Crispy™ Controversial opinions about RPGs that you know deep down are true.

[skaraher]

I don't really like much Chris Avellone character's design outside of Planescape Torment.

 

[Kaivokz]

Why do you think games with characters customization get tons of complaints about trap builds? Those games require a certain amount of skill and forethought

What a funny way to describe "trial and error" given nearly all "hard" RPGs give you next to no information on what constitutes a good build and which options are trap options.

I rarely run into trap builds except in notorious games like AoD. What I'm talking about are people who don't put much forethought into what feats or abilities they'll take, synergy between stats, etc. and then complain that the game has trap builds—yeah, maybe traps of idiot slaying. I don't see how the ability to plan ahead, see synergies in builds/cards/whatever, and take advantage of tactical opportunity is any less of a skill than the ability to point a cross-hair at a head and click. Again, maybe it's because people here spend a lot of time using those intellectual skills in games and not their reflexes that they think the former is not a skill at all.

If you talk to people who play games where reflexes are important competitively/professionally, most of them will probably tell you that the ability to take advantage of tactical opportunity, map awareness, and things like that are either as important or more important than one's raw aptitude at aiming. It's a skill you hone by learning the maps, knowing about the opposing team's composition, their actual players, and extrapolating from all of that when you should push an advantage, when you should wait, when you should reset and try again, etc. Sure some of that is psychological, but a lot of it is purely mechanical within the rules of the game.

 

[orcinator]

Why do you think games with characters customization get tons of complaints about trap builds? Those games require a certain amount of skill and forethought

What a funny way to describe "trial and error" given nearly all "hard" RPGs give you next to no information on what constitutes a good build and which options are trap options.

I do think there is a line between trial & error and metagaming. I hate it when RPGs give you a ton of options but only one build is the "optimal" one. I'm fine with figuring things out and experimenting. But don't punish me for not possessing knowledge of game mechanics I won't have when I first start a game. Looking for the "best builds" online killed a lot of the experimentation of RPGs in my opinion.

The issue is that all the important build decisions are done at character creation and then you just slowly improve whatever you set out to do. In addition to forcing metagaming in "hard" games it also makes the process of improving your character boring and braindead since all you do is go from 60 MURDER to 65 MURDER and then maybe get that one perk that's the obvious best choice for your build (or maybe there's two good perks, but you're probably gonna get both of them and it doesn't matter that much which you take first).

 

[anvi]

In another news: Does wRPGs need innovation? :D


https://www.theguardian.com/games/2...re-role-playing-games-getting-too-predictable

Surely choosing between shooting, stealthing or sweet talking can’t be the only options that the next generation of virtual worlds have to offer.

If so how would you go about innovating them?

There are lots of ways you could completely change the RPG formula, especially the dumb open world action game posing as RPG formula. Even just doing a mashup with other genres could be a revolution in gaming. You just gotta forget about games that you currently play, and think about what it would actually be like to be a wizard in real medieval life. Think in terms of a movie rather than games and you can imagine all sorts of things that no game currently does. I think the more people play games, the more they get used to things only working in a handful of ways and you stop even imagining how things could be.

 

[anvi]

The reason why I make the distinction of "dumb open world action game RPG" is because their budgets are so enormous. We can't expect indie games to totally revolutionize gaming, at least not in a huge way that will change the world. It can happen if luck helps out, but the big mainstream games with a budget of $200+ million is plenty to make something totally new. The problem is that the financial backers of games like that have proven that they have zero interest in new ideas. That's why all the big budget games are either sequels of something that already proved itself successful, or are a copy of other games in a slightly different skin.

But if they could somehow be encouraged to innovate, maybe if there was a developer that was known for its ability to innovate... like how they used to be in the past with companies like Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin, Novalogic, etc. Get a modern company like that which has a string of successes that are all new gameplay ideas, and maybe someone will invest the big bucks in something new.

 

[Cryomancer]

Gear based progression is AWFUL. Even if is not made by making your charname's muscle mass and IQ being determined by the boot that he is wearing, even if armor works mostly like armor(offering protection), Dragon's Dogma could be much better if was not by the boring killing the same mob to have an small chance to purify the magick bow and doing awful quests like Escort Duty to maybe get the goldem idol to get better weapons. It always is used to force the player into an boring activity, even when is not badly implemented like on most mmos.

Anyone believe that farming the same spot for getting an weapon or doing awful quests like escort duty is funnier than gradually making your character stronger/better at something and getting new interesting a

 

[Lady_Error]

Anyone believe that farming the same spot for getting an weapon or doing awful quests like escort duty is funnier than gradually making your character stronger/better at something and getting new interesting a

F

 

[Comte]

Witcher 3 is like playing a visual novel with action bits between cut scenes in a GTA fantasy setting.

 

[Cryomancer]

Witcher 3 is like playing a visual novel with action bits between cut scenes in a GTA fantasy setting.

Well described. And that is exactly why TW3 is successful

 

[toro]

Fallout 4 has better combat than Outer Worlds.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Witcher 3 is like playing a visual novel with action bits between cut scenes in a GTA fantasy setting.

How is this controversial? :D

 

[Cryomancer]

Lore > Story
Variety / Immersion > Balance
Depth > Accessibility
Survival games has more RPG elements(and better implemented) than most MMOs.

