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Decline Now that the dust has settled, can we admit that Disco Elysium is decline?

Cat Dude

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Some codexers who oppose OP are like those indie wrestling smarks ( vanilla midget fans) who always think good wrestling is all about kicks and flips.
 

Cat Dude

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lobsterfrogman

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This thread is self-defeating - it is longer than the thread about Gothic remake which clearly indicates that RPGCodex cares more about butthurt than it cares about RPGs. As such, it should be no problem that a non-RPG wins a GOTY here.
 

Roguey

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This thread is self-defeating - it is longer than the thread about Gothic remake which clearