I went through Pillars 1 & 2 last year, and that 2024 patch fixed a bug I was experiencing during my run!! Big ups to the team and thank you for your videos.
Hey Josh just wanted to let you know that Deadfire is my favorite RPG ever and criminally underrated. Seriously dude I hope in time it gets the love it deserves. I read the steam reviews and most complain its too hard or other nonsense. Just sad. Wishing you the best man we all wish we could have lived the life you have and worked on the games you worked on.
I think the one thing that holds deadfire back is the gameplay. It's just... boring. The itemization sucks, the artstyle looks like shit, and starting combat doesn't look flashy or at the very least exciting or interesting. I've played deadfire a dozen times, and every time, I get a ship and never play again.
@@JohnQDarksoul I feel the complete opposite. I have a dozen characters all whom I finished with lol. The multiclass system is so good and there are so many dialogue options for your race, class, background etc. The itemization is really good...the game is loaded with tons and tons of awesome legendary items that are really unique and interesting and many are limited by class so your choices actually matter it isnt skyrim slop where you just are everything to everyone all the time. The game is beautiful every map is a treat. The music is beautiful in cities and exciting in combat. Bro you are level 1 in an rpg and you are complaining the combat isnt flashy enough. You also havent even played the game if you quit when you get a ship lol. Im sorry for your critical lack of taste just go play Fortnite or some Ubisoft slop. Everything you listed is a dumb complaint especially from someone who admitted they didnt even play it past the tutorial. Clown. The combat is insanely flashy you just need to have some spells and abilities. The animations for the spells are awesome and the higher level you go the more devestating and epic they are. There is also brutal gore. Once again you are literally level 1-3 and you have basically nothing and havent seen the game at all but somehow its bad. k. Thats like killing the first rat in Baldurs Gate and being like wow this game sucks im level 1 with no equipment or spells and the combat with the rat wasnt flashy and exciting. Are you a child?
13:04 "It doesn't need to go on forever, it just needs to *feel* like it does." This one of the reasons why I loved Pentiment so much. I was deeply unhappy with the choices I'd made in my first playthrough leading up to the big decision in the first act. So I deleted by save and started over, and realized that the depth of choice I'd perceived in the game wasn't as deep as I thought. In any other game, I would've found this dissappointing. But it's a testament to the game's design that I found it charming more than anything, since the shortcuts the game took to maintain the illiusion felt "smart". It managed to not break my suspension of disbelief, and I was able to continue past my previous stopping point with complete surrender to the story the game was telling.
@@DrooledOnAnd I disagree with that 😊 Choices can be meaningful to the experience without having significant story/gameplay impact. Especially in RPG’s where choices are what allows me to interrogate what my character is like; who they are and how they act. It gives me value to have lots of opportunities for that, but making all of those have story impact isn’t economically feasible. Therefore, for me, so long as SOME choices are meaningful to the story and it’s somewhat difficult to see which those are up front, illusion choices opens up the perceived possibility space, and fleshes out my character, which has value. Also it’s not a boolean, there are many soft degrees of this. One of my favourites is how in SWTOR or ME, a while after most quests with a choice that doesn’t carry over, you get an email from someone in the quest, giving you a short update on how your choice impacted them. It is incredibly efficient resource wise, and allows me to feel like I had impact, and that the characters live on when I’m gone.
Hi Josh, I just want to leave a comment behind saying that I really, really appreciate that you do these videos and Tumblr Q&As every once in a while. You have a real mastery of your craft, and I think it's a really noble and important thing that you're leaving behind what are essentially records of your experience, perspective, influences, and philosophy in game design behind for the next generation to pick up from. Thank you for doing what you do.
11:38 This!! Also counts for replaying too. Some of my favorite games I never replayed (even if they were designed with replayability in mind), just like some of my favorite movies I never rewatched. I value the experience I had with them that time and that's enough to have them as a lovely memory.
Pillars 2 Deadfire is still the best looking isometric game after all this years. And one of the best looking games ever. 2D isometric has a charm no 3D ray-tracing filled behemot can acomplish. It.s like in painting. An old masters Renaissance paiting will always have more charm and instill emotions than a picture made with a digital camera.
This was a great video. Particularly loved the bit about games claiming they're now 8x bigger than previous large game, but the studio isn't employing 8x more of the people working on particular areas.
To be fair, you dont need to have 8 times more people. you just need systems and tools that let you do content. for ac odyssey for example we built a cave maker tool WHICH ANYONE could use and create 100s of unique caves and underground levels with. also in ac odyssey only 3 peoppe were responsible for creating the entire map ( worldmachine / mudbox sculpting / putting it together ) so bigger map doesnt necesserily need more people. but it means deminishing quality of content. witcher 3 - super beloved - has a lot of side content thats copy and paste, even some of the monster hunts and contracts.
@@berthein5476 Well, you're not taking into account the amount of crunch time and how that's a genuinely horrific practice in the industry. So yeah, the "bigger" the game, hopefully would have either a longer gestation period or at least hire more workers so that employees are not missing out on years if not a decade of their life just so that the "8x bigger" game gets metacritic'd to hell.
Absolutely agree that games don't need to get bigger. Always prefer to play smaller games which allow me to replay it over and over. We need to focus on efficiency more, rather than sheer size.
I want games that are great experiences, that I can finish in a reasonable time, feel like I've have a complete experience and move on. There are too many great games I want to play before I die, and they just keep coming.
Also, there's space in smaller games to try some really off-the-wall stuff. Tyranny's magic system is one of my favorites in any game, but a risk like that could keep a larger project from even getting made at all.
11:40 True. Skyrim is not about getting pigeonholed into following a set story arc, it's about just going wherever picks your interest, like a D&D TTRPG session (with a non-railroad-y GM). I.e. just inhabiting a mini world. Another notable one is Kenshi, which doesn't even have a "main quest" nor "end" afaik.
Thanks a lot for doing these, Josh. It allows people like me, who find the gaming industry very fascinating a chance to peek behind the curtain so to speak. Big fan :)
Wow, finding out only 3 people for the most part worked on the patch that added turn-based mode to Pillars 2 is amazing! I grit my teeth and played Pillars 1 despite not being a fan of RTWP, and would have eventually played 2 either way, but knowing there was a turn-based option got me to pick it up at full price instead of waiting for a deep discount. Really appreciate their work.
Yeah, my wife has tried Pillars 1 and is in the group of people who prefers turn-based to real-time with pause (although she did still manage to enjoy Dragon Age Origins, admittedly that one I think does not have as much management as Pillars?).
It is always good to see that a developer supports the game even if its a few years on the market and doesnt rely on community patches. But it is fully understandable that a developer has to work profitable. For me Obsidian always did a great job here. Here in the SAP world we have to support releases for decades^^
It is an interesting question on game size, especially for RPGs where part of the enjoyment is knowing that there's always story or quest outcomes or playstyles that you haven't seen due to branching paths or character build options. Maybe the expectation of a big game is more important than the actual literal size - if most people only get through half the game, so you make a game half as big, people might start complaining that it's too small even if that's all they would have played anyway.
And game length doesn't influence player completion that much. Elden Ring base game is 2-3 times as long as dark souls 2 and the completion rate is actually slightly longer than ds2 by looking at the endgame achievement on steam, and it's the same comparing it to ds1 and ds3 too
I think the really big issue is often whether a game is big because it needs to be, or because devs or publishers feel that it ought to be, as was the case for a while. Some RPGs (usually of the Japanese variety) are super long but really it's just very padded dialogue scenes that could've easily been edited down by at least half or so (usually more) without losing any meaning. In that case it's not so much that the game is longer, just that it wastes more of the player's time. Likewise a large world that's mostly just empty space is kind of pointless. There are some truly great games that go for length or map size or both. The real plague on the industry was when games that really shouldn't have taken that approach very much did. Dragon Age: Inquisition could've been so much better with a tighter forcus more akin to DA:O, for instance. And as a corollary through that the biggest deal isn't completion rates, but whether people stopped playing the game and felt satisfied, or quit in frustration or out of boredom. But that sort of thing takes more work to measure, of course. Not seeing everything there is to see in Skyrim never felt bad and never stopped me from buying more Bethesda games (they're far from my favorite games, but I've never felt cheated), whereas both Bioware and Blizzard have made me literally stop purchasing their products because I am consistently disappointed by what they've promised vs. what they've actually delivered.
I think Black Isle and Obsidian have done both of the ways I like to play through a game: Either a short game with different campaigns (Tyranny is a good example) or a longer game where you can do virtually everything in a single playthrough (Fallout 2 and New Vegas are both good examples, even if New Vegas has either the NCR or Legion quests that lock you out of the others). I know lots of people who've complained that Tyranny is too short, and I'm just thinking like, I could not sit through 100 hours of this game for each playthrough with the Disfavored, the rebels, the Chorus, or killing everything considering how many different options and outcomes arrive from the story based on your faction and character choices.
Happy New Year Josh! Thank you for the insights! Your comments on the player "consumption" of Skyrim made me think of open world games as "content buffets" - as in, the devs make this space of choice for the players to walk up to and through and to pick what to chomp down on based on their appetitite, whims and fancies. Some ppl think they have to eat all the food on the table, while others eat their fill and carry on. But the main thing an open world's size offers is the decision space of what content to pursue. In buffet metaphor terms, the size and amount of the buffet is enjoyable even if I don't eat, don't taste, maybe not even sniff or look at some of the dishes on offer. The fact that someone else might have tried the fried shrimp dish I didn't even notice, makes comparing the experience of "choice" worthwhile between people who were allowed to experience the same buffet offer.
I might be wrong, but I'm perceiving a renewed appetite for smaller games right now. Games where you can see the margins and the overall 'shape' of the game. The never-ending play mat, the bottomless ball pit, is fine for some titles but too many AAA titles are falling into the trap of losing their shape. I think this 'shape' is Esp. important in rpgs and games with strong narrative goals and choice-driven outcomes.
