Avowed

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Sinistkir13

Sinistkir13

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Caliane said:
ha. yeah. some of that is pretty sad. modern games modeling arrows actually being fired? lol. fat chance.


I will say... modern obsidian doesn't make immersive sims. we won't see that kind of immersion in Owlcat games either. so this is not entirely a fair comparison. the Immersive sim design of Ultima>TES>larian games is a very specific design philosophy. its not something you will just randomly have in your game, unless its built up from the ground up, with that in mind. see kenshi.
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Definitely, that's why I wanted to preface that the comparisons were going to be inevitable no matter what.

Really, it's the complete dissociation between the world and the player that gets me. Even the NPCs are like silly looking set dressing and the whole thing is an amusement park. All it needs is It's A Small World playing in the background.

With how massive the budgets are on games these days on top of now being under Microsoft's AAA publishing, alongside what Tasty The Treat Tasty The Treat noted regarding the long gone returns in throwing more pixels at us, the stagnancy in those little details really strike at the lack of soul in a supposed role playing game.

If there is going to be static environments for example, they need to make up for it elsewhere (like Baldur's Gate 3's player choice). However, even seemingly basic ideas like guards staring at you blankly unless scripted to intervene really strip away at the "point" of being a role playing game trying to immerse you in its world.

It's practically a given that the Obsidian of today is like most other recognizable studios that are riding on past reputation more than containing a small fraction of the old guard who made them famous in the first place, so I can't exactly say that I'm surprised to see this trajectory from them, either.
Gutterflesh said:
Sounds like the strategic wisdom being dispensed here is to just kill everyone?
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I'm long past giving the benefit of the doubt with these kinds of people.

As Utnayan Utnayan noted, this is ripped out of the Marxists playbook.
 
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pwe

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Sinistkir13 said:
I know that the TES comparisons were inevitable, and at least for the very first teaser trailer that's what got my initial hopes up, but damn...

9kkmkf.jpg


What's even the point if you can't genocide the ugly as sin NPCs?
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I would have expected games to have MORE cool stuff after 10+ years, not LESS. How can games in general degenerate to less cool features over time? A man needs an answer from an insider.
 
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Utnayan

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pwe said:
I would have expected games to have MORE cool stuff after 10+ years, not LESS. How can games in general degenerate to less cool features over time? A man needs an answer from an insider.
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Because it costs money and talent to develop it as is, or to advance it.

The clear cut answer is because of DEI and a severe lack of talent in the industry, budget overuns are common-place with a complete lack of talent in world building or multiple stop starts which results in those same budget blow outs. The labor force in the games industry being complete shit.
 
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Caliane

Caliane

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yeah. its easy to say, but the reality is, its a lot of work. time, skill and money.

we can even just put this in player terms. play a game like Conan exiles. build a base. go do it. how long did it take? now, decorate it. pots, pans, candles, etc. you can spend DAYS just decorating a house. building an entire world like that takes alot of time. it balloons up costs.

flat non-interactable worlds take way way less work.

simulation of physics, simulation of materials. more work. would that shit be cool as hell? wood burning, metal getting hot, etc? yes. but so much more work.

game worlds themselves are getting more intricate, and photo realistic. its not like Ultima 7 where the assets needed would be so much more limited compared to a modern game.

if the focus of the game is going to be story and gameplay, then unless the gameplay directly revolves around the sim, like monomyth, neverlooted dungeon, or even original sin, then its not going to be something they spend time and money on.
 
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Vorph

Vorph

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pwe said:
I would have expected games to have MORE cool stuff after 10+ years, not LESS. How can games in general degenerate to less cool features over time? A man needs an answer from an insider.
Click to expand...
Mostly the engine. Gamebryo was built with all that physics stuff in mind, and then Bethesda added the "radiant" AI on top. Avowed is just Unreal Engine 5, and Obsidian doesn't have anyone working there with enough skill to actually modify the engine beyond the basic features that are included. It's kind of a silly comparison anyway. Avowed is nothing like Oblivion or Skyrim, it's just another simplistic "theme park" RPG like Outer Worlds. Also silly to pretend like everything Bethesda games have is a good thing; every stupid prop being both physics enabled and lootable is just irritating, the radiant AI would be more aptly named retard AI, etc.

