depth, build diversity possible and how many skill trees there are.
Regarding the future of the IP, I believe that BG3’s success may revive Microsoft’s interest to fund a Pillars 3 game. I hope that’s the case, at least.
That's what I was going to say. I really hope because of BG3 CRPGs will have a another boom in popularity. I think many people who are new to CRPGs and picked up BG3 would love WotR, Kingmaker, PoE, Tryanny, DoS and many others.
Specifically a Pillars 3 that has BG3-style/Dragon Age style cutscenes. Microsoft wouldn't want anything less!
I was hopping this
Double edged sword for me. I think the success of BG3 will indeed get more companies greenlighting CRPGs similar to BG3. Sadly, I think they'll want to copy the formula down to turn based combat, and the RTWP style old school Baldur's Gate like titles won't be happening. I like turn based just fine, but I also just really, really love RTWP CRPGs.
If Avowed does poorly though, the Pillars universe is dead. Microsoft will just fire everybody, and shut the doors on any future potential games set there. As they showed this week, they don't care.
It will absolutely be turn based. Though I like RTWP, turn based has been proved over and over again to be more successful as far as feedback and sales from the majority of the audience@@acronen
This game feels very much a gamble, which feels odd to say. I'm very very happy to be back in that world and this is a company that can deliver a great game. But there's something about it that has me hesitant. The whole part where you said that we've seen alot, but haven't seen the systems at play hits it on the head. But I guess we're still a little early on.
I think the problem is people forget that this is not the same company that made New Vegas or PoE. It's full of completely different people. I have a feeling this game is going to either fail or *barely* break even. All we've seen so far makes it look like a skyrim-like, which is not a good sign due to how bad Skyrim is.
To me the biggest red flag is a dev comment in an interview (I believe from Eurogamer). Obsidian's actively comparing Avowed to The Outer Worlds, emphasizing the similarities. Personally I find The Outer Worlds the definition of an "okay" game, so that's not very hopeful. There already seems to be a lot of damage control involved.
The only time the used Outer Worlds as a comparison was when talking about how zones function. And even then, there was another Obsidian dev coming out to say he was surprised to hear that, since zones in Avowed are supposedly much bigger than the big ones in Outer Worlds.
@@ohmnesia To me the word "scope" has more meaning than just talking about how big the zones are.
@@mhjmstultiens Then I'm glad to inform you that not only did they say the zones are bigger, but also denser with things to do.
@@jmmywyf4lyf How so? They have showed ONE small (optional) area within one single zone so far. You have seen absolutely nothing to even base this assumption off.
@@jmmywyf4lyf That sounds like a pretty groundless assumption, to be honest. Just because you have seen some smaller areas, it does not mean that you know how big the larger zone is that those small areas are a part of.
It looks quite basic. The environments are beautiful but everything else looks like a proof of concept; especially the wand gameplay.
@@chuckchan4127lol
@@chuckchan4127that doesn’t exist
I disagree. I think it looks great
@@ultimatesoup I can respect that. I felt the same way about Outer Worlds and still quite enjoyed it. I imagine Avowed will be similar.
Doesn't look proof of concept to me. The wand gameplay looks great imo
I didn’t want to post anything negative on the other video, but I agree that the combat looks stale. Like a very slightly improved Skyrim?
But can’t count it out until we get hands on, I’ll look forward to your first impressions video.
@@chuckchan4127yea, comparing it to Skyrim was in no way a compliment😂
Well it's true except for the bow and arrow shooting, it's still more satisfying than most other games in the same genre today. It's not for nothing that people always find themselves as a stealth archer even when that wasn't the plan, it's just too damn fun to pass up.
Which first person fantasy combat was any good?
@@marceelinodark messiah. But that's like the only one lol.
@@marceelino just based on the "feel", Dishonored, Vermintide, Mordhau. I personally like Witchaven's. There's probably more. The issue with Avowed is even just how it looks (perceived feel) isn't that great.
PoE2 had some great realistic depictions of overall weaponry, how to wield them, for instance how to hold a buckler+sword. They did a great job of including historically correct terms ( for instance half-swording, where you grab your sword to create better tip control for precision - penetration - or to use as a lever in wrestling-range) and I was pleasantly surprised that I could create, for instance, a master of deflection-swashbuckler in a semi-realistic way! I would expect similar nods to actual medieval/renaissance combat, while still being an action RPG, in this game; although it so far looks debatable with how the shield moves in the gameplay-videos. I absolutely adore the graphics style, it is reminiscent of old-school -90s rpg's. I am really looking forwards to this one. Great breakdown, by the way :)
And also of course, the sweet realistic looking armour. The ships were a treat, the Pacific-islands world building - including the villages and cities/clothing/dialects/ etc. To me, PoE 1&2 is peak gaming
They made such a strides to realistic depictions because Josh Sawyer is a huge medieval history and war nerd. He is not involved in Avowed and so I expect that to take a backseat unfortunately.
@@frankfrankfrankfrankfrank that is so sad to hear. I specifically liked the subtly grounded realism of the Archipelago and the script managment. Hopefully the game ends up as having the correct feel
I don't know, what worries me most is that the story and the lore take the protagonism they deserve. The one conversation that appears seems to be more straightforward like in the newer fallout and i really enjoyed the rich conversation options that poe1 and 2 had.
Chris Avelone wrote for Obsidian for years including for games like new vegas and poe. He's no longer there (see The Outer Worlds for example). The writing, the engine, and many many other things, will be incredibly similar to TOW. Which isn't baddd. But it ain't Obsidian anymore. It's a bunch of other people wearing the name. It is not the team that gave you those greats.
