Modern RPGs are horribly overwritten. There’s no sense of pace, no respect for the reader’s time. It’s just endless flowery language, unnecessary paragraphs, and adverbs as far as the eye can see, all made ten times worse if it happens to be voice-acted. I can’t believe people sit through that shit.
I think if that's true, it's part of why games like Nethack and Dungeon Crawl are so popular, no need for massive amounts of dialogue, just dungeoneering straight to the point.
Bethesda have been dumbing down their RPG's for ages. I actually prefer more stats and levelling options. But I think the two games to get the balance right are Dungeon Master and Wizardry 8. Oblivion was the last Bethesda to have the balance right - Skyrim dumbed it down a lot as did Fallout 76.
Honestly the old ES leveling system in Morrowind and Oblivion was too convoluted for no real benefit. It encouraged you to play in counter-intuitive ways, like putting your most desired skills into the non-leveling categories to prevent leveling. I wasn't sad to see that go.
In Skyrim, you just play the game how you want and your character naturally evolves along those lines, then you "solidify" those choices with perks. Much better than picking everything permanently at character creation and being stuck with that choice forever. I think it works pretty well. People complain that it technically allows you to get every skill to max, but A. all the previous games had the same problem, and B. you'd have to play for an overly long amount of time for that, so whatever. Some people also really want a 100 hour game to punish you with a full restart if you don't like your weapon pick you made five minutes in. I consider that bad design. I do miss the custom spell options though.
The problem with Skyrim is the dumb writing, bad quests, effortless dragons, and overall half-baked plot ideas (like the civil war that's resolved with one dialogue in a conference room).
Skyrim had terrible game balance. Magic scaling was atrocious. Also, level scaling is a trash mechanic for shit devs who are too lazy to properly balance their games.
With Skyrim I felt like I was playing an Action Adventure like Heroes of Might & Magic. So when I finished it (much quicker than Oblivion) it had no replay value. I don't endorse Morrowind, btw.
I don't play for the stories, I skip most dialogue and rarely read the lore. Sounds like you would prefer the Fable series? Did you ever play text adventures?
See I didn't mind having a narrative oriented game when playing Infocom and Melbourne House Text Adventures - like reading a book, you create the images in your mind anyway. But for RPG's I prefer creating a character to free roam. I think the last RPG I played that I got into the narrative was Mass Effect.
Please tell me you've played more than a hundred games in your life.
Think about it. A hundred. Should seem like a small number, compared to probably over a million games out there. But, be honest. You haven't, have you?
Seriously. Lethn would probably prefer Guildwars 2 over Guildwars 1. He would probably prefers Borderlands 2 over Diablo 2. He would probably prefer Baulder's Gate over Planescape: Torment or Neverwinter Nights. He probably hates Factorio and Rimworld.
Is he? I didn't know that Beamdog HAD fanboys? I say that as someone who briefly hung out on their forums when BG1EE was first released and owns most of the "EE" releases.
My impression was the general community feeling was thankfulness for Beamdog refreshing the engines, making them easier to run on modern PCs, tablets, etc. The most positive things I've ever heard said about their new content is that it wasn't bad and that most of it was optional.
Please tell me you've played more than a hundred games in your life.
Think about it. A hundred. Should seem like a small number, compared to probably over a million games out there. But, be honest. You haven't, have you?
Not Lethn, but that's an interesting question. How many games have I played?
And what does played mean? I might be tempted to break it out into categories so that "played" means one of:
Completed multiple times
Completed once
Didn't complete but played 5+ hours
Played more than 1 hour
That avoids playing some game for 5 minutes and it goes on the list.
For me it would be old DOS games, old Mac games, NES, SNES, (etc), PS2+ (etc), "modern" games, phone games, flash games, etc.
I would guess it would have to be 300+, but I have no idea. I could be way off.
My vidya time really tailed off in my 30s.
Edit: My Steam and Gog collections are ~150, but I have definitely not played them all! I might revise my guess to 400+.
I used to think the opposite, but now I agree. Generally speaking all having too many stats does is dilute the rest. Every stat, by nature, interacts with every other stat. This makes adding a stat an exponential increase in the complexity of the system. And this complexity has to be tested. And testers are humans with limited time. The more unnecessary shit you add, the less attention gets paid to the stuff that does matter.
Alternatively you have like 20 different stats but none of them actually matter. Final Fantasy games are a great example of this. Did you know that every character in FF7 has a unique set of starting stats and stat growth? Did you even know FF7 had stats beyond attack, defense, HP, and MP? You can get forgiven if not, because you don't have to pay any attention to them at all.
Speak for yourself. More crunch is more better. That means if I take the time to learn the systems I'm rewarded with smoother gameplay. I say this as someone who doesn't nearly have as much time and energy to expend on games as I did previously.
However it's not so overwhelming and pants on head retarded that you could be an autist and end up making an excel spreadsheet comparing all the miniscule amounts of stats to find out which is the 'best' class or stats setup.
Diablo 2 is a great example of a game that satisfies both groups. If you want to bang it out in casual mode, you can do that - it’s almost impossible to soft lock your progress in normal D2. But if you want to tackle the hardest difficulty, then you’ll have to delve further into mechanics, builds, and itemization. That’s the scaling complexity that games should aspire to.
The funny thing about complexity for the sake of complexity is once you breakdown the "complexity", it's actually really simple and doesn't add anything.
Diablo 4's paragon system is a fine example of this. They tried to make it "complex" but in the end it turned out to be a simple system that added absolutely nothing to the game.
The filters aren't on by default because the "fail" state (not noticing the tabs) is the game is playable but you have to scroll a bunch when you level up. If they were on by default the "fail" state would be that the player doesn't have access most of the talents.
I agree they aren't the most obvious but at the same time filter tabs are something that be expected of the kind of player who would pick up an involved game like this.
You are right though that the leveling UI is pretty crap and needs to be its own full-screen overlay.
Agreed. There are memes about games like Path of Exile that you need a PhD or an hour long guide to make a viable character. Even Diablo 4 with all its faults is superior to me because I can create a character I feel like playing and not be useless halfway through.
On reason I like Path of Exile is that it offers something to both players who like to be methodical theorycrafters, and to players like me who just want to hit the ground hacking-and-slashing using one of their build guides.
I have more of an issue with length. While I do like my open world survival exploration games in occasion I don't want a single player game to do it and pad the game to 50 hours. I'd rather play a 10h game that is a great experience than 50h slog.
I think complexity is cool if it’s done well regardless. Early wow raids are a good example of this. Like as a tank a lot of the movements are weirdly unintuitive in terms of feeling like “combat” but at the end of the attempt it still felt like a grueling fight against a crazed elemental or whatever.
Complexity in game is very relative, I like Path of Exile for instance and I disliked Diablo 3. In part this was do to how simple Diablo 3 is and how fun it was in POE to do builds.
What other games do you think are complex? I remember finding some of my favorite games a bit complex at first and then they were just normal. Total War: Warhammer, Divinity Original Sin and POE.
Is a car engine complex? At first it seems so but after a while it is very basic and you feel accomplish for now having the knowledge.
In the end it is about having some difficulty to overcome. For what ever reason difficulty in itself seems to make people enjoy games, complexity is just one way to achieve that.
Simplifying a game mechanics for the sake of story is how we got to the movie game meta we have today. I hate it.
However you also have a good point, make a game to difficult and to many will just not give it a shot. There is also the time people are willing to put in to a game, I have a job and a family, I don't have the time to start a game over and over again until I get that perfect build I wanted - I do miss those days but it is what it is.
The question should be where to draw the line, what is the balance? Should games be targeted to the most basic player? Someone with very low attention spam that just wants a quick dopamine hit? For profit alone it makes sense to do that. People here may not like it but the time where games were made by and for nerds is over, gaming is now mainstream and there is no going back.
Having so many things to put points in was the part that was overwhelming and I wanted to have the best build :) Combat was turned based and I like that but I also like the pseudo turn based from BG1 and 2.
The problem with modern RPGs is not complexity but verbosity. SO MUCH DIALOGUE. Just shit the fuck up already and let me play the god damn game.
Modern RPGs are horribly overwritten. There’s no sense of pace, no respect for the reader’s time. It’s just endless flowery language, unnecessary paragraphs, and adverbs as far as the eye can see, all made ten times worse if it happens to be voice-acted. I can’t believe people sit through that shit.
Wasteland 3 was good in that regard. Just enough punchy dialogue to move the story forward and back to blowing stuff up with rocket launchers.
I think if that's true, it's part of why games like Nethack and Dungeon Crawl are so popular, no need for massive amounts of dialogue, just dungeoneering straight to the point.