I recall you folks saying if you'd had the budget to make Outer Worlds 1 a bit longer, you would have... I really liked the first Outer Worlds game, it definitely left me wanting more... so I hope you've had the budget with MS support to make the 2nd one as large as your narrative requires. Looking forward to it. (Also thanks for making Pentiment, inspiring game)
I know it’s self deprecating at 0:14 but you are amazing! Thank you for answering any questions from fans! My question is still in the queue, but even if you never answer it I’m glad that you inspired me to think about that question!
I have replayed PoE1 and PoE2 Deadfire recently, and just wanted to say that these were amazing games! Not very sure why they were less popular then BG3. As a question i wanted to ask if Obsidian would come back to isometric CRPG genre and would have made a new parts of PoE or Tyranny, or have they completely changed to first person 3D running shooting games?
i honestly thought PoE2 was from the start, more newbie-friendly and immersive than PoE1, which was ironic since it's the sequel. From how your character got introduced to the first few companions, to how your character gets introduced to the story and interesting places in the Deadfire Archipelago. And IMO, this could be the reason both of them ended up being far from BG3's popularity.
The example of Skyrim as a game that is incredibly fun whether you finish the story or simply experience the world is so true. An anecdote for me with Skyrim. I was initially not a fan of Shouts as a mechanic. I saw my friend use them and thought they were stupid. I purposely played the story right up until you actually learn how to use a Shout... And then I played the game for hundreds of hours. I played so much of that game with mout using the main gimmick. I eventually did get Shouts and played through much more of the story. I never finished the game's story however. But I put in HUNDREDS of hours into the game! I loved it.
I love a smaller game with a shorter time (40-50 hours vs 90 hours). I just played through Pillars 1 for the first time and loved the game. It being shorter helped a lot with being able to play through the whole game.
I hope you stick around and upload a few times a year at-least. It's always nice to get some solid knowledge from someone who knows what they're doing(or has at-least been in game-development for a very long time)
Game completion rates have always fascinated me. The world sure is big, with all the opinions on everything being so common. Yet so few people actually finish games, proportionally. I also wonder how the rate has curved through the years, cause the amount of games that are available and accessible is growing so incredibly fast. What was the completion rate in the 90s?
There's a couple of glitches with the turn-based mode in dead fire that once you know how to work around them aren't a big deal. That mode is the only reason I even bother to play the game and I loved it. I can't believe it was basically program by one guy, it was patched onto a game that was not designed to work in turn-based. I actually played dead fire on console because of the turn-based mode and it was awesome. I would have never dreamed of playing it on console without it.
Not quite exactly that topic, since I have now ultimately finished it I think 5 or 6 times, but I did not originally "finish" Fallout New Vegas when I first played it, instead getting further and further in multiple playtimes/throughs up until completing the Battle of Hoover Dam for the first time I think sometime during or maybe after 2014. So for multiple years after that game came out, I would have registered (via things like PSN trophies) as a "never finished" player.
really appreciate the veteran prespective and inside look into game development here, even though I have absolutley nothing to do with the industry except as a consumer
10:38 - I'm just playing through Deadfire. I can't use potions etc. without first turning off the character AI 😂 They just do the animation but nothing happens if the AI isn't turned off. I hear it was a bug which was introduced with the last patch, though I really don't know. Added point: Fixing code without breaking stuff really isn't easy... Happy newyear dude (and everyone reading this)
Been watching a lot of Timothy Cains videos on game developing. This is a nice treat. Would be cool if you guys did a video together and talked about game development
I want them to be as big as possible! Just make sure they have a decent story to go with it. I don't want to have to complete the game and then start a new one; I want to continue playing. A game that can go on and on, adding more stories through the years. For example, the same character you started with builds relationships with the AI characters in the game; they might grow old and die, with funerals and so on. Level up forever; events happen, like aliens showing up and abducting you. Then, a new level 1 character needs to save you, but isn't strong enough yet, so you play another character and get them strong as well. They are added to your party at the end; you can switch between them, have them live different lives, and keep moving along. Get married and slowly lose levels because one character has settled down with a family. The family gets attacked, and you need to get back in shape and save them, calling on your friend (other character or new or grown child lvl 1) to help. A game with real-life-type gameplay and scenarios.
In regards to the patching question (I was typing this as I watched the video and then saw the shout out to TC 😂), Tim Cain said (I believe) that the publisher wouldn't allow patches even if Troika paid for the patch. Contractually they were forbidden to even release patches (I believe it was VtM). It sounded so frustrating.
I think I've restarted Icewind Dale 2 a hundred times or more and I've never finished it. Every time I get out of Dragon's Eye, I get the urge to restart, especially since the dopamine hits from levelling drastically drop off. But it is one of my favorite games of all time.
It is SO nice to see someone from the gaming industry acknowledge that players can get JUST as much enjoyment from playing a game to a certain point and then not finishing it. I *often* don't finish a game in the first year of playing it. It's incredibly rare, and I'm OK with that. I'm a completionist. I LOVE long games with in-depth story and lots of exploration, puzzles and side quests (as long as they are relevant to the overarching plot). DA:O, DOS:2, BG3 and PoE1 are some of the *very* few I've actually completed withing the first year of release. *However* there are many other brilliant CRPG's - POE2 for example - where I've caught spoilers of the end and decided I liked the fantasy of the game more than I wanted to see the end. I've never finished POE2 and probably never will... But I've spend almost 400 hours in that game and still play the parts I love a couple of times a year. Long story short, whether the player _enjoyed the portion they DID play_ is absolutely important and relevant. Ditto for putting in the time and effort to make even small maps explorable. Sure 80% of players may not care, but the ones who DO like to look into every nook and cranny, you'll have our loyalty basically until you stop providing that enjoyment in your games. I love long games, and (yes I'm being pointy here) if you're charging a premium price for a game it _had better be a well written, well executed and decent length game_ .
There's a lot of AAA games, such as Jedi Fallen Order, where the game is so short that I generally don't even bother. I want to get lost in a world, that doesn't mean it needs to be an open world game, but a game that gives me a sense of the scope of their world through the lore, quests, characters etc. I'd rather play a shorter indie between bigger titles.
Thank you for the transparency and the insight, it’s always nice to hear from an important figure in the industry about these things and why they are like that, oftentimes, one can forget just how complex the process behind creating a game is. Question for the future: what’s your sentiment towards the very nature of NDAs in the gaming industry? I frequently see a terrible lack of freedom to respond to vitriol from devs’ who simply can’t provide a reply to misinformed people who attack them for things that they’re blameless for and yet random people keep harassing them for either fabricated or legitimate issues just because they’re contractually unable to speak up and put a halt to the attacks.
13:08 I'm weird, and I have to finish things. Even if it takes 120 hours to get through it, even if I'm not necessarily enjoying myself. Same with books. I want to know how it ends. The grindiest book for me was Gravity's Rainbow. I hated and loved it at the same time-but dammit I finished it.
I'd wager the reducing the number of hours it takes to finish a game would not by itself substantially increse the percentage of players that finish it (unless, maybe, you go under a specific very-low threshold, like under a single average play session duration; in which case you might not have much of a game, especially for singleplayer CRPGs). I would think not finishing games is more of a psychological phenomenon than a lack of time phenomenon for most people. It certainly is for me, anyway.
I was satisfied with purchasing PoE 1&2 even though I didn't finish them until years after a first play. That's not that common, now that I think about it.
these are always a pleasure
I went through Pillars 1 & 2 last year, and that 2024 patch fixed a bug I was experiencing during my run!! Big ups to the team and thank you for your videos.
So glad these videos exist. Its so rare to get such real insights into the production of games.
Hey Josh just wanted to let you know that Deadfire is my favorite RPG ever and criminally underrated. Seriously dude I hope in time it gets the love it deserves. I read the steam reviews and most complain its too hard or other nonsense. Just sad. Wishing you the best man we all wish we could have lived the life you have and worked on the games you worked on.
Dead fire is very underrated.
I think the one thing that holds deadfire back is the gameplay. It's just... boring. The itemization sucks, the artstyle looks like shit, and starting combat doesn't look flashy or at the very least exciting or interesting.
I've played deadfire a dozen times, and every time, I get a ship and never play again.
@@JohnQDarksoul I feel the complete opposite. I have a dozen characters all whom I finished with lol. The multiclass system is so good and there are so many dialogue options for your race, class, background etc. The itemization is really good...the game is loaded with tons and tons of awesome legendary items that are really unique and interesting and many are limited by class so your choices actually matter it isnt skyrim slop where you just are everything to everyone all the time. The game is beautiful every map is a treat. The music is beautiful in cities and exciting in combat. Bro you are level 1 in an rpg and you are complaining the combat isnt flashy enough. You also havent even played the game if you quit when you get a ship lol. Im sorry for your critical lack of taste just go play Fortnite or some Ubisoft slop. Everything you listed is a dumb complaint especially from someone who admitted they didnt even play it past the tutorial. Clown. The combat is insanely flashy you just need to have some spells and abilities. The animations for the spells are awesome and the higher level you go the more devestating and epic they are. There is also brutal gore. Once again you are literally level 1-3 and you have basically nothing and havent seen the game at all but somehow its bad. k. Thats like killing the first rat in Baldurs Gate and being like wow this game sucks im level 1 with no equipment or spells and the combat with the rat wasnt flashy and exciting. Are you a child?
pee eww what is that smell??? ooh wait its @@JohnQDarksoul garbage opinions!!!
I love hearing about these behind the scenes things, The gaming industry is so opaque and it's a joy to learn about how my favourite games are made
0:25 Post Launch Game Development & "Unauthorized" Patches
9:06 Game Size vs Completion Rate
15:00 How Icewind Dale maps were made
13:04 "It doesn't need to go on forever, it just needs to *feel* like it does."