@@animalmother9143 thats... thats just how most workplaces function tough.
@@animalmother9143 He wasn't there for Deadfire either. I'm a big fan of his work but his contributions are a bit overstated he wasn't solely responsible for the writing in Obsidian games. New Vegas and the first Pillars of Eternity he had more minor contributions (a few companions Cass, Durance, Grieving Mother and overseeing a couple of the DLCs specifically for NV). Kotor 2 was his baby and I think the MOTB expansion for NWN2 is also primarily his but I could be wrong since Planescape Torment was his baby too and it has a very similar feel to it.
@@CrazyxEnigma Josh Sawyer being the other thing that made those games great. Unfortunately he's not a part of this one.
You say he wasn't responsible for every word written and that's correct. He was however, the lead writer, meaning the other writers wrote in his style and he approved all the work they did. It's all his by extension. Aside from things he obviously didn't do. I would say his influence in severely understated when it comes to his writing contributions. @@CrazyxEnigma
i think the thing that worries me the most about Avowed is I'm worried the same thing that happen to the Outer Worlds will happen to Avowed, people are describing Avowed as a sort of "Elder Scrolls-like" when that is intentionally not what the game is now because Obsidian studios does not have the resources to do that, same like how Outer Worlds is not an equal to previous fallout games (at least in terms of scope).
I am also somewhat worried that this shows a shift in Obsidian studios development and we'll never see another a crpg by them but I think that's just my anxiety. I do hope we'll get a sequel to Pillars 2 Which was wonderful but didn't do well financially.
I mean Pentiment already showed that Obsidian is still full of talented people, and they're implementing a lot of the same dialogue mechanics in Pentiment, another thing to keep in mind is that Pillar's co-writer is the design director for Avowed.
I agree, the comparing of Outer Worlds to New Vegas wasn't inherently wrong but some people just don't seem to get the mechanical appeal of bethesda style RPGs and why smaller scope/less detailed worlds just don't hit the same way.
Your right about outer world but this logic doesnt apply to avowed as they have since been aquired by microsoft and have all the budged they need to make avowed. They have doubled in team size since outer world and job listings for obeidian have said that they are working on a AAA game
@@woozie3241 i mean budget is what you use to pay the talent to build the game. they don't have the numbers or the requisite experience (yet) to make the game.
What kept Larian studios from making a game like Baldur's Gate 3 in 2012 wasn't money, they had to learn how to make the game by first making D:OS 1 and then OS2.
(in other words even if they had that kind of budget when they were making the first original sins, they still would not have been able to make baldur's gate 3). Anyway have a good day!
@@woozie3241 I agree basically but keep in mind that when they started to conceptualize Avowed they hadn't been bought up yet so the budget was tight. They're not gonna change the whole scope of the game mid development. I am more curious to know why after the rather muted reception of The Outer Worlds they decided to make another "Bethesda but tiny" RPG.
Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time. I love the setting, the writing and the rpg system and I am still excited to return to Eora but my biggest source of trepidation is what you pointed out: The RPG system. What I loved about PoE was their unique stat system and how there take on the classic fantasy classes. We have seen some Wizard and Druid Spells in action but I worry about how they implement stuff from the other classes. I was disheartened to hear that they are going the Classless open skill route because their classes were so cool in Pillars of Eternity and I don't think that you will be able to implement all the things we saw in PoE to Avowed. How will the Cypher skills be implemented? Will you be able to Chant and what would that look like? Are we going to get Druid shapeshifting? I loved the Deadfire multiclass system because you could mix and match in creative ways not usually seen in most fantasy systems (My Druid/Paladin was a really fun support Tank and I got to combine two of my favorite classes that normally don't multiclass well) so the Classless system will support that more so but still, just really worried about if I am going to like the RPG system just because there are so many unknowns and I want to know more past the ambiguous open skill tree type format.
While it's not a gamebreaker for me, I'm a little bit disappointed that there seems to be no third person view. I personally just prefer third person in games where melee combat plays a bigger role and in action rpgs generally (I want to see my character!). While there are exceptions, most of the time melee combat in first person just feels like "swinging your weapon around like a mad man".
Yeah, first person only killed my interest in this game.
I'm glad, first person is much more immersive, especially for swordfighting.
Not casting spells from a grimoire seems really lame. Imagine a pure wizard class that just has a huge backlog of spells to destroy enemies with, instead of the various flavors of wands they seem to have.
They mentioned the grimoire in an interview, another wait and see on that one
It is a pity they ditched the class system of PoE2. I really think that that was the best iteration of multiclassing i've ever seen in a CRPG (although i havent played BG3 yet, so i dont know what goes on there).
I like the art style. Medieval fantasy doesn't always have to mean darkness and gloom.
Yeah, but PoE's Dyrwood set that expectation for Eora. Even the Deadfire Islands have an extremely dark and decadent underbelly.
It's not Medieval fantasy, it's renaissance fantasy. that why you see things guns, canons, huge ships and the focus on conquering overseas territory in this setting.
@@miguelcondadoolivar5149 dark and decadent doesn't mean "no color allowed", just look at Tyranny which was pretty colorful
One of my good friends who works in game dev as a senior QA told me that for the games he’s worked on, UI is one of the last things to be finalized. Now, there’s no way of knowing if this is also the case with Avowed, but I’m going to assume that it is for the sake of argument.
