I didn't think it was possible for an RPG to have a worse ending than Mass Effect but Obsidian found a way

What game is?

>>3790559
Pillars of Eternity 2

>>3790499 (OP)
for it to be the worst the ending would have to be really disappointing but it was just bad, just like the rest of the main story, n

>>3790499 (OP)
He's a big guy.

>hey guys, the plot of our new game is that a giant man is walking around the ocean
>we will build an open world where we encourage anything other than finding him
>just sort of pretend he isn't out there actually
>and then end it

Obsidian is one of the best at being aggressively mid and in love with its own california brand of conformity.

>>3790499 (OP)
Not even the worst Obsidian ending, that's NWN2.

It was so weird. The whole game is about preserving this system of reincarnation that we as players have absolutely no attachment or connection to. It doesn't matter to me if the people in this world reincarnate. You and I don't, and our world is fine. I will not reincarnate, and it's not a big deal to me if Eder or Palegina do either. I wonder why they made that the plot.

>>3791340
And on the off chance you actually are invested the reincarnation shit is actually a huge plot hole
>wait the gods created the reincarnation cycle? In the first game you said it existed before the gods were made
>umm well it existed but we uhh, changed it somehow, and if it gets destroyed we can't make it again.
>Why not? We just can't, okay!?
The people who wrote this unironically consider themselves the top tier of CRPGs.

>>3790499 (OP)
Is there even one thing Obsidian are masters at? it feels they have no mastery over any aspect.

That sucks honestly, they are really unskilled devs

>>3791621
Alienating Chris Avellone mostly

>>3791171
The world building, setting and lore was top notch. The execution of the story itself was bad.

>>3791621
They have been nothing but also rans since their inception, making other titles worse. I never even heard anyone refer to themselves as an "Obsidian fan" before FNV and that was like their umpteenth take on copying the work of others. Then millennial hipsters decided they liked them because SJW solidarity or some shit I'll never understand. For me church was where I learned *not* to enjoy being preached at but games became church for some of these cult autist devs and game consumers.

>>3791621
They are good at making games for settings they did not create.

>>3790499 (OP)
KOTOR 2 would have a worse ending... IF IT ACTUALLY HAD ONE

>>3791340
"But I did eat breakfast" ass post

>>3791621
They're okay as merc devs who make games for established properties

their attempts at making their own IPs have been disasterous though, they don't seem to understand what consumers actually like in when it comes to setting and worldbuilding

>>3791340
>>3791614
>itt, people without inner monologue nor imagination.

>>3791621
Combat and encounter design, at least as long as Sawyer is heading development.

>>3791340
>>3791614
>turns out due to ancient magic fuckery ancient fuckwits used souls to create gods
>turns out that the gods are giant soul vacuum-cleaners that can only exist by using souls
>turns out ancient fuckwits didnt forsee that souls are actually finite
>more and more life is being borne without souls and thus you have a slowly encroaching extinction level event

"bUt hOw DoEs It AfFeCt YoU pErSoNaLlY"

at least your endings are in the game itself AND NOT IN A FUCKING BOOK

>>3794768
>they don't seem to understand what consumers actually like
Precisely this!
They do however understand what crpg enthusiasts like so that's why their games are great for crpg enthusiasts and bad for cumsumers

>>3794768
>they don't seem to understand what consumers actually like
they do, and they specifically don't give it to you, because the modern era of creating media is "subvert expectations at all costs, even if the predictable choice would have been 50000x more satisfying than what you came up with instead."
it's why you see 90% of the dogshit you see. everyone wants to put their own unique spin because the fans have already guessed the ending. just look at game of thrones.

>>3798310
Deadfire narrative design is the opposite of subversive though innit?
>I'm a god, I'll do what I want and you can't stop me
>he does what he wants and you can't stop him

I have played and finished Deadfire and I cannot remember 95% of the plot. Was there even a plot?

>>3790499 (OP)
the prequel to STALKER 1, STALKER: Clear Sky.
do i need to spoiler, the ending is basically the intro to original STALKER 1.
>MC /Scar get fucked and mindwiped by the zone.
>sits a truck or somewhere being brainwashed
>his bros in the Clear Sky are probably brainwashed like him or dead.

such is STALKER life.

>>3798322
>In most RPGs you play the hero and stop the bad guy if you make the right decisions
>Well in our game you CAN'T stop the bad guy no matter what!
That's what they were trying to subvert, it's the worst kind of pseudo-profound railroading bullshit brought to you by nihilistic commiefornian yuppies who think they're writing geniuses.

>>3791649
>I never even heard anyone refer to themselves as an "Obsidian fan" before FNV
You haven't been around grognards, then. KotoR 2 and MoTB were very well received. Alpha protocol was the first break, people had gigantic expectations based on Obsidians communications, and were massively disapointed.