This one of the reasons why I loved Pentiment so much. I was deeply unhappy with the choices I'd made in my first playthrough leading up to the big decision in the first act. So I deleted by save and started over, and realized that the depth of choice I'd perceived in the game wasn't as deep as I thought. In any other game, I would've found this dissappointing. But it's a testament to the game's design that I found it charming more than anything, since the shortcuts the game took to maintain the illiusion felt "smart".
It managed to not break my suspension of disbelief, and I was able to continue past my previous stopping point with complete surrender to the story the game was telling.
I disagree, Illusion of choice is awful. A game can be linear without forcing meaningless choices
@@DrooledOnAnd I disagree with that 😊
Choices can be meaningful to the experience without having significant story/gameplay impact.
Especially in RPG’s where choices are what allows me to interrogate what my character is like; who they are and how they act.
It gives me value to have lots of opportunities for that, but making all of those have story impact isn’t economically feasible.
Therefore, for me, so long as SOME choices are meaningful to the story and it’s somewhat difficult to see which those are up front, illusion choices opens up the perceived possibility space, and fleshes out my character, which has value.
Also it’s not a boolean, there are many soft degrees of this. One of my favourites is how in SWTOR or ME, a while after most quests with a choice that doesn’t carry over, you get an email from someone in the quest, giving you a short update on how your choice impacted them.
It is incredibly efficient resource wise, and allows me to feel like I had impact, and that the characters live on when I’m gone.
Hi Josh, I just want to leave a comment behind saying that I really, really appreciate that you do these videos and Tumblr Q&As every once in a while. You have a real mastery of your craft, and I think it's a really noble and important thing that you're leaving behind what are essentially records of your experience, perspective, influences, and philosophy in game design behind for the next generation to pick up from. Thank you for doing what you do.
11:38 This!! Also counts for replaying too. Some of my favorite games I never replayed (even if they were designed with replayability in mind), just like some of my favorite movies I never rewatched. I value the experience I had with them that time and that's enough to have them as a lovely memory.
Pillars 2 Deadfire is still the best looking isometric game after all this years. And one of the best looking games ever. 2D isometric has a charm no 3D ray-tracing filled behemot can acomplish. It.s like in painting. An old masters Renaissance paiting will always have more charm and instill emotions than a picture made with a digital camera.
Don't ever stop creating things man, whatever you do I'll gladly watch/read/play/listen to it cause whatever it is, you HAVE IT
This was a great video. Particularly loved the bit about games claiming they're now 8x bigger than previous large game, but the studio isn't employing 8x more of the people working on particular areas.
To be fair, you dont need to have 8 times more people. you just need systems and tools that let you do content. for ac odyssey for example we built a cave maker tool WHICH ANYONE could use and create 100s of unique caves and underground levels with.
also in ac odyssey only 3 peoppe were responsible for creating the entire map ( worldmachine / mudbox sculpting / putting it together )
so bigger map doesnt necesserily need more people. but it means deminishing quality of content. witcher 3 - super beloved - has a lot of side content thats copy and paste, even some of the monster hunts and contracts.
@@berthein5476 Well, you're not taking into account the amount of crunch time and how that's a genuinely horrific practice in the industry. So yeah, the "bigger" the game, hopefully would have either a longer gestation period or at least hire more workers so that employees are not missing out on years if not a decade of their life just so that the "8x bigger" game gets metacritic'd to hell.
Absolutely agree that games don't need to get bigger. Always prefer to play smaller games which allow me to replay it over and over. We need to focus on efficiency more, rather than sheer size.
I would love a good game with a smaller scope, that is explored more deeply. This is also true with movies too. Grandiose makes things shallow.
Spot on! This is why I'm amped for Avowed.
I love big games. Thing is, the size - just like great graphics - is pretty far on the list of things that makes a good game for me.
I want games that are great experiences, that I can finish in a reasonable time, feel like I've have a complete experience and move on. There are too many great games I want to play before I die, and they just keep coming.
Also, there's space in smaller games to try some really off-the-wall stuff. Tyranny's magic system is one of my favorites in any game, but a risk like that could keep a larger project from even getting made at all.
I have been lobbying at epic to try and get them to hire you as a storyline writer. A lot of people there look up to you. Love you man
Wake up babe, new musings just dropped
I am playing Pillars 1 for the first time, and finding myself completely immersed by it. Thank you for the work of you and your team!
11:40 True. Skyrim is not about getting pigeonholed into following a set story arc, it's about just going wherever picks your interest, like a D&D TTRPG session (with a non-railroad-y GM). I.e. just inhabiting a mini world. Another notable one is Kenshi, which doesn't even have a "main quest" nor "end" afaik.
Btw, apparently, the Wayward Relms, a game by Daggerfall creators, won't have a "main quest" as well.