If this game is actually releasing in the fall - and not being delayed - then my assumption would be that the marketing team came in and said “we need something to show for this upcoming design direct.”
They can’t show the character creation if the UI isn’t finalized. They can’t show much of the systems either. Inventory, stat screen, map, all that stuff.
So what CAN they show? Combat doesn’t need UI for a basic showcase. The animations aren’t looking too great, but maybe we can get around that by focusing on magic with its flashy effects. So they get some footage of basic combat against basic enemies. But that isn’t enough for a ten minute video. So they have to get some kind of dialogue fixed up. I can only assume they pulled from an early area of the game, since the enemies are just goblins but lizard-y. So they get an early quest with the most basic characters imaginable with a mock up UI that will do the job well enough.
All of this is likely wrong. I am not a game dev and I know nothing about how this all works. If anything, I’m being pretty naive in the hopes that Obsidian had to pull together something quickly for this showcase and didn’t have everything ready to show us the actual RPG systems we care about.
Maybe they really just thought this all looked fantastic and trotted it out happily. I really hope this isn’t the case because it just looks so choppy.
At the end of the day, as long as the writing is good and the character building is interesting and extensive, I’ll be happy. The combat is not a deal breaker for me, but I can totally understand if it would be for others.
I’m cautiously optimistic. That’s been the case since it was announced and it is still the case now. Fingers crossed!
I went from super excited with the first trailer.
To worried with the second.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they do.
The gameplay footage has had "Alpha gameplay" displayed in the top left corner so I'm hoping the animations get smoothed out and enemies react more to getting hit come the full release. I don't play Obsidian games for the combat so serviceable is good enough for me.
While I agree Obsidian games are not about combat, so far they only focused on the combat for this one and it's not looking great, wonder how's everything else gonna be if they are afraid of showing it doesn't it?
@@smattonellus8354 The focus might not be combat, but Outer Worlds showed their quest and world design is lacking and if the thing you do 90 % of the time, namely combat, is boring, people will leave. I wouldn't bank on the game surviving on "Bethesda-like game" magic.
Considering Deadfire is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, of the "new" cRPGS I really dig the art style, especially in regard to color palette. As far as combat, I never anticipated something I'd love. First-person combat never feels right to me, especially like you mentioned when it comes to RPGs. A lack of expectations leads to (hopefully) a lack of disappointment.
My one reservation has to do with companion AI in combat. From the scant video I've seen of the male Aumaua companion trying to "help" in combat... I'm definitely trying to lower my expectations there.
I just want an RPG with Vermintide/Darktide quality combat.
Couldn’t agree more with what you said. Deadfire is my favorite as well.
But for me, it’s third person that doesn’t feel right. I far prefer 1st.
However it’s the plot and immersing myself in eora that I’m lookin forward to. I just hope there’s decent mod support
@@robjamysan718
Neither of those are really statbased in the same way and have many more discrete factors so it's easier to handle combatwise (plus the animations are often for feel moreso than anything, chaff dies in one hit regardless). Also they have a total lack of actual RPG elements and more complex world building for a reason, the focus is on the horde, and that horde is pretty intensive regarding the engine and the design of gameplay mechanics (because if you are off then the PC characters either stomp or die immediately).
It's just not really a project I feel would work, if only because you'd need Fatshark and a studio like Obsidian to go half and half, and the competing design aims would likely cause the project to fall apart.
Dark Messiah is an example of a good FP RPG-lite combat system, you don't have that many enemies, but the enemies that you do have are strong, fast, and above all an active danger. That's how it should be done, you can have creativity and an extended arsenal that can be upgraded, but you need proper challenge to test it against. It's the same methodology good Turn-Based/TT RPGs utilize, a limited selection of well placed/selected enemies that create a combat puzzle you need to actively work on to solve.
I'm happy for every game that's isn't based in dark woods and eurocentric medieval cities.
That's why I hope the next elders scrolls takes place in hammerfell or elwyer
@@parttimehero8640 Why’s that?
I really don't get why so many people are saying the combat looks basic?
The quick animations when you switch loadouts seems to suggest to me that Avowed's combat will focus on switching loadouts to respond to different tactical situations.
The ability to dual wield so many different kinds of weapons and switch them on the fly already feels like a massive upgrade on Skyrim (which we've known from the start was the game Feargus wanted to emulate)
We've also seen Pillars specific spells like Pull of Eora in other trailers which will probably make for chaotic encounters
Then add in elemental affects, combos, and companion characters who can fill different roles in combat, and it already seems like a pretty fleshed out system.
Not to say it won't feel simplistic but I just struggle to understand how people can judge that off a few minutes of gameplay when it looks like there's actually a lot going on under the hood.
Avowed fefls like a very safe game. I thinked that with microsoft money obsidian would take more risks and trying to do something more ambitious.
that's not how it works : the more money, the less risks - unless you're crazy like Larian, there's a reason why BG3 was an event
@armelior4610 crazy, rich, had a renewed fanbase along with it's core fanbase... DOS2 most likely outperformed both PoE games 3-4 times on its own. All in all, BG3 was a "safe" game for Karina after they had made hit after hit in the same genre.
imo it looks and feels "off" a bit. personally cant say graphics dont matter, if i dont like the way it looks or its style/ polish then i just cant look past it like its not a factor, it affects my enjoyment.
This just seems like fantasy Outer Worlds to me, which was not great either(at least IMO). Going the basic Skyrim RPG route after bangers like Pillars of Eternity is pretty disappointing.