There's only 1 series I don't just X through dialog and that's Souls games. Well acted, short, to the point, impactful.
You could easily remove two thirds of the story text from modern crpgs.
"There's something evil coming through the teleporters!" and "The princess is in another castle!" is all the premise I need to enjoy a game.
Books =/= Games
You are a masterclass in self-owning, storyfag.
Yeah that's probably why I've gone off them. ( I am playing Starfield at the moment though)
Bethesda have been dumbing down their RPG's for ages. I actually prefer more stats and levelling options. But I think the two games to get the balance right are Dungeon Master and Wizardry 8. Oblivion was the last Bethesda to have the balance right - Skyrim dumbed it down a lot as did Fallout 76.
Honestly the old ES leveling system in Morrowind and Oblivion was too convoluted for no real benefit. It encouraged you to play in counter-intuitive ways, like putting your most desired skills into the non-leveling categories to prevent leveling. I wasn't sad to see that go.
In Skyrim, you just play the game how you want and your character naturally evolves along those lines, then you "solidify" those choices with perks. Much better than picking everything permanently at character creation and being stuck with that choice forever. I think it works pretty well. People complain that it technically allows you to get every skill to max, but A. all the previous games had the same problem, and B. you'd have to play for an overly long amount of time for that, so whatever. Some people also really want a 100 hour game to punish you with a full restart if you don't like your weapon pick you made five minutes in. I consider that bad design. I do miss the custom spell options though.
The problem with Skyrim is the dumb writing, bad quests, effortless dragons, and overall half-baked plot ideas (like the civil war that's resolved with one dialogue in a conference room).
Skyrim had terrible game balance. Magic scaling was atrocious. Also, level scaling is a trash mechanic for shit devs who are too lazy to properly balance their games.
Level scaling takes the fun out of litteraly every aspect of a light RPG like Skyrim
It makes every reward pointless and dull, and gives you no real sense of progression.
You're too kind. Original ES leveling was beyond stupid. "I ran too much and that made everyone but me really strong." The fuck?
With Skyrim I felt like I was playing an Action Adventure like Heroes of Might & Magic. So when I finished it (much quicker than Oblivion) it had no replay value. I don't endorse Morrowind, btw.
Owlcat games are bloated nightmares. I don’t think I could even be friends with someone who enjoys them.
I don't play for the stories, I skip most dialogue and rarely read the lore. Sounds like you would prefer the Fable series? Did you ever play text adventures?
See I didn't mind having a narrative oriented game when playing Infocom and Melbourne House Text Adventures - like reading a book, you create the images in your mind anyway. But for RPG's I prefer creating a character to free roam. I think the last RPG I played that I got into the narrative was Mass Effect.
I’ll look those up
As always, you are an agent of the decline.
Please tell me you've played more than a hundred games in your life.
Think about it. A hundred. Should seem like a small number, compared to probably over a million games out there. But, be honest. You haven't, have you?
Seriously. Lethn would probably prefer Guildwars 2 over Guildwars 1. He would probably prefers Borderlands 2 over Diablo 2. He would probably prefer Baulder's Gate over Planescape: Torment or Neverwinter Nights. He probably hates Factorio and Rimworld.
Lethn is the world's biggest Beamdog fanboy. The saddest day in his life was when they fired David Gayder.
He is the inevitable result of a failure to gatekeep.
Is he? I didn't know that Beamdog HAD fanboys? I say that as someone who briefly hung out on their forums when BG1EE was first released and owns most of the "EE" releases.
My impression was the general community feeling was thankfulness for Beamdog refreshing the engines, making them easier to run on modern PCs, tablets, etc. The most positive things I've ever heard said about their new content is that it wasn't bad and that most of it was optional.
Not Lethn, but that's an interesting question. How many games have I played?
And what does played mean? I might be tempted to break it out into categories so that "played" means one of:
That avoids playing some game for 5 minutes and it goes on the list.
For me it would be old DOS games, old Mac games, NES, SNES, (etc), PS2+ (etc), "modern" games, phone games, flash games, etc.
I would guess it would have to be 300+, but I have no idea. I could be way off.
My vidya time really tailed off in my 30s.
Edit: My Steam and Gog collections are ~150, but I have definitely not played them all! I might revise my guess to 400+.