Thanks a lot for doing these, Josh. It allows people like me, who find the gaming industry very fascinating a chance to peek behind the curtain so to speak. Big fan :)
It always makes me smile when I see a new video of yours! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience :)
Thanks for the Q & A, Silver Fox!
Wow, finding out only 3 people for the most part worked on the patch that added turn-based mode to Pillars 2 is amazing! I grit my teeth and played Pillars 1 despite not being a fan of RTWP, and would have eventually played 2 either way, but knowing there was a turn-based option got me to pick it up at full price instead of waiting for a deep discount. Really appreciate their work.
Yeah, my wife has tried Pillars 1 and is in the group of people who prefers turn-based to real-time with pause (although she did still manage to enjoy Dragon Age Origins, admittedly that one I think does not have as much management as Pillars?).
WOW, JOSHUA 'EL PENTIMENTO' SAWYER IS BACK.
It is always good to see that a developer supports the game even if its a few years on the market and doesnt rely on community patches. But it is fully understandable that a developer has to work profitable. For me Obsidian always did a great job here. Here in the SAP world we have to support releases for decades^^
It is an interesting question on game size, especially for RPGs where part of the enjoyment is knowing that there's always story or quest outcomes or playstyles that you haven't seen due to branching paths or character build options.
Maybe the expectation of a big game is more important than the actual literal size - if most people only get through half the game, so you make a game half as big, people might start complaining that it's too small even if that's all they would have played anyway.
And game length doesn't influence player completion that much.
Elden Ring base game is 2-3 times as long as dark souls 2 and the completion rate is actually slightly longer than ds2 by looking at the endgame achievement on steam, and it's the same comparing it to ds1 and ds3 too
I think the really big issue is often whether a game is big because it needs to be, or because devs or publishers feel that it ought to be, as was the case for a while.
Some RPGs (usually of the Japanese variety) are super long but really it's just very padded dialogue scenes that could've easily been edited down by at least half or so (usually more) without losing any meaning. In that case it's not so much that the game is longer, just that it wastes more of the player's time. Likewise a large world that's mostly just empty space is kind of pointless.
There are some truly great games that go for length or map size or both. The real plague on the industry was when games that really shouldn't have taken that approach very much did. Dragon Age: Inquisition could've been so much better with a tighter forcus more akin to DA:O, for instance.
And as a corollary through that the biggest deal isn't completion rates, but whether people stopped playing the game and felt satisfied, or quit in frustration or out of boredom. But that sort of thing takes more work to measure, of course. Not seeing everything there is to see in Skyrim never felt bad and never stopped me from buying more Bethesda games (they're far from my favorite games, but I've never felt cheated), whereas both Bioware and Blizzard have made me literally stop purchasing their products because I am consistently disappointed by what they've promised vs. what they've actually delivered.
Great video. Hope we get more.
I think Black Isle and Obsidian have done both of the ways I like to play through a game: Either a short game with different campaigns (Tyranny is a good example) or a longer game where you can do virtually everything in a single playthrough (Fallout 2 and New Vegas are both good examples, even if New Vegas has either the NCR or Legion quests that lock you out of the others). I know lots of people who've complained that Tyranny is too short, and I'm just thinking like, I could not sit through 100 hours of this game for each playthrough with the Disfavored, the rebels, the Chorus, or killing everything considering how many different options and outcomes arrive from the story based on your faction and character choices.
Ave, true to Joshua.
...Graham
Disco Elysium and Pentiment were the greatest masterpieces of the last decade and they have left a void that demands to be filled!
Happy new year Josh! Hope its filled with art and creativity.
Happy new year Mr. Sawyer, always nice to see one of these videos.
Love to see these. happy new year
Happy New Year Josh! Thank you for the insights!
Your comments on the player "consumption" of Skyrim made me think of open world games as "content buffets" - as in, the devs make this space of choice for the players to walk up to and through and to pick what to chomp down on based on their appetitite, whims and fancies. Some ppl think they have to eat all the food on the table, while others eat their fill and carry on. But the main thing an open world's size offers is the decision space of what content to pursue. In buffet metaphor terms, the size and amount of the buffet is enjoyable even if I don't eat, don't taste, maybe not even sniff or look at some of the dishes on offer. The fact that someone else might have tried the fried shrimp dish I didn't even notice, makes comparing the experience of "choice" worthwhile between people who were allowed to experience the same buffet offer.
Happy new year, Joshua :) Thank you for your work, I am a big fan and hope you're doing well
I might be wrong, but I'm perceiving a renewed appetite for smaller games right now. Games where you can see the margins and the overall 'shape' of the game. The never-ending play mat, the bottomless ball pit, is fine for some titles but too many AAA titles are falling into the trap of losing their shape. I think this 'shape' is Esp. important in rpgs and games with strong narrative goals and choice-driven outcomes.
Happy new year, Josh.
one of the best game developers/directors in the industry!