@@Cancarizzatore To each their own, but I thought it was average at most.
@@Awoken0 Exactly, if you think Outer Worlds was great you obviously never played any other Obsidian game.
@@Cancarizzatore it was probably one of the most boring games i ever played.
@@maboilaurence8227 or you know, enjoyment is a matter of taste?
@@Notsram77 You can enjoy bad games, nothing wrong with that, it's called guilty pleasure.
But let's not pretend a game is good simply because you like it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Avowed. I recently watched your lore series for Eora. When Avowed was announced, I must admit I was hoping that it would do what Morrowind did well, but hopefully even better. But maybe they are going for something completely different, which of course can turn out great too.
If they are doing a genre switch, with a mass appeal as the main goal, then I think I'd prefer a third person action adventure RPG similar to Witcher 3. But I suppose they have experience with first person view games, so there'd be less obstacles.
Thinking back at PoE, I must say that they made a true challenge for themselves. Introducing the player to a new RPG system with its own rules, a completely new world and setting, with its own lore, and of course a story, with its plot and characters. And I totally understand that one would love to create something unique, with the love and care that true art deserves. But on the other hand, as a player either needs to be able to play and replay a lot, and/or have lore prep and rule system boot camp, to really make the most of the experience. It is an art in of itself, to introduce the player in an elegant fashion, to all these aspects of the game.
To play cRPGs (and some other types of games) in the way I'd like to, to get completely absorbed in it, is a time luxury I simply can't afford at the moment. Sorry for the wall of text comment, but I'd like to thank you for making these videos, especially the ones you call "rambly". So, thank you! :)
Idk why, but I feel like Avowed will be kind of like The Outer Worlds. A smaller-scope RPG game, that is just... okay. And in gaming, I feel that's like the worst thing that can happen. That is your game being just a forgettable game, even having a bad game would be better, because people would talk about it.
Yea they really messed up with how few enemy types were in Outer worlds and the questing and world feel to the point that after almost 100% the game prior to the dlcs…It made me hate the game as I was bored to no end. It also makes me like Cyberpunk though albeit Cuberpunk atleast has some more better things I just feel the need to express disdain for them.
The Outer Worlds was my biggest disappointment of 2019. Story was based on ONE joke, plot twist was revealed halfway through if you did sidequests, gameplay was ok at best. I really wanted to like it, because I loved Deadfire and Tyranny, but it wasn't meant to be
Not sure, I sometimes love smaller scope because it allows me to actually finish a game in a reasonable amount of time.
Small games are better than bloated games, but The Outer Worlds was just simply mediocre and I hope they don’t give my favorite fantasy RPG universe the same treatment
The melee combat looks pretty bland. The best first-person melee combat I've seen so far is actually post-DLC Cyberpunk 2077. The combat had speed and weight, which honestly impressed me. Hopefully, Obsidian can tweak the combat a bit before release. That said, I didn't play Skyrim for the combat, so if they can balance out the combat with other things, I might be willing to try it, depending on reviews.
For me when comes to melee first person it's Kingdom come. third person is Ghost of tsushima. First person Gunplay is Rage 2 and Third person Gunplay is Maxpayne3.
I'm overall liking the overhaul to Cyberpunk but it honestly feels like they sacrificed more satisfying and intuitive ranged gunplay to make melee more viable. I'm not a fan of the way they made even the most basic npcs more damage spongy. Seems like making combat "feel good" is a highly subjective thing to accomplish.
@@sieda666 Very True for me games like Last of us, RDR1, Maxpayne 3, The Warriers, Far cry Primal, Kingdom come and Ghost of tsushima are recent games I played on their highest difficulties and they were all well designed and not Spodge like.
I've been slowly getting into RPGs more (after loving Elden Ring), and your channel has been so helpful in finding out about these games!
Usually, i do not follow game news. Im very much gamer that plays the best games of the last decade, rather than new games. But this game has creeped into my periphery. I played both Pillar of Eternity games last year. As a fan of those games, I'm ready for more!
I'd like to see what they're smoking if they played vermintide then called this inspired by it
The game itself? No one said that, not even Mortim in the video. The FP combat of Vermintide is what they used as inspiration for Avoweds combat. Whether that’s a good or bad thing or something they’ll even be able to replicate only time will tell.
i play vermintide 2 today and the footage from avowed does give off a familiar vibe
they are completely different games (vermintide is a horde game where you cut down scores of enemies in a matter of seconds) but vermintide 2 does feel like a cousin to rpgs due to the character customization and different builds you can do
It's ironic that Obsodism wanted something more mainstream because they thought traditional CRPGs couldn't sell well... and then BG3 came out. Regardless of your opinion on BG3 or PoE, I know a ton of people who got into CRPGs because of BG3.
Also, I get that character height differences in first person might be hard to implement for various races.....so don't make it first person then. Part of the fun of Pillars is making a new character, and getting rid of the more unique races (and dwarves) is just going to make the game blasé. Also curious if Godlikes are considered in the human/elf customization. Technically height shouldn't matter there, but who knows if Obsidian will implement them.
They didn't just "think" CRPGs didn't sell well. They literally experienced that first hand.
Larian is a huge AAA studio. Not every ( then still independet) developer can just spend that many years, that many resources and that much money on a genre that typiciall doesn't sell well.
Honestly? Obsidian lost their touch. There I said it. :) They wanted to do something more mainstream and they did alright. I believe they don't have the talent and passion anymore to deliver a CRPG with a deep scope and they know it themselves. I want them to be that company of old, but deep in my heart I know that's not the Obsidian of today.
