Pillars of Eternity 2 failed to deliver. This post is a summary of my disappointment in the two area’s I had expected to find a strong successor of PoE I: Story and challenging gameplay
Part of the problem of my overall disappointment is in presenting it’s major improvements over its predecessor in the first few minutes. The graphics, the character design and the clean-up of the combat mechanics are undoubtedly a giant leap forward, and make the game a good investment — even though not nearly as good as I’d hoped it to be, or as good as some of its competitors vying for the title of ‘spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate’. It also makes for good game-reviews by major gamenews websites who only run the first 2 hours of a game before writing up their review. This is somewhat of a worrying trend I’ve noticed in games as of late, but thats another topic for another time.
This is about ‘what’s wrong with Deadfire’ — it’s (lack of) challenging gameplay and its lacking story. The reason this is particularly painful to the fans of the franchise (like me) is these were the ‘pillars’ of the first installment. And by story I don’t just mean the narrative — I mean the world-building, characters, dialogue and yes, the main questline.
In all of these area’s PoE falls short.
The difficulty
I’ll be brief on the game-play side of things: Either Obsidian caved to the feedback regarding the difficulty of PoE I, or they made a big and inexcusable mistake. At launch, the game was completely imbalanced in favor of the player. None of the combat encounters were challenging at even the highest difficulty setting. This can be largely contributed to the lack of the right scaling metrics between levels and enemies and the easy access to ‘end game’ gear at early levels (like the Devil of Corac Armor, The Blade Cad Nua etc.).
I use the term ‘inexcusably imbalanced’ because the game literally offers no challenge at all beyond level 5 or 6, even with all the scaling (up) options enabled. It turns encounters into mere nuances and kills the motivation to make the most of your build(s) and abilities when simply whacking the enemies with basic attacks will do.
Obsidian will probably fix this, and before the next expansion things like the gold you earn by looting will have been toned down, and the overall scaling will have been adjusted to make encounters more punishing and tricky to overcome.
The ‘story’
The story starts with a big cinematic telling you the events between PoE I and the start of PoE II. It sets up the story and introduces the catalyst / hook of the story. Rather than experience the events, we are told what happened and why we should care. I feel this hamstrings the games story from the beginning.
The story picks up from there, with a promising introduction of ‘Legend’ we’ve only heard about in the first game — The Pallid Knight. I loved this part, it deepens the lore of the world, tells the player thing have moved on without all the exposition of the introduction cinematic and agonizingly slow (and unskippable) ‘recap’ of the events from PoE I. But again, it seems the best part of the ingame storytelling is put at the very beginning of the game, as after the character creation screen Obsidians struggle to hook the player and their character into their story seems to continue.
The story moves on, creating events that seem entirely centered around you. They happen to you, because of you, near you or are about you. None of the pieces in the world seem to move on their own. The player is never allowed to find their own place within the world and move from whatever center the player creates for their character. This makes the world feel like a stage, something to look at rather than live in, and hampers the ability to truly develop a ‘role’ for the ‘roleplaying’ experience.
Dragon Age’s Origin ‘chapter 1’ is still a masterclass in getting the player involved in the world. The injustice, the humility, whatever you character experiences (depending on your choice of class, race and background), it gives you a reason to care without telling you to care. It introduces the antagonists on a personal level rather than abstract plot-devices. Gorions death in Baldurs Gate at the hands of Ceravok, the botched mission in Shadowrun: Dragonfall and the awkward witnessing of the emperors murder in Oblivion— the tutorial not only introduces the gameplay mechanics but introduces the world your character lives in with their own, sometimes petty problems. It makes it feel real, it makes it feel like we are not just watching events unfold at the speed of plot.
Never in Dreadfire do the NPC’s rise above mere plot devices. Their purpose as a figurehead of a faction or ideal is too clean, too iconical to be identifiable. While it’s commendable Obsidian tried to design a level of ambiguity in each of their gods and factions, it makes them all feel interchangeable and eventually makes the friction between the factions feel awkward.
This uncomfortable lack of friction was best illustrated by the faction I had thought most sane up to that point, the Valian Trading Company. Their motive of ‘making bank’ made sense to me as a Goldpact Paladin, it seemed simple enough and although not without its downsides, the leadership seemed to have a concern for both the locals and sustainable profits. I was in good standing, and hoped to be in the future. Most of all, I hoped to ‘make up’ for talking one of my companions, the godlike paladin Pallegina, out of a profitable trade-agreement for the Valian Empire which got her discharged from the order she had risked her life for to protect.
Things had gone smoothly up to the moment where I barely managed to prevent a ‘hostile take-over’ and keep the steady ‘Director’ in charge of the local Company operation. He had been a man of integrity and ambition, seeking to explore the marvels of Animancy, an interest I shared. And in the very same conversation where he tells me he is grateful for my intervention keeping him in charge, he asks me to blow up an entire conclave of an opposing trade faction. Just like that, I was asked to ruthlessly murder the competition because ‘its either them or us’. No further context given.
