Still buying don't care :: Avowed Avowed Gameplay Discussion

Mišmil Feb 8 @ 9:15pm

Originally posted by Nightmarian:
Originally posted by Mišmil:

It is just the new trend that wont go away for a few years it seems... It just feels like genuine visibility in games is dropping, well, at least it wont be muddy i hope... Yeah, PoE 1 was very subdued, Outer Worlds reminds me a bit of RAGE 2, that game was also quite bombastic in color palette.

Right now, the game seems okay, but they really picked a bad month - KC Deliverance is selling like pancakes, everyone is praising the optimization, story seems fun (i dont plan on playing it, the combat system just annoys me at this point, KCD was solid but i forced myself to play it honestly), everyone's talking about it, and on the other side, MonHun WIlds is taking away oxygen with talk of optimization and whatnot. Bad time to launch honestly.

Not a lot of people talking about Avowed.

That's Microsoft's fault. The idiots moved it from a much better month to a much worse month, aren't marketing it at all, are being open about it basically being a AA game yet want to honestly charge premium AAA prices for it.

The game isn't going to do well, period. Now, whether that's because it's objectively bad or was just sent out to die will be anyone's guess, but whatever.

I was gifted the game and I'm a PoE stan so I guess I will give it a try. For what it's worth I didn't like TOW and thought its writing was subpar, really did feel like a first attempt AA game from someone imitating FO, but it wasn't a BAD game. Just very unrefined and janky.

Avowed looks much better. Most of my problems with it at a glance are probably more from the reboot downscaling rather than lack of quality.

It's insane we were going to get a skyrim-sized Eora game with multiplayer and instead got Fantasy TOW sigh.

Tim Cain said they were explicitly told to make Outer Worlds "accessible to casuals".

#46

Default Feb 8 @ 9:16pm

Originally posted by Mišmil:
Microsoft mismanages studios all the time, nothing new about that, they seem very hands-off with Avowed, they probably plan to put it on Gamepass and recoup costs that way, they just want to have a library of games, regardless of quality or word of mouth, whatever the game is, just to encourage subscriptions. My opinion.
...
I do expect Obsidian die-hards to buy it though.

I don't know about that. Psychonauts 2 was legitimately fantastic, in part because of Microsoft's 'hands off' approach. Redfall was atrocious but... that was Bethesda more than Microsoft. I think it's likely a 'wait and see' for their slate of games this year - Avowed, Outer Worlds 2, South of Midnight all appeal to me at least.

... and yeah... guilty as charged... definitely going to buy it eventually.

#47

Mišmil Feb 8 @ 9:18pm

Originally posted by Default:
Originally posted by Mišmil:
Microsoft mismanages studios all the time, nothing new about that, they seem very hands-off with Avowed, they probably plan to put it on Gamepass and recoup costs that way, they just want to have a library of games, regardless of quality or word of mouth, whatever the game is, just to encourage subscriptions. My opinion.
...
I do expect Obsidian die-hards to buy it though.

I don't know about that. Psychonauts 2 was legitimately fantastic, in part because of Microsoft's 'hands off' approach. Redfall was atrocious but... that was Bethesda more than Microsoft. I think it's likely a 'wait and see' for their slate of games this year - Avowed, Outer Worlds 2, South of Midnight all appeal to me at least.

... and yeah... guilty as charged... definitely going to buy it eventually.

I plan to buy OW2, we dont get space adventures these days and i liked the first one enough, i just hope there's a bit more systems, it was veeeeery losely an RPG... Mass Effect OG Trilogy is still the king of the genre, SW Kotor games are also fantastic, and i hope they shake things up a bit with OW2, make roleplaying a bit more in-depth.

#48

Nightmarian Feb 8 @ 9:23pm

Originally posted by Default:
Originally posted by Nightmarian:
That's Microsoft's fault. The idiots moved it from a much better month to a much worse month, aren't marketing it at all, are being open about it basically being a AA game yet want to honestly charge premium AAA prices for it.