@ohmnesia OK, I edited my comment to 'couldn't'.
But my point was more so that BG3 got more people interested in the genre. I don't fault Obsidian for not thinking that, as it's tough to know what things will take off in this industry. Not merely selling well, but becoming an internet phenomenon.
@@mhjmstultiens Play Pentiment and Grounded, and you'll realize they are still capable of making great games.
@@ohmnesia Perhaps I will play those, even though they are different genres. :)
The most important thing Avowed needs to do is to succeed, because then there’s a far better chance of getting Pillars of Eternity 3.
I have never heard of this game until I found this video through your Graven review. Your content is nice - seems well informed and concise - and you've shown me a game to be interested in. Much appreciated!
My main concern is always going to be the writing. As a longtime fan of Obsidian games, I can live with janky gameplay to some extent (KOTOR 2, Alpha Protocol), as long as the writing holds up. They talked quite a bit about choice and consequence - which is good - but it all depends on the implementation. Going by recent history, we have Pentiment (which was brilliant), and The Outer Worlds (which was meh). We won't know until it's released, but my big fear is that it'll be closer to The Outer Worlds (a full AA release) than Pentiment (Josh Sawyer's passion project).
I think going first person is a huge mistake. People love seeing their characters in RPGs. It's why miniatures are so fun and popular in D&D, and why nearly everybody created their own character rather than use an origin in BG3. It saddens me, because I don't think the genre shift will kill the Pillars universe, but I do think the shift to first person will.
I don't know if we're the rule and not the exception, but I agree. I want 3rd person and I would have been interested in this game if it had 3rd person.
They initially meant for this to be similar to an Elder Scrolls game.
What they should be looking hard at when it comes to the combat etc, is Dark Messiah of might and magic. Still have yet to play a first person rpg with as satisfying combat/skills.
THough, that being said. I'd be perfectly happy with morrowind style rpg combat too.
Agreed. When I first saw it I hoped it would be similar to Dark Messiah. The dark, gritty look in the initial footage raised my hopes too. The newer footage isn't looking hopeful in that regard. The combat doesn't look polished and the overly bright saturated colours make it seem like it won't be a very mature game (executives like a PG13 rating for maximum marketability)
yeah, Dark Messiah is still the best first person rpg combat. It feels so satisfying there and require so much creativity
Dark Messiah is so overrated. The combat just boils down to kicking things and watching "le funny ragdolls".
@@theobell2002 it's still fun and somehow even AAA studios haven't surpassed it yet.
I bought PoE2 three times.
It is my favorite crpg.
I hope there’s a PoE3, but in the meantime, I shall enjoy avowed for what it is, whatever it is.
Immersing myself in the world of Eora is what I’m looking for.
Give me a good plot, and I’m happy.
Graphics matter little to me.
I totally agree with you, what worries me is that it looks a little bit empty. Poe2 felt really alive because of all the diferent factions with diferent interest, diferent cultures etc it felt really grounded and cohesive. I wish they can replicate that feeling in a land that is more empty and wild.
I'm glad that you highlighted the lack of info on stealth so far. I couldn't even imagine wanting to play this game if it doesn't have stealth mechanics, so this has had me more and more concerned with every reveal/trailer/interview that fails to mention it.
I´m very fine with the graphics, don´t know why people would complain, certainly it´s a little cartoonish but nothing to exagerated, and I´m loving the colours which is something I also liked in The Outer Worlds, even if NPCs were a little stiff (let´s be real, most action RPGs tend to have that problem) it was a pleasent game to look at, and I certainly prefer coloured games to one colour filters ala Fallout 3. The combat though, like everyone is saying it seems to be extremelly static, I don´t know why but despite games like Dark Messiah, Mordhau or Kingdom Come, most action RPGs seem to mostly just add more animation, but nothing has changed since Oblivion, it´s still just a numbers calculation happening on the back while you just keep pressing action and block. I haven´t seen any bows so I guess archer build is out, seem like it´s gonna force a lot of us to play mage builds which looks a little better and more fun.
"May you wander in wisdom."
Never gets old :)
Wander?
@@kain0067 Doh! Yes, "wander" is what I meant.
I don't like first person so I might be biased, but I think it's very not suited to melee combat. It works better with projectiles. For me it also has to do with the character's physicality contributing to melee, and that doesn't exist in first person.
I wholly agree with you on the PoE feelings. Like the world but the games weren't hits for me, I felt largely it was down to characters/relationships, so hopefully they could work on that. This game really reminds me of older RPG lite "dungeon" crawlers, otherwise.
Honestly I find player arguments about not liking the art style are thoroughly self-indulgent. The devs are making a game in the universe of their creation, it is THEIR art style I want to play, I don’t expect them to change something so fundamental to match my tastes.
I think it looks pretty solid
Hey Mortym!
You mention that Pillars 3 has little chance because 1 and 2 didn’t sell well, which is true. Do you think that the big success of Baldur’s Gate 3 could mean more popularity to CRPGs in general? And so being seen as less of a risk by developers?
Generally speaking sure, but developers don't make financial decisions at large companies so it's not actually up to the devs. BG3's development and the resources that went into it were a colossal risk that Larian, as a private company, was able to decide for itself was worthwhile which just isnt how large coporations beholden to shareholders operate.
I'm definitely waiting to see the skills and rpg elements. So I'm not really hot or cold on this game.