I used to think the opposite, but now I agree. Generally speaking all having too many stats does is dilute the rest. Every stat, by nature, interacts with every other stat. This makes adding a stat an exponential increase in the complexity of the system. And this complexity has to be tested. And testers are humans with limited time. The more unnecessary shit you add, the less attention gets paid to the stuff that does matter.
Alternatively you have like 20 different stats but none of them actually matter. Final Fantasy games are a great example of this. Did you know that every character in FF7 has a unique set of starting stats and stat growth? Did you even know FF7 had stats beyond attack, defense, HP, and MP? You can get forgiven if not, because you don't have to pay any attention to them at all.
Speak for yourself. More crunch is more better. That means if I take the time to learn the systems I'm rewarded with smoother gameplay. I say this as someone who doesn't nearly have as much time and energy to expend on games as I did previously.
TIL I'm an autist.
Why would you do that when there's probably a dozen guides on the internet with that information?
There weren't in many cases, at least originally (e.g., Vanilla WoW). I also didn't always trust guides or simulations as complete or correct.
Diablo 2 is a great example of a game that satisfies both groups. If you want to bang it out in casual mode, you can do that - it’s almost impossible to soft lock your progress in normal D2. But if you want to tackle the hardest difficulty, then you’ll have to delve further into mechanics, builds, and itemization. That’s the scaling complexity that games should aspire to.
The funny thing about complexity for the sake of complexity is once you breakdown the "complexity", it's actually really simple and doesn't add anything.
Diablo 4's paragon system is a fine example of this. They tried to make it "complex" but in the end it turned out to be a simple system that added absolutely nothing to the game.
The leveling only looks complicated because you aren't using the filter buttons. I also made that mistake until I just recently found them.
The filters aren't on by default because the "fail" state (not noticing the tabs) is the game is playable but you have to scroll a bunch when you level up. If they were on by default the "fail" state would be that the player doesn't have access most of the talents.
I agree they aren't the most obvious but at the same time filter tabs are something that be expected of the kind of player who would pick up an involved game like this.
You are right though that the leveling UI is pretty crap and needs to be its own full-screen overlay.
Agreed. There are memes about games like Path of Exile that you need a PhD or an hour long guide to make a viable character. Even Diablo 4 with all its faults is superior to me because I can create a character I feel like playing and not be useless halfway through.
On reason I like Path of Exile is that it offers something to both players who like to be methodical theorycrafters, and to players like me who just want to hit the ground hacking-and-slashing using one of their build guides.
I have more of an issue with length. While I do like my open world survival exploration games in occasion I don't want a single player game to do it and pad the game to 50 hours. I'd rather play a 10h game that is a great experience than 50h slog.
I think complexity is cool if it’s done well regardless. Early wow raids are a good example of this. Like as a tank a lot of the movements are weirdly unintuitive in terms of feeling like “combat” but at the end of the attempt it still felt like a grueling fight against a crazed elemental or whatever.
Complexity in game is very relative, I like Path of Exile for instance and I disliked Diablo 3. In part this was do to how simple Diablo 3 is and how fun it was in POE to do builds.
What other games do you think are complex? I remember finding some of my favorite games a bit complex at first and then they were just normal. Total War: Warhammer, Divinity Original Sin and POE.
Is a car engine complex? At first it seems so but after a while it is very basic and you feel accomplish for now having the knowledge.
In the end it is about having some difficulty to overcome. For what ever reason difficulty in itself seems to make people enjoy games, complexity is just one way to achieve that.
Simplifying a game mechanics for the sake of story is how we got to the movie game meta we have today. I hate it.
However you also have a good point, make a game to difficult and to many will just not give it a shot. There is also the time people are willing to put in to a game, I have a job and a family, I don't have the time to start a game over and over again until I get that perfect build I wanted - I do miss those days but it is what it is.
The question should be where to draw the line, what is the balance? Should games be targeted to the most basic player? Someone with very low attention spam that just wants a quick dopamine hit? For profit alone it makes sense to do that. People here may not like it but the time where games were made by and for nerds is over, gaming is now mainstream and there is no going back.
To be honest, BG2 and NWN2 had great balance. BG2 however becomes way to easy after the first run.
Did you play DOS2? I found that one to be overwhelming first time and I ended up restarting it a few times and then it was kind of simplistic.
Having so many things to put points in was the part that was overwhelming and I wanted to have the best build :) Combat was turned based and I like that but I also like the pseudo turn based from BG1 and 2.