I assume the delay was to iron out bugs... and I expect the price is to try and drive people to Gamepass, which has fairly nakedly been Microsoft's goal for a while. I don't know if it's paying off, but I have to assume that's their hope... people sign up and stay signed up.

Originally posted by Nightmarian:
It's insane we were going to get a skyrim-sized Eora game with multiplayer and instead got Fantasy TOW sigh.

I'd not heard that they pivoted development - do you have a source?

Delay notice: https://x.com/Xbox/status/1819495487155982486

More was said in the shotgun of recent interviews from director, while they obviously did use the extra time to polish further, she's constantly said it was just because it was a bad month. And they moved it into a worse one lmao riiight between two massive launches. I don't get microsoft sometimes.

Imma just link one article but many covered the downscale and it's something the director covered: https://www.pcgamer.com/avowed-open-world-skyrim-rpg-size/

Note about MP but director has also talked about it a bunch: https://x.com/klobrille/status/1689036052202225665

TLDR is they rebooted the game and lost their former director, and the new one made what she believed was a hard choice to really scale down the game.

A lot of fans are still upset about the shift because it makes no sense. Microsoft needed wins and are lush with cash, and Obsidian proved they are capable of this with FONV even if that was a different team ages ago.

But they had a lot of the ingredients, preexisting setting that basically formed the skeleton for them, unlike TOW which was all new and had to be narratively built from scratch.

It sucks because for example a ton of iconic class components are missing like chanter and cipher, we see the other races but can't play them, and the ability selection is really basic.

IMO either Microsoft had no faith in Avowed or Obsidian had no faith in it. Seems as soon as the game ships everyone on the team is going to hope TOW2 which microsoft seems to be betting on more, so eh who knows.

Last edited by Nightmarian; Feb 8 @ 9:23pm

#49

Default Feb 8 @ 9:23pm

Originally posted by Mišmil:
I plan to buy OW2, we dont get space adventures these days and i liked the first one enough, i just hope there's a bit more systems, it was veeeeery losely an RPG... Mass Effect OG Trilogy is still the king of the genre, SW Kotor games are also fantastic, and i hope they shake things up a bit with OW2, make roleplaying a bit more in-depth.

For sure. There's a reason Owlcat is pretty much my favourite CRPG developer now. The general trend for years has been more and more casual - it feels like the early 2000s all over again, as Baldur's Gate 2 dialogue trees gave in to the Mass Effect conversation wheel. I liked Mass Effect as a series, but in terms of mechanical complexity it was a real step down.

After ME and Deus Ex 2, we had five or ten years of largely being in the cold as far as CRPGs with only a game here or there that was good... and suddenly POE in the kickstarter era.

Hopefully it doesn't follow the same cycle.

That said - with teams working on things like Skyblivion, Fallout London, Enderal and the Gothic 2 "Archolos" mod there's always hope for modders producing things that bigger devs can't afford.

#50

Default Feb 8 @ 9:28pm

Originally posted by Nightmarian:
.

Interesting re: the delay... I still mostly assume it would be for bug reasons, but maybe they're trying to stagger launches the way Amazon/Netflix stagger episodes to keep people subscribed?

As to the pivot - I just saw Feargus' tweet mentioning that it was initially co-op focussed, but I'm not seeing that they ever moved towards 'open world' more than discussing if it would work. I don't know if 'open world' necessarily adds anything to a title... it sure af didn't help Starfield be any better.

Co-op would have been an interesting title though. I wonder if they were drawing on their experiences with Grounded? While Grounded was fine, I'm not sure I'd have wanted Avowed to be similar. As long as it was balanced for SP with co-op being an option (System Shock 2 style) maybe?

As long as what they put out is good, that's the main thing.

Last edited by Default; Feb 8 @ 9:29pm

#51

Mišmil Feb 8 @ 9:32pm

Originally posted by Default:
Originally posted by Mišmil:
I plan to buy OW2, we dont get space adventures these days and i liked the first one enough, i just hope there's a bit more systems, it was veeeeery losely an RPG... Mass Effect OG Trilogy is still the king of the genre, SW Kotor games are also fantastic, and i hope they shake things up a bit with OW2, make roleplaying a bit more in-depth.