I recall you folks saying if you'd had the budget to make Outer Worlds 1 a bit longer, you would have... I really liked the first Outer Worlds game, it definitely left me wanting more... so I hope you've had the budget with MS support to make the 2nd one as large as your narrative requires. Looking forward to it. (Also thanks for making Pentiment, inspiring game)
I know it’s self deprecating at 0:14 but you are amazing! Thank you for answering any questions from fans!
My question is still in the queue, but even if you never answer it I’m glad that you inspired me to think about that question!
I love these videos.
I have replayed PoE1 and PoE2 Deadfire recently, and just wanted to say that these were amazing games! Not very sure why they were less popular then BG3.
As a question i wanted to ask if Obsidian would come back to isometric CRPG genre and would have made a new parts of PoE or Tyranny, or have they completely changed to first person 3D running shooting games?
i honestly thought PoE2 was from the start, more newbie-friendly and immersive than PoE1, which was ironic since it's the sequel. From how your character got introduced to the first few companions, to how your character gets introduced to the story and interesting places in the Deadfire Archipelago.
And IMO, this could be the reason both of them ended up being far from BG3's popularity.
The example of Skyrim as a game that is incredibly fun whether you finish the story or simply experience the world is so true.
An anecdote for me with Skyrim. I was initially not a fan of Shouts as a mechanic. I saw my friend use them and thought they were stupid. I purposely played the story right up until you actually learn how to use a Shout... And then I played the game for hundreds of hours. I played so much of that game with mout using the main gimmick. I eventually did get Shouts and played through much more of the story. I never finished the game's story however. But I put in HUNDREDS of hours into the game! I loved it.
Happy New Year, Josh! I picked up PoE first time, what an amazing game. I ended up trying all classes and race combos - so much fun.
Happy new to our RPG saint J Sawyer
I love a smaller game with a shorter time (40-50 hours vs 90 hours). I just played through Pillars 1 for the first time and loved the game. It being shorter helped a lot with being able to play through the whole game.
Josh please tag your Tumblr posts. Your asks posts is generally very useful for game preservation. Sincerely, a POE fan.
We missed you buddy!
Hey Joshua, happy new years for you too :).
I hope you stick around and upload a few times a year at-least. It's always nice to get some solid knowledge from someone who knows what they're doing(or has at-least been in game-development for a very long time)
I never finished Fallout 4 and put in about 900 hours. I enjoyed it a lot.
Happy new years from the homeland.
Yeah 64x64 8 bit tiles is what I remember from Infinity as well (each tile had its own palette)
Game completion rates have always fascinated me. The world sure is big, with all the opinions on everything being so common. Yet so few people actually finish games, proportionally.
I also wonder how the rate has curved through the years, cause the amount of games that are available and accessible is growing so incredibly fast. What was the completion rate in the 90s?
There's a couple of glitches with the turn-based mode in dead fire that once you know how to work around them aren't a big deal. That mode is the only reason I even bother to play the game and I loved it. I can't believe it was basically program by one guy, it was patched onto a game that was not designed to work in turn-based. I actually played dead fire on console because of the turn-based mode and it was awesome. I would have never dreamed of playing it on console without it.
Anywhoozies... Happy New Year ... 😂 That was perfect, much love huge fan!!
Thx! Really interesting part about icewind dale, perfect for turbotrainer session
Not quite exactly that topic, since I have now ultimately finished it I think 5 or 6 times, but I did not originally "finish" Fallout New Vegas when I first played it, instead getting further and further in multiple playtimes/throughs up until completing the Battle of Hoover Dam for the first time I think sometime during or maybe after 2014. So for multiple years after that game came out, I would have registered (via things like PSN trophies) as a "never finished" player.
Happy New Year!
Insightful and knowledgeable as always, thank you!
really appreciate the veteran prespective and inside look into game development here, even though I have absolutley nothing to do with the industry except as a consumer
the man the myth the legend. thank you for your insights sir
10:38 - I'm just playing through Deadfire. I can't use potions etc. without first turning off the character AI 😂 They just do the animation but nothing happens if the AI isn't turned off.
I hear it was a bug which was introduced with the last patch, though I really don't know.
Added point: Fixing code without breaking stuff really isn't easy...
Happy newyear dude (and everyone reading this)
Been watching a lot of Timothy Cains videos on game developing. This is a nice treat. Would be cool if you guys did a video together and talked about game development
I want them to be as big as possible! Just make sure they have a decent story to go with it. I don't want to have to complete the game and then start a new one; I want to continue playing. A game that can go on and on, adding more stories through the years. For example, the same character you started with builds relationships with the AI characters in the game; they might grow old and die, with funerals and so on. Level up forever; events happen, like aliens showing up and abducting you. Then, a new level 1 character needs to save you, but isn't strong enough yet, so you play another character and get them strong as well. They are added to your party at the end; you can switch between them, have them live different lives, and keep moving along. Get married and slowly lose levels because one character has settled down with a family. The family gets attacked, and you need to get back in shape and save them, calling on your friend (other character or new or grown child lvl 1) to help. A game with real-life-type gameplay and scenarios.