Puzzles su***
RPG's needs more destructive environments
The OC of NWN2 was actually good
The kingdom management of PF:KM was good(could be better)
Larian only did one good RPG(Divine Divinity)

 

[ProphetSword]

Lore > Story
Variety / Immersion > Balance
Depth > Accessibility
Survival games has more RPG elements(and better implemented) than most MMOs.

Puzzles su***
RPG's needs more destructive environments
The OC of NWN2 was actually good
The kingdom management of PF:KM was good(could be better)
Larian only did one good RPG(Divine Divinity)

I thought these were supposed to be controversial opinions, not opinions we would immediately agree with.

 

[Cryomancer]

Here is an controversial opinion. Linux is not that bad for gaming and some old games, i found easier to run on Linux with PlayOnLinux + WINE than on M$ Windows

 

[Eirinjas]

Diablo 2 is just an eccentric gambling simulator. If Blizzard opened up their own Atlantic City casino tomorrow, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

 

[Popiel]

Lore > Story

I was a fag like you once too. One tends to grow out of such follies.

 

[Cryomancer]

Diablo 2 is just an eccentric gambling simulator. If Blizzard opened up their own Atlantic City casino tomorrow, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

The end game is. The journey "normal -> nightmare -> hell" is not. Gear becomes too OP on D2 - LOD.

This is why > Diablo 1 > Diablo 2 and diablo 3 is just an barbie dressing game with less RPG elements than most survival games

 

[Lemming42]

Lore > Story
Variety / Immersion > Balance
Depth > Accessibility

All of these are completely dependent on the game, surely. Nobody needs or wants some kind of massive expanded universe of lore, or immense mechanical depth, when playing something like Diablo for example.

The terms are really sketchily defined in most discussions on this forum, but I'd be tempted to say "accessibility" is almost always more important than "depth", because it doesn't matter how much a game has going on if it's actively annoying or difficult to play.

 

[Cryomancer]

All of these are completely dependent on the game, surely. Nobody needs or wants some kind of massive expanded universe of lore, or immense mechanical depth, when playing something like Diablo for example.

Diablo 1/2 has an interesting lore, mainly the lore about the spells, but D3 is not an serious game. Is just an crossbreed of wow(cd, homogenization, etc) with an slot machine and barbie dressing game. I can't take serious an game where monks and wizards needs an big and sharp axe do deal a lot of magical/unarmed damage. This makes no sense

 

[anvi]

I think 'accessibility' could be a legitimate thing to describe giving a game decent controls and UI etc. But nowadays it has just become an excuse word for dumbing the hell out of a game. Removing quest text and replacing it with a compass and arrow, reducing number of attributes, removing weapon/armor repair, and price haggling, fewer gear slots, etc.. etc... All of that is 'Streamlining' in modern game dev speak. In real language it is plain ole dumbing down.

 

[Modron]

World Building > Story and Combat.

 

[Quillon]

Coherence in WB, story & combat

 

[Grognardius Rex]

Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar should more accurately have been called “Richard Garriott's My Cock, Your Ass”, seeing as it's a game that largely consists of Garriott ramming his moral scepter balls deep in your rectum for 30-40 hours.

The narrative of the game completely castrates player agency by forcing you to only play the game in the authoritarian manner Garriott's dystopian moral faggotry dictates, utilizing operant conditioning to ensure compliance. You actually had more freedom in the previous Ultimas.

Even worse, it was the first major game to firmly establish the idea that it's okay to make a shit RPG as long as you whitewash the gameplay flaws with enough story faggotry. It's pure decline, was tedious as fuck to finish back in 1985 and holds up even less well now.

 

[Grognardius Rex]

Removing quest text and replacing it with a compass and arrow

Quest text is already decline to begin with. The compass and arrow is just being more up front and honest about what is really going on, which is that you are being led by the nose through the game. To be clear, I am saying that the idea of “quests” in RPGs is, for the most part, a rather shit idea to begin with as it runs completely counter to the concept of exploration.

There is no reason to spoil said exploration in a game by informing the player beforehand that there is some specific monster/treasure or whatever in some location to be killed/retrieved or whatever via some lame ass conversation with an NPC. The player can discover this for themselves during exploration.

The only thing the shitty quest does is make you piss away your free time walking back and forth between the NPCs and other locations in the game for no other reason than to essentially just check a box on some asinine fucking checklist. That they skinner box you into doing this rote task by dangling experience in front of you like a carrot just makes it even more degrading.

Quests essentially turn players into automatons. It takes something that should be fun and turns it into a fucking job. I don’t doubt that many people (think they) like that shit because they’ve been programmed since birth by parents/school/work to be a bunch of robots content to do menial and repetitive tasks; to be cogs in the machine so-to-speak, but dehumanizing shit like that should be, at the very least, discouraged in our leisure activities.

I don’t need to be told what to do or where to go in an RPG and I certainly don’t need much of a why either. Neither should you.

 

[anvi]

Removing quest text and replacing it with a compass and arrow

the compass and arrow is just being more up front and honest about what is really going on,

Hey I'm the biggest quest hater ever, I've already said my perfect RPG is one that has just one quest (ie: the story). But my example was a game which still has quests, they just stopped even trying to make them seem like you are a specialist mage sent on an important mission, and instead they just say follow your satnav to here and kill/fetch/escort this shit. If you choose to actually play a game where you are happy to be lead by the nose, then you are admitting you are little more than cattle. You should just be lead to a trough of food and then put out your misery. At least then you would be useful for once, as steak.