For sure. There's a reason Owlcat is pretty much my favourite CRPG developer now. The general trend for years has been more and more casual - it feels like the early 2000s all over again, as Baldur's Gate 2 dialogue trees gave in to the Mass Effect conversation wheel. I liked Mass Effect as a series, but in terms of mechanical complexity it was a real step down.

After ME and Deus Ex 2, we had five or ten years of largely being in the cold as far as CRPGs with only a game here or there that was good... and suddenly POE in the kickstarter era.

Hopefully it doesn't follow the same cycle.

That said - with teams working on things like Skyblivion, Fallout London, Enderal and the Gothic 2 "Archolos" mod there's always hope for modders producing things that bigger devs can't afford.

Relying on modders is a bad thing in my opinion - these people have to take away years of their life for a possibility of launching something the mass RPG audience wants - Fallout MIAMI, F4NV, Morroblivion, there were so many promising projects we only really ended up with F London, and maaaaybe Skyblivion soon? But then there's the actual UE5 remake of Oblivion coming out so...

RPGs either have to go the AAA third-person adventure route a la Witcher or "you have to eat a potato IN REAL TIME" a la Kingdom Come, or "WE HAVE 1000 CLASSES AND 2000 CUSTOM PERKS|" (kek) like Pathfinder to really make an impact, carve out your niche.

Lots of good indie RPGs though - ATOM RPG, Encased, King Arthur. These are all isometric though. First-person? Eeeeh... Tainted Grail???

I don't see a lot of solid first-person fantasy RPGs, people are still replaying Skyrim.

Also, the dude before was right - the first iteration of Avowed was meant to be open-world, they changed a few art directors and managers along the way, and downsized from the project. Classis Obsidian kek. Bite more than you can chew, and scrounge up what you can.

#52

Default Feb 8 @ 9:38pm

Originally posted by Mišmil:
Relying on modders is a bad thing in my opinion

Aye - we can hope. But relying on them isn't ideal.

Originally posted by Mišmil:
Lots of good indie RPGs though - ATOM RPG, Encased, King Arthur. These are all isometric though. First-person?

Team Atom are doing a great job; I've already pre-ordered Swordhaven. King Arthur not really my speed... but yeah - Tainted Grail, Archaelund... arguably Blood West. It sort of depends what you want in an FPS RPG, I guess... because Skyrim is sort of crap as anything but a 'punch things' sim. The same as all of Bethesda's games since Morrowind really. They've sort of ceded the non-combat parts of RPGs completely.

Originally posted by Mišmil:
Also, the dude before was right - the first iteration of Avowed was meant to be open-world

Yeah - certainly it seems they thought about it. It just doesn't seem like they got far along in that... and if you watch the Psychodyssey on Youtube (now free to watch - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd70y34zh2erWWpMyOnh4UN_) it's pretty clear most studios tend to have to reign in their goals.

#53

Mišmil Feb 8 @ 9:39pm

https://www.eurogamer.net/ambitious-fallout-nuevo-mexico-mod-cancelled-to-prioritise-developers-mental-health-and-face-reality

"The modder behind Fallout: Nuevo Mexico has cancelled the project to prioritise their mental health and "face reality".

Following in the footsteps of Fallout: London, Fallout: Nuevo Mexico was intended to be a rework of Fallout: New Vegas into an all-new game set in Mexico City.

However, a statement from modder Zapshock on the mod's Discord server (thanks TheGamer) confirmed the project has been cancelled. "This project has been my passion, my obsession, and a huge part of my life for years," wrote Zapshock. "I've poured thousands of hours into it, late nights, early mornings, and everything in between.""

This is the sad reality of modding without funding, while your life moves on.
I am personally still coping with Fallout 4 New Vegas that it will come out...