Obsidian happily pressed the point of how barbarous the act was by having the unsuspecting guards talk about how this would be their last day at work, wondering how their family was doing, contemplating the next in a game they would never finish or even expressing second thoughts about joining the military right before you blow them all to pieces.
This kind of writing is exactly the wrong kind of emotional storytelling. Wrong place, wrong time, as the game has just pigeonholed me into a decision neither me or my character wants to make. It’s this moment where we are supposed to feel ‘the consequences of our actions’, but all you feel are the limitations of the game in not providing you with the (conversation) options you’d like to express.
I make a point of this issue because it’s the first and one of only two pivotal points in the story, and it illustrates what’s wrong with the ultimately unsatisfying ending(s) of the game. These weren’t my choices, this wasn’t my story.
A ‘Classic Fantasy’
It’s also very telling that the choice of faction ‘lucky’ enough to escort you to the endzone and the actual ending are the only two choices that feel like they matter. But then the game diminishes the impact again by its over-reaching ambiguity. All of the factions are just tools, a means to an end. They do not align naturally with any of the races, classes or histories the game offers at character creation. Perhaps with two or three exceptions (only the Rogue class, Old Valia history and the Aumaua subraces seem to have a natural fit in the factions).
This isn’t necessarily a problem — the player can write their story independent of the character creation choices. However, the classes do represent a fantasy and a big part of the appeal of classic-fantasy worlds. The expression system is nice and does a decent job of tracking the players choices in therms of honesty, deception, intimidation or compassion, but it rarely amounts to more than a conversation option in a dialogue. You don’t get to ‘live’ on that fantasy, and deepen the bond between character and the world around it. Unless your character had always been a closet-pirate in the Dyrwood and chasing after their soul was the best thing that could have ever happened to them.
Again, Baldurs Gate does a much, much better job of addressing these classical, over-arching fantasies with their Shadow Thieves, druidic circles and Religious orders you, as a player, can get involved in, once again increasing the stake the player has in this world. Other examples would be Skyrims Mage Guild, the Fighters Guild and the murderous Brotherhood.
The original PoE also did a better job of creating three factions, while incorporating the ambiguity that seems integral to Obsidians writing. The ‘Knights of the Crucible, the Doemenels and the Dozen as a ‘catch-all adventurers guild’ are not the best examples, but were certainly more distinctive in the ‘classical fantasy-sense’ than the factions in Deadfire are. Here all factions seem to harbor grudges towards eachother the player has no stake in because they only learn of the grudges once you are asked to ‘solve’ them.
The world
I must admit I wasn’t thrilled when Deadfire first announced it’s over-arching theme of pirates. It feels too rigid, too limited to be considered an ‘RPG’ in the sense that we’ve come to expect from the Isometric RPG genre. Games like Divinity Original Sin, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age offer a wide variety of scenery, cultures and stories within a story. Though the Pillars of Eternity setting has all these ingredients, they are spread too thin and used to sporadically to truly feel like one of these rich worlds one could get lost in. Maps feel similar to one another, are small and sometimes (most of the time) consist of a single encounter with a seemingly randomly placed enemy. One isle after another, with little to no visual distinction in about 80% of the map made exploration not as fun as it should have been as one of the major drivers behind the ‘pirate-fantasy’.
The writers have done a decent job in developing the Aumaua culture but doesn’t really go beyond the surface of the conflict between tradition and progression. It feels they took the safe route and avoided any too insensitive references to tribalism. This makes the whole race feels forgettable even after spending an entire campaign in their homeland. Nothing like the Nords of Skyrim, the oppressed Elves in the Witcher or the fierce Korgan (or any other race from the Mass Effect universe).
As a final point about the world I wnat to mention that having the option to explore the whole map doesn’t work in favor of the immersion. Everythingin the Deadfire has its history knocked over by ‘the Watcher’ in a matter of minutes/hours. Ancient temples that have not been found/opened for hundreds of years? Done. Dragons slumbering quietly for decades? Defeated/scared off. Uncharted lands that have not been touched by Kith feet since history begun? Done, charted and looted. Again, this plays into ‘the world being a stage’ thing. In the big, epic fantasy worlds some things are out of reach of the player, some thing remain unexplored, untouched, unanswered. In Deadfire, everything, every problem, every challenge feels but a mere few moments away from being solved, often without any real consequences, struggles or puzzles. It makes the world feel flat as the map it was drawn upon.
Wrap up
All in all I’m optimistic for the games future in terms of the IP and the way the game is panning out technically. As a Kickstarter campaign the result is really above exception. But as a successor to PoE (which was far from a perfect game) Deadfire needs a lot of fixing in order for it to be a great game. The game’s lack of difficulty was a disappointment, but one that can easily be remedied and I expect to be solved by the next expansion.
Most of all Obsidian I hope Obsidian will work on getting a better feel for telling a story that involves the player and their character as much as it involves telling the story they want to tell. This might involve losing some ambiguity for equally understandable and better defined antagonists and allies. Build a world that can feel both small and personal, and big and important at the same time, creating a journey for the character that will involve more than moving from plot-point to plot-point.