>>3791634
>The world building, setting and lore was top notch.

>>3791340
Yeah. PoE focuses on cosmological scale world-building bullshit, but that kind of thing is not interesting to me at all if the more human stories aren't engaging.
I played Numenera recently so I'll lump this in there, but both settings seem to be a 'setting tour' kinds of games, where the writers are just way up their own ass about how much I want to explore the mechanics of how this universe functions. Everything is just so aggravatingly impersonal.
For me, the appeal of a CRPG is that I expect the resources saved by not needing to be constrained with more powerful graphics can open up more space for spending dev time on the narrative, branching paths, choice and consequence, all that buzzword shit.
But let's be real here; Pillars of Eternity is just not written well. It's way too up its own ass, and despite how muc they try and flesh it out as its own IP, it's just a really fucking generic feeling setting. We have a scenario where all the narrative beats serve purely as window dressing for exposition about the cosmic mechanisms of the setting, and the setting isn't even that good.
It's pretty clear that Chris Avellone basically just wrote the setting for himself, and had no real interest in investing the player in the world.
I like character-driven narratives, but what PoE has to offer is just abstract lore about how the world works, and every character is just a little more than a mouthpiece for their own very small part of it. Eder is probably the only good character because he's the only one acts like a fucking human.

>>3791340
the worst part is the game itself makes it clear the reincarnated people have nothing in common with the originals and the soul itself is basically used as materials for other things and no one gives a fuck

>>3797658
Sounds kinda like Soul Reaver

>>3798707
feels like a retarded take ngl
Eothas' avatar isn't the bad guy, not even a bad guy
he is barely a guy at all
a natural phenomenon destined to happen
it's like calling a hurricane "the bad guy" and complaining you can't stop it during an epic OST final climactic battle with the help of power of friendship

the goodguys/badguys are the factions and NPCs of the archipelago acting amidst the storm that is Eothas
and you are free to stop them

>>3800121
now that's definitely a retarded take formed purely from watching poorly made PoE lore youtube videos

the setting has so much more to offer specifically as written in PoE games
with so much stories of peoples conflicts
the saints war alone is one of the best piece of setting history I've ever seen in vidya
and each conflict like that sprouts all sorts of stories
like how the entire crisis around hollowborn, or Eder's and Devil's stories sprout from the saint's war

the cosmology things is just the background

Deadfire's main plot is lousy because there's no player agency, which is important for an RPG, but it's funny to see a good number of people were too dumb to understand it.

>>3790499 (OP)
Anon surprised a Midsidian game turned out to be mid.

>>3800193
Yeah there's no evidence in the actual game itself of that being the case. Eothas is a person with agency and is doing what he does of his own volition. It's only "destined to happen" because of writer fiat. And his actions can only result in immense human/fishperson/furry/whatever suffering for no real reason, and in fact might even result in the end of all life on the planet.
>complaining you can't stop it during an epic OST final climactic battle with the help of power of friendship
See you've already bought into the faggot postmodernist false dichotomy. There's a middle ground between anime ending and being literally railroaded into letting this obviously deranged person do a deranged thing like a good little cuck

>>3800462
also Eothas isn't "a person"
Eothas in Deadfire is both symbolically and quite literally a Deus Ex Machina
>yeah there's no evidence in the actual game itself of that being the case.
what is "evidence" supposed to mean in this context?
the game makes it pretty clear the Colossus is basically an unstoppable force
I mean it's a quite literally an act of god for crying out loud
did you need it be laid out to you directly word for word?
>Loading screen tip
>Eothas' avatar is basically an unstoppable Force Majeure "Act of God" much in vein of what a hurricane is
>Loading screen tip
>The real story is how the people of Deadfire act when faced with such an "Act of God"

A simple case of the game's narrative respecting players intelligence, assuming a certain level of cultural background, and hoping the player will be able to string the pieces together
and you failed

>>3800462
>and his actions can only result in immense human/fishperson/furry/whatever suffering for no real reason, and in fact might even result in the end of all life on the planet
>for no real reason
He has very good reasons for what he does, though, and he will directly explain them if you ask.

>>3800197
You are confusing "history" with "story". I'm sure the "history" of the setting is interesting for lore nerds, but the problem is that the STORY of the game isn't.
Lore isn't interesting by itself.

Any writer obsessed with "subverting the power fantasy" needs to be shot.

>>3800832
everything I talk about is part of PoEs stories
>Lore isn't interesting by itself
well thank god PoE lore is a substrate layer to grow and tie together different personal stories
as any well written lore should be looking at you bethesda