Avowed is modern audience slop, but not for most of the reasons in those comparison videos. Stuff like having guards be completely passive is definitely stupid, and their locked door/chest implementation is godawful (mostly due to the scarcity of lockpicks and the dumb chests that eat 3 to open but still don't have anything but random vendor trash and crafting mats in them). Most buildings not being accessible is typical for this type of game too, but it is rather annoying that you can't tell the actual buildings from the set dressing easily.

The combat "AI" is the big one. Warrior type enemies run straight at you. Rogue types run straight at you and occasionally try to dodge or backflip away from attacks. Archers and mages stay at max range and shoot, but don't really know what to do when you rush them. Healers stand in the back and instantly heal every other enemy to full until you kill them, which is super annoying. All super basic and most of those behaviors are probably either included with UE5 or can be bought from the marketplace. The worst part of it is that every enemy aside from the major scripted boss fights has a fairly short leash, and it's trivial to find the spot where they will give up chasing you and use it to kill 3-skull enemies that you aren't supposed to be able to. Or you can stand on a ledge and rain down bullets/arrows with impunity. Ranged enemies will fire back, but you just kill them first. Melee ones just stand there, usually without moving at all so you can easily line up headshot after headshot.

It's all just so basic and exposes the utter lack of talent left at these supposed AAA studios.
 
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Utnayan

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Screenshot_18-2-2025_121236_steamdb.info.jpeg

Get the popcorn out - and a nice fuck you about ready to be given to that art director who can go find a fucking box to live in.
 
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Vorph

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Eh, it'll be kind of hard to judge the [lack of] success using Steam charts. This game is basically the peak example of Microsoft's "built for GamePass" titles.

It's certainly not like Failguard either. They backed off a lot of the woke shit, and once you're past character creation you never really see it again. You can tell the game was written by leftists because of the "girlbosses everywhere / almost all men are evil or incompetent or both", "colonizers bad", etc. tropes, but for the most part it's too vanilla to be all that offensive to anyone, at least by 2025 standards. Failguard was full of degeneracy at every turn, shoved it in your face, and forced you to participate in it. And on top of all that, the "true" ending went and retconned Dragon Age all the way back to the beginning of Origins with some of the worst writing in the history of mankind. Avowed might not have a whole lot to do with Pillars of Eternity but it doesn't take a massive shit on the previous games either.
 
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Caliane

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we can even look at Starfield. which had the classic Bethesda interactionable items. but didn't use it in any way. and was massively criticized for it. system hog, item bloat, limiting what world gen could do, what the engine could do, and so on. people were literally asking for starfield to NOT have that interaction, so it could have had bigger, deeper worlds.
 
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Armadon

Armadon

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Game is fun if you play a wizard. Every spell is usefull even upgraded. Having to pick spell books based off spells and limiting your picks you can have memorized without a book is an interesting play style.

I tried warrior and ranger and it's all the same from every other game so it can get boring fast. If you're going to play just go wizard because at least it's different.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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Vorph said:
Mostly the engine. Gamebryo was built with all that physics stuff in mind, and then Bethesda added the "radiant" AI on top. Avowed is just Unreal Engine 5, and Obsidian doesn't have anyone working there with enough skill to actually modify the engine beyond the basic features that are included. It's kind of a silly comparison anyway. Avowed is nothing like Oblivion or Skyrim, it's just another simplistic "theme park" RPG like Outer Worlds. Also silly to pretend like everything Bethesda games have is a good thing; every stupid prop being both physics enabled and lootable is just irritating, the radiant AI would be more aptly named retard AI, etc.

Avowed is modern audience slop, but not for most of the reasons in those comparison videos. Stuff like having guards be completely passive is definitely stupid, and their locked door/chest implementation is godawful (mostly due to the scarcity of lockpicks and the dumb chests that eat 3 to open but still don't have anything but random vendor trash and crafting mats in them). Most buildings not being accessible is typical for this type of game too, but it is rather annoying that you can't tell the actual buildings from the set dressing easily.

The combat "AI" is the big one. Warrior type enemies run straight at you. Rogue types run straight at you and occasionally try to dodge or backflip away from attacks. Archers and mages stay at max range and shoot, but don't really know what to do when you rush them. Healers stand in the back and instantly heal every other enemy to full until you kill them, which is super annoying. All super basic and most of those behaviors are probably either included with UE5 or can be bought from the marketplace. The worst part of it is that every enemy aside from the major scripted boss fights has a fairly short leash, and it's trivial to find the spot where they will give up chasing you and use it to kill 3-skull enemies that you aren't supposed to be able to. Or you can stand on a ledge and rain down bullets/arrows with impunity. Ranged enemies will fire back, but you just kill them first. Melee ones just stand there, usually without moving at all so you can easily line up headshot after headshot.