Same with Avowed, "mods will fix it" doesn't apply - they need to go "SHILLING:ON" and try to market the game as much as possible, they have started posting a lot more, there's bunch of new lore videos, we will probably have one last push, maaaybe gameplay? We have already seen a lot.

#54

Default Feb 8 @ 9:41pm

Originally posted by Mišmil:
.

Honestly man - same thing I've said to other people. Just wait for the reviews.

#55

Surge44 Feb 8 @ 9:42pm

prob be a 5/10 IGN score.. 120 AUD and its on gamepass PC... Nahhrrrrrr

#56

Mišmil Feb 8 @ 9:47pm

Originally posted by Default:
Originally posted by Mišmil:
Relying on modders is a bad thing in my opinion

Aye - we can hope. But relying on them isn't ideal.

Originally posted by Mišmil:
Lots of good indie RPGs though - ATOM RPG, Encased, King Arthur. These are all isometric though. First-person?

Team Atom are doing a great job; I've already pre-ordered Swordhaven. King Arthur not really my speed... but yeah - Tainted Grail, Archaelund... arguably Blood West. It sort of depends what you want in an FPS RPG, I guess... because Skyrim is sort of crap as anything but a 'punch things' sim. The same as all of Bethesda's games since Morrowind really. They've sort of ceded the non-combat parts of RPGs completely.

Originally posted by Mišmil:
Also, the dude before was right - the first iteration of Avowed was meant to be open-world

Yeah - certainly it seems they thought about it. It just doesn't seem like they got far along in that... and if you watch the Psychodyssey on Youtube (now free to watch - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd70y34zh2erWWpMyOnh4UN_) it's pretty clear most studios tend to have to reign in their goals.

I think the issue with Avowed, honestly, is they pivoted away from what the players wanted... I STILL remember the first trailer, it was amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3QkO8fy3tg

I saw this and was like "woah"... Then came the later reveal, and the color palette just felt... childish. Very colorful, very "You're going on an adventure, yay! :D"!

PoE1 was very somber, very dour - but a lot of people complained and PoE 2 had a huge shift in tone - the last ten years of RPGs was "go with your friends" adventuring, DA Origins is downright grimdark today in comparison.

The Living Lands are a setting without a lot of settled cultures - Elves and Humans are from Aedyr, so you're basically a colonial power, there's no "medievalism", no horses, no Orcs, sure, its nice, but maaaaaan... the first iteration was a lot better, a bit bombastic sure, but i want to go on an epic adventure, not micromanage East India Company (but fantasy) kek.

#57

Mišmil Feb 8 @ 9:48pm

Originally posted by Surge44:
prob be a 5/10 IGN score.. 120 AUD and its on gamepass PC... Nahhrrrrrr

Just you wait until GTA VI is 100$, we'll be out taking loans for our GPUs to play our games that made us starve for a month.

#58

Ele (Banned) Feb 8 @ 9:56pm

Originally posted by Default:
Man... the problem with the whole 'culture war' nonsense that keeps happening with games you all self-select as targets is the same thing that used to be wrong when people targeted Postal II, or something like Hatred.

The difference between a gamer and someone just interested in a political cause is that gamers (me) are like "yeah, it looks interesting/crap but I'll wait for launch and reviews." The political lobbyists are already declaring it 'failed slop' weeks before it's even launched.

It's so painfully obvious to anyone paying attention.

How are we going to get good video games if we don’t expel DEI politics that boost those studios' ESG scores and award them millions just for checking boxes?

You might love video games, but if you prefer studios getting money for checking boxes instead of making good games to recover their money, then you don't really care about the industry.

#59

NickelToe Feb 8 @ 10:22pm

Originally posted by Char:
Originally posted by donut32:
ill wait for the live reviews to confirm my thoughts on the game. which is looking like a solid 4/10

I'll actually play the game, I don't need others to think for me. Bye bye kiddo

At least then one person would be thinking for you. Before that its all just programming from the poli-sci professor and/or single mother.

#60

Avowed

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