rusty_shackleford
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2018
- Messages
- 50,754
collecting components and having a skilled craftsman forge an item from them sure sounds like crafting to me
I liked forging weapons in Gothic. It wasn't complicated or dangerous, but - as you say - it was a whole process, which made it more engaging.The irony is that what passes for crafting in modern games is not about crafting, but about collecting.
When you have a recipe and collected enough ingredients, you just click "craft" and it's done.
rtwpBG2's cardinal sin is popularizing
only if you were a fighter chadIt also had castle-management by the way
P.S. Grinding is unavoidable even if you're a thief class, in order to have high enough sneak/lockpick/pickpocket skills you need to steal a thousand common items or kill a thousand enemies in order to obtain necessary skill points.
Less crafting and more like glorified fetch quests.
I find it hard to compare "Use 20 bear asses and 10 horse wieners to make the +2 dildo bat" and "bring me the hammerhead of chad and the rod of thunder for the hammer of Thunderous Chad".
They just don't feel even remotely the same.
My statement was meant to encapsulate all RPGs, not just Morrowind. In Fallout 1/2 you get miniscule amounts for utilising skills and depend on farming slavers, bandits and other baddies for exp. Same with BG games. In a lot of RPGs you have to finish quests as primary source of experience and skill points.Or you make a lot of money (not too hard when you know where to get some expensive items) and pay trainers to level up your relevant skills.
My statement was meant to encapsulate all RPGs, not just Morrowind. In Fallout 1/2 you get miniscule amounts for utilising skills and depend on farming slavers, bandits and other baddies for exp. Same with BG games. In a lot of RPGs you have to finish quests as primary source of experience and skill points.Or you make a lot of money (not too hard when you know where to get some expensive items) and pay trainers to level up your relevant skills.
So, one way or another, player is forced to "grind" in order to achieve mastery. You can meta cheat, but that defeats the purpose of this topic/argument.
Now I feel like playing BG2 just to play a dual-wielding Kensai with CRAFTED Flail all over again.
Fair enough, Morrowind is an easy target due to repetitive nature of upskilling, but it does allow you to become that legendary craftsman who makes their own ultra items, instead of having to buy them or kill for. There's awesome payoff at the end. But you're not forced to do it, you can just swing your sword, upskill that alone and go through the game that way. It's greedy and lazy to expect the same payoff for less effort invested.I thought you meant Morrowind specifically because there skills increase by use.
I think you might be forgetting about hand-placed unique encounters/enemies with epic loot. Most people will not be able to defeat Kagnaxx upon discovering its lair for the first time. Hell, they'll likely die from not being able to scan high level traps. Same with Shalandar. Even Firkhaag really, on the first playthrough. So you go back, kill your orcs/goblins etc. do some easier side quests that you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole otherwise. You bring back gnome's slippers, dreaming of gains that exp will get you later.Most regular CRPGs with classic XP systems have a fast enough leveling speed that grind is unnecessary.
In Arcanum, for example, you will likely hit the level cap before the final boss even if you rush through the game. In Baldur's Gate 2, quests give so much experience I never felt like having to grind encounters to level up. Etc.
I think you might be forgetting about hand-placed unique encounters/enemies with epic loot. Most people will not be able to defeat Kagnaxx upon discovering its lair for the first time. Hell, they'll likely die from not being able to scan high level traps. Same with Shalandar. Even Firkhaag really, on the first playthrough. So you go back, kill your orcs/goblins etc. do some easier side quests that you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole otherwise. You bring back gnome's slippers, dreaming of gains that exp will get you later.Most regular CRPGs with classic XP systems have a fast enough leveling speed that grind is unnecessary.
In Arcanum, for example, you will likely hit the level cap before the final boss even if you rush through the game. In Baldur's Gate 2, quests give so much experience I never felt like having to grind encounters to level up. Etc.
Each RPG will make you pay with your time IF you want to experience everything worthwhile experiencing.
We can dance around wording semantics, but it's basically grind.