Side note, I have absolutely no faith that DA Dreadwolf.
Something almost no other gamers think about is how those of us with low vision/various visual handicaps perceive these games.
I had a stroke a few years ago which very much affected my ability to perceive differences in objects, etc. Dark dungeons are almost unplayable for me now, which sucks because I used to actually mod my games to have DARKER dungeons for realism's sake.
That said: I *love* Avowed's incredibly vivid color palette. It makes it SO much easier to distinguish locations, enemies, environment, etc. I applaud them for straying from the incredibly blah "grimdark" visual style that has been done to death for over a decade now. Yeah, it's a little cartoony, but at least it's something *different*....AND it very much helps those of us with reduced vision.
These 1st person RPGs have by far the worst combat. Why not go third person and implement some kind of combat system that isn't "swing swing swing" or "back up and cast".
On PoE3 I would point out a) BG3 affects everything re: isometric cRPGs going forward and b) Josh Sawyer recently tweeted "Can someone please give me $120m so I can make PoE3?". Only half jokingly IMHO. To me the big problem Deadfire suffered was the attempt to switch from "Open Zone" to "Open World" and that the ship combat, on which it was hoped the open world game play would largely turn, fell flat. Avowed is said to be back to "Open Zone". This works better for narrative I think. Also monster level balancing.
I’m finding the art style complaints interesting, because I also have criticisms despite not having played either of the PoE games.
So, in my case it’s not due to comparisons. I just think some of the colour choices are overkill. Is the sort of thing that probably looks amazing in concept art (if that rad box art is anything to go by), but in-game it’s just a little too much and it makes elements like the glowing funghi stand out from the rest of the environment, like it’s been imported from a different game or something.
Not really getting the complaints about the combat, it looks fine to me. People always say that melee combat in games feels “floaty” or not “heavy” enough but are rarely able to explain what they actually mean by that.
It worryingly follows a pattern of big rpgs that have come out in the last couple decades that have lauched poorly, and that is how little they've shown of the actual nuts and bolts and gameplay loop, if they won't show something, there's a chance they have nothing to show.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts - quite interesting to hear.
One of the things that concerns me about Avowed that I haven't seen come up much is only having human and elf as race choices, which is a bit boring and disappointing after POE1 and POE2.
I appreciate the coverage of this game. It wouldn't even be on my radar if not decently covered by a few key channels I like.
Mort's coverage pairs well with RPG Division's. Different personalities and shticks. For me, helpful and entertaining. And sensibly-lengthed, esp for an upcoming title.
This reminds me of something simple from the xbox360 eras, and that’s okay! I’m still playing BG3 which is an ultra complex, ultra immersive RPG.
Dragon’s Dogma will scratch the middle action RPG itch.
And this Avowed game will be that chill, casual first person romp through a known world (I love the Pillars series).
I’m all for it boys!
sounds great!
I think Avowed is releasing in an awkward climate. Post BG3, I bet this colorful setting would have gotten a lot more buzz as a CRPG. I think the 3D action crowd is leaning more Elden Ring these days, expecting something more subdued and visceral. But hopefully Avowed lands well, and by this time next year people are talking about copying it's homework instead.
Based only off of what has been shown
Avowed looks like it could be an alright or decent game.
It really sucks that all of the details that draw the line between alright and amazing just happen to be all of the details that haven't been shown off or really focused on in promotional material for this game. I want to love it, but with the development struggles this game allegedly had and Microsoft's current track record with IPs for companies it has recently acquired I really don't think I'll be doing anything but waiting for responses to this title a few weeks after it has released before deciding on playing it.
Like; I really need to see the RPG in this RPG made by RPG A-List Company Obsidian to know if I can buy this, cause if the RPG elements of this game are watered down or shallow the gameplay shown otherwise just doesn't seem anywhere near worth the hype beyond expecting an alright game.
The last Obsidian Game I played had RPG elements as deep as *Bringing a Companion with you to kill everyone she cared about in edgewater at the command of a bunch of corporate executives because they disagreed with edgewater having any sort of freedom and said companion (Parvati) not seeming to care about it at all during the latter half of the Outer Worlds*. So until I can see the RPG worth the hype of advertising it as an *Obsidian* game; I'll just wait.
Thanks for the video. I certainly agree that graphics aren't the most important part of a game, there is still something about show don't tell. It's one thing to read something looked visceral, and another see something visceral. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
I’ve said it once I’ll say it again, if the godlike are not a playable race that’ll be a crime against rpg’s no one wants to just play as some stinking human or elf
Just because it's an RPG doesn't absolve all the combat sins. It's 2024, the combat should just be better executed. There's no real excuse for such a significant part of the gameplay loop to look this poor.
Yea I felt that Fallout 4 atleast for shooting did combat decent enough. And with animations on enemies mainly the animal/mutants they did well on the end.
I would imagine the avoidance to the word stealth comes down to the fact that games like this (thinking skyrim, fallout 3/4, outer worlds etc) really don't have indepth stealth mechanics as apposed to something like Dishonored. So really it is setting expectations.
i dunno, pillars of eternity 2 had a really well developed stealth system that nobody noticed
First person swordplay is usually pretty meh. I have learned to not be bothered by it. That has two bonuses. I am not bothered by the majority and I really enjoy when it is done well. The twin wand gameplay does look really interesting though.
My only worry about this game is the quality of writing and consistency of art style direction. If they nail these two, I'm sold. Combat is just an accessory to the experience and if it turns out to be a-la-Skyrim, that's more than enough for me.
I'll admit, as someone who enjoys fantasy races, I was disappointed by the news Avowed would be cutting the six playable races of Pillars 1 and 2, down to just humans and elves.
As a pillars fan I'm a bit disappointed that we can't choose different races, not even different races of the same height.
If this game does well then there's a good chance for pillars of eternity 3. The success of BG3 has proven a markest exists for CRPGs.
Im cautiosly optimistic about this game, and i really hope it ends up being a success for Obsidian, my only gripe with it, and this is just personal opinion, is that i dont enjoy 1st person rpgs as much and i wish it would have been 3rd person.
Pretty excited! This is the closest thing to a next Elder Scrolls for me
I think this game doesn't look ambitious at all. It looks basic, magic that they showed doesn't look impressive, only two races available and it won't be an open world. When I saw the first teaser I was expecting much more, now it seems like we'll get Outer Worlds but fantasy.
The kobolds (Xaurips) look so weak in combat that it feels like murdering helpless animals. Makes me feel more sad than excited. 😔 It could be especially when the character uses the wand to blast one dead and it just keels over. It's like you're in Harry Potter killing some muggles with avada kedavra.
But maybe it's a commentary on how "adventurers" are really violent wanderers travelling to far away lands and enacting violence on the creatures there? 😂 (As Dimension 20's Arthur Aguefort so eloquently described them)
They're Xaurip and they're usually pretty low-level. Which is even more surprising since the area shown is meant to be the third area you get to, so I'd expect beefier enemies by that point.
@@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968Oh yeah. It's been ages since I played PoE
People complaining about the graphics were expecting Skyrim, whereas they should be expecting the Outer Worlds in a fantasy setting.
i think about deadfire sales , in obsidians recent doc they said it broke even pretty fast, but didn't keep going. it wasn't until later that it actually made them money, and actually done pretty well. it just took way to long by that point. As for avowed. Games still way off. in a interview the other day they said they wanted to just focus gameplay first as its what gets most attention and that having ur first info be able dialogue and stats isnt really the best idea, but that info will come later on. I think we're going to get a solid TOW style game thats abit deeper but dont expect much more. its got what 200 people working on it. bg3 had around 2k . so yeah i think many just expected this to be the nxt big AAA game, its not, its still the same small obsidian team doing a AA game.
Thank you for the review. I loved Pillars of Eternity I and II. At least I think 3500 hours of play justifies my claim. Hoping Avowed will equally addict me.
It looks like a "outer worlds" tier of game. Solid weekend binger, but nothing like a skyrim or fallout style world.
The art style seems awesome though.
I could see Microsoft greenlighting another pillars game, simply because they seem more likely to farm their IP for new products than most publishers. Not only do they profit from filling gamepass with lots of variety, but they seem to be willing to invest in a large variety of smaller titles as opposed to say Sony who puts all their effort into a handful of big flagship titles.
Combat has never been Obsidian's strong suit and I did not expect that to change with Avowed. What they are good at is AA, deep RPG mechanics, rich story telling, and impactful decisions. What I wanted to see were those RPG mechanics. Show us those skill trees, show us the attributes, show us how they impact dialogue, etc. THAT is what I wanted to see and was disappointed in not seeing them. I am sure that they are there, but I just wanted to see them and how they would work in Avowed.
I also wanted to see usable spears, so here is hoping that their next showing shows off what we know them to do.
I think the main issue of this game is the awful marketing. They showed us an amazing teaser when they revealed the game for the first time, and since then everything has gone downhill. Is cool that they show combat, but if it is not that great, maybe is time to show the strengths of the game? They spoke about the story, questing, and writing but never showed if there was actually anything great in it. They also never show any RPG systems, only talk about it, and there is nothing else to see other than janky combat. I think they will end up postponing release into 2025 as this still looks quite raw.
Things I'm hoping for in Avowed: Switch between 1st and 3rd person on the fly. Interesting and permanent companions/followers. Playable Aumaua and other races. Rich character creation/customization and cool armor sets, etc.
I really, really want this to rock. I love PoE and PoE 2 and Starfield made me loose any faith left in their capacity to make a good RPG anymore, so hopefully this is actually good.
I agree that I am looking forward to the game still, but I already know I will try to touch as less as possible the melee combat, its not just the fact that it does not hace any weight as you say, its also that when you hit enemies that little slowmo and that weird yellowish hit animation look terrible, and since Obsidian has already confirmed that pacifist route will not be an option, I know that, while I do wanted to play melee before seeing the gameplay, it will be detrimental for my experience.
So hopefully we can see more in the future, and a demo of the game would be amazing, because The Outer Worlds, while not terrible per se, wasnt my cup of tea, especially the writting.So having the chance to actually try it out personally would be a big deal in my decision to get the game or not.
I am looking forward to playing this and perhaps even trying it out in VR which would be a major upgrade like what VR has done for Skyrim
I love the PoEternity universe, funny I have more game time in it than in BG3 and Pathfinder!
You hit on all 3 of my key concerns and your take on them gave me some things to consider. Also, to be clear there is about a 90% chance that I will be trying this game regardless. Only further marketing amplifying my concerns would derail me at this point. In the spirit of discussion though, I did want to say a few things:
1. Art style. I could not agree more with your position on art. I don't care about the style, the colors or the realism. The one thing I do care about is cohesion (which is the word I think you used). This is where I disagree with you a bit. I am not too concerned that the art matches with previous games in this setting or that there are diverse biomes that are very different (in fact I like that). What I am concerned with is what I see as a drastic difference in the art for the world as compared to the enemy models. The world is detailed and rich while the enemies seemed much less detailed and more cartoony. This combination is what I am struggling with as it feels so "wrong" that it immediately takes me out of the experience.