Oh nice the beard is back, looks good on you!
the idea of a consulting firm knowing what % of a game people finish a game but not what % had fun is so incredibly typical LOL
In regards to the patching question (I was typing this as I watched the video and then saw the shout out to TC 😂), Tim Cain said (I believe) that the publisher wouldn't allow patches even if Troika paid for the patch. Contractually they were forbidden to even release patches (I believe it was VtM). It sounded so frustrating.
There's usually something very unique in small games. Be it mechanics or Art-style.
Taking big risks in small games = ❤
Happy new year Josh
Dense over big. Long over short.
Thanks for the video Josh!
Happy New Year, Josh
Happy new year 🎉
Great work as usual. I always learn something 👍
Great insight, thank you for sharing!
I think I've restarted Icewind Dale 2 a hundred times or more and I've never finished it. Every time I get out of Dragon's Eye, I get the urge to restart, especially since the dopamine hits from levelling drastically drop off. But it is one of my favorite games of all time.
It is SO nice to see someone from the gaming industry acknowledge that players can get JUST as much enjoyment from playing a game to a certain point and then not finishing it. I *often* don't finish a game in the first year of playing it. It's incredibly rare, and I'm OK with that. I'm a completionist. I LOVE long games with in-depth story and lots of exploration, puzzles and side quests (as long as they are relevant to the overarching plot). DA:O, DOS:2, BG3 and PoE1 are some of the *very* few I've actually completed withing the first year of release.
*However* there are many other brilliant CRPG's - POE2 for example - where I've caught spoilers of the end and decided I liked the fantasy of the game more than I wanted to see the end. I've never finished POE2 and probably never will... But I've spend almost 400 hours in that game and still play the parts I love a couple of times a year.
Long story short, whether the player _enjoyed the portion they DID play_ is absolutely important and relevant. Ditto for putting in the time and effort to make even small maps explorable. Sure 80% of players may not care, but the ones who DO like to look into every nook and cranny, you'll have our loyalty basically until you stop providing that enjoyment in your games.
I love long games, and (yes I'm being pointy here) if you're charging a premium price for a game it _had better be a well written, well executed and decent length game_ .
Greetings Josh, good to see you
Great to see you back Josh! Hope things at Oblivion are continuing to be amazing!
There's a lot of AAA games, such as Jedi Fallen Order, where the game is so short that I generally don't even bother. I want to get lost in a world, that doesn't mean it needs to be an open world game, but a game that gives me a sense of the scope of their world through the lore, quests, characters etc. I'd rather play a shorter indie between bigger titles.
Love your content
Hi Josh, any plans to continue with hotel shower reviews? Those were a lot of fun.
I need a video on just the development process of Gauntlet Seven Sorrows.
Thank you for the transparency and the insight, it’s always nice to hear from an important figure in the industry about these things and why they are like that, oftentimes, one can forget just how complex the process behind creating a game is.
Question for the future: what’s your sentiment towards the very nature of NDAs in the gaming industry? I frequently see a terrible lack of freedom to respond to vitriol from devs’ who simply can’t provide a reply to misinformed people who attack them for things that they’re blameless for and yet random people keep harassing them for either fabricated or legitimate issues just because they’re contractually unable to speak up and put a halt to the attacks.
13:08 I'm weird, and I have to finish things. Even if it takes 120 hours to get through it, even if I'm not necessarily enjoying myself. Same with books. I want to know how it ends. The grindiest book for me was Gravity's Rainbow. I hated and loved it at the same time-but dammit I finished it.
I appreciate the insight! Thank you 😊
Looking good broskene
Another good video, you're a very very good speaker. CHR 8 at least.
I'm glad they are not making The Witcher IV way bigger than The Witcher 3
The king of the thumbnail returns!
3:13 I believe the game was Vampire Bloodlines
Greetings from Türkiye! You should do more videos of any kind.
Thank you Josh!
I'm literally playing Icewind Dale right now
is there any chance of you and Chris Avellone ever making a game together again some day?
I’m going to save this to my watch later but I just wanted to say holy shit Josh you look hot as hell today
I often feel like I'm the only person who prefers RTWP over turn-based lol. I admit there are probably only a few of us...
I'm with you. Love rtwp games.
Any chance of a enhanced edition for Pillars of Eternity?
Some of those backgrounds really need an update.
I'd wager the reducing the number of hours it takes to finish a game would not by itself substantially increse the percentage of players that finish it (unless, maybe, you go under a specific very-low threshold, like under a single average play session duration; in which case you might not have much of a game, especially for singleplayer CRPGs). I would think not finishing games is more of a psychological phenomenon than a lack of time phenomenon for most people. It certainly is for me, anyway.
I was satisfied with purchasing PoE 1&2 even though I didn't finish them until years after a first play. That's not that common, now that I think about it.
I hope more RPG studios keep being fine with missable content. I feel like most of the big names understand this except Bioware.
PAPA posted