It's all just so basic and exposes the utter lack of talent left at these supposed AAA studios.
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I don't think that part is entirely correct. yes, different games, different philosophy. like, I don't expect an owlcat rpg, to have that immersive sim design.
but I do think that core immersive sim in Bethesda games is a very good thing. and does work pretty well in most of them. and love to see elements of it in things like RDR1/2, cyberpunk, etc. the lack of it, took me out of witcher. Skyrim I think found a nice balance. as bigger/more detailed worlds, take more and more time, much of the sim has to be reduced. and honestly fo4 too. whoever made fo4's settlement system, and the survival mode, understood the point of immersive sims. the scavenging system. which also, said, hey lets USE all that random shit. and made perfect sense in the post apoc landscape.

Current bethesda however I flat out do not think has anyone left that remembers why it existed in the first place. Starfield as noted, has the props. but does not seem to understand why they are there at all. if it DID. you would have gravity weapons, and be using shrapnel and explosive weapons to make all those props interactable weapons.
fo76 instead of focusing on the immersiveness of the settlement building... went pvp. and "environmental storytelling". or, Idk, maybe it was dumb luck in the first place, since they seemingly went in the totally wrong direction ever since..

the survival base builders are obviously exploring this design space.
 
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pwe

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Caliane said:
yeah. its easy to say, but the reality is, its a lot of work. time, skill and money.

we can even just put this in player terms. play a game like Conan exiles. build a base. go do it. how long did it take? now, decorate it. pots, pans, candles, etc. you can spend DAYS just decorating a house. building an entire world like that takes alot of time. it balloons up costs.

flat non-interactable worlds take way way less work.

simulation of physics, simulation of materials. more work. would that shit be cool as hell? wood burning, metal getting hot, etc? yes. but so much more work.

game worlds themselves are getting more intricate, and photo realistic. its not like Ultima 7 where the assets needed would be so much more limited compared to a modern game.

if the focus of the game is going to be story and gameplay, then unless the gameplay directly revolves around the sim, like monomyth, neverlooted dungeon, or even original sin, then its not going to be something they spend time and money on.
Click to expand...
Sure it is work that must be done, but it also had to be done 10 years ago. I guess they decided gamers don't care. I personally love that stuff, and would take it over more realistic graphics any day. Knocking around objects and smashing things. That's the stuff.

Fuck the fart director but I have game pass so will boot this baby up and try for myself.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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pwe said:
Sure it is work that must be done, but it also had to be done 10 years ago. I guess they decided gamers don't care. I personally love that stuff, and would take it over more realistic graphics any day. Knocking around objects and smashing things. That's the stuff.

Fuck the fart director but I have game pass so will boot this baby up and try for myself.
Click to expand...

They know gamers care - no one has the talent to do anything but stock design with basic tool sets. It has reached a point of absolute "This industry is fucked".

Was thinking about this the other day where some of the best games we played were in the earlier days (Circa 2005-2015) and when a lot of the awesome traction and momentum in design came in, those folks have long since left the industry. Like other IT areas of industry, the upcoming crop of workers, whether it is IT related, programming, game design - without dumbed down processes it's a lost cause. Shit, most of these people do not even know what a command line interface is. If there isn't a toggle and a tool tip (IN THE LITERAL DESIGN KITS) they have NO fucking clue what to do.
 
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pwe

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Utnayan said:
They know gamers care - no one has the talent to do anything but stock design with basic tool sets. It has reached a point of absolute "This industry is fucked".

Was thinking about this the other day where some of the best games we played were in the earlier days (Circa 2005-2015) and when a lot of the awesome traction and momentum in design came in, those folks have long since left the industry. Like other IT areas of industry, the upcoming crop of workers, whether it is IT related, programming, game design - without dumbed down processes it's a lost cause. Shit, most of these people do not even know what a command line interface is. If there isn't a toggle and a tool tip (IN THE LITERAL DESIGN KITS) they have NO fucking clue what to do.
Click to expand...
1739907657273.png
 
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jooka

jooka

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I'm curious why they haven't done much advertising for this, no twitch campaign is also very strange. No drops, no sponsorships, nothing.
 
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