2. Combat. You make excellent points about what these games are focused on and the inherent limitations of translating the mechanics into visuals. My concern is them not taking the obvious wins. To illustrate what I mean I will focus on "death animations". In the presentation, we saw enemies go down to melee attacks, wands and direct spell casting. There was one freeze and shatter that was cool, but the rest of the time what we saw was the enemy just falling over. I will acknowledge that it can be hard to convey real damage results, but death is death and that is not hard to scale or translate from a number system. Monster falls over is just not good enough for an action oriented combat system in a AA or AAA title in my opinion.
I also want to be clear that neither of these problems is, in my mind, unfixable at all. My primary concern is time. I am not confident that this would or could be fixed in the release window they have targeted. But that being said, I am not a programmer or a project director, so I could be very wrong about this. Either way, I am looking forward to the game and I REALLY hope it is successful.
loving the look of this. PoE II is un-fkin-real and this, visually, looks like the logical graduation for that. hoping this is a success for Obsidian.
I think the game looks good so far. If there were injury models similar to dead island 2, that would really help the combat feel. Maybe if it gets a sequel?
As a Borderlands fan, and having played CP2077 as a melee build,, the issue I am seeing with Avowed is that combat needs to be sped up. It all looks so sluggish and boring, the enemies have long wind ups, your character is slow, etc. It lacks the visceral intensity that a first person game should have.
I like the clolour scheme, by comparison Skyrim's muted palette was a terrible mistake, having vibrant colours makes the dark gritty areas even more of a contrast :)
My biggest concern with avowed at this point is actually just that we *still* don’t have a specific release date.
The reason this worries me is because we’ve seen with big RPG titles before that when you start to see ambiguity or questions of ‘ready-ness’ from the dev team it’s like smoke to a fire. Somethings wrong internally. There’s something they fundamentally don’t trust about the title and it’s delaying the certainty required to green light it.
It’s not to say that the game is doomed, but we saw the same thing happen with Starfield. It was supposed to release in 2022, if you can even believe that, and the game still came out half baked and *boring*. Is disavowed in similar trouble?
I'm cautiously optimistic about Avowed. I'll see what ppl say when it comes out!
Thanks for the video. I can't wait to play the game and hope it turns out well. This is one of my most anticipated games. All the best.
Appreciate all you do. You are an inspiration for new gaming channels. All content is so well presented. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication!
What I would have prefered is also Pillars 3, and if they didn't want to go with top down view again, they could have gone with the Dragon Age: Origins style. As it stands I'm not touching Avowed with the locked first person view hub based locations, no than not for me.
As a RPG lover and a big fan of PoE's world, as long as there's a lot of lore to dive into, and the dialogue is tight, I'll be happy.
Can we start seeing dismemberment brought back in games, keep up the great work mort!
I think since it was ment to be coop, they did not plan to do stealth, and they already have a lot of game done, and just cannot add it now.
Lots of people hate it because its not coming on playstations but the gameplay looks better than some bethesda old games we loved like fallout 3 , new vegas, oblivion
The with the art i think alot ool have with the game is that its looks very different from the CGI trailer we seen a couple years ago where that felt more dark and gritty while this is more vibrant and colorful two different feels for the game
Just on the art direction, I think it is going to be hard for Obsidian to top PoE2. The Deadfire Archipelago was a great concept that really matched up with Obsidian's skillset. It's not so much a melting pot as it a patchwork quilt of the different cultures of Eora, which is kind of perfect for an RPG. And it has a clear historical reference point with the Colonial Caribbean which is something that Obsidian works really well with.
The Living Lands are, at least in my mind, kind of without any real world reference. They're supposed to be so teaming with life that you might find anything there. Otherworldly locations and abominations of life sound more like From Software territory to me.
Could be wrong but it sounds to me like the Amazon Forest on steroids. At least that's how I envisioned it from the brief descriptions of it in the other games.
Personally speaking you hit the nail on the head with the "state of ip" chapter. I played Pillars 1 and 2 at release and story wise are probably in the top 10 best crpgs ever made for me. I was super excited when Deadfire came out and I feel absolutely nothing for Avowed. It exists, I don't hate it but I don't care for it at all. I just want PoE3 ffs, not this Skyrim like first person rubbish. It's a pass for me. Also, there is no coming back from it: if Avowed flops it' the dead of the IP, if it's a success it means more Avowed and not a crpg.... which is dumb, since BG3 demonstrates that there is a market for crpgs and it's a big one.
PoE is dead, long live PoE
I was just reading an interview with the two lead developers posted by Eurogamer. Not a single straightforward answer, which is not encouraging.
The only hint I got that's semi-hopeful is that they are using The Outer Worlds as a baseline for many game systems. And while TOW is a game that I do like, I am not sure that its game systems were that good.
Loved Pillars of Eternity I & II, even with the RTWP-Combat. So won't write this one off, yet, but would have preferred another CRPG.
This looks like they took a watered down approach to a more casual action type game.
Hope I'm wrong, though.
Obisidian alway excelled with complex "core games". System- and mechanics-heavy with a lot of focus on story, lore, characters and world building.
Avowed is gonna be amazing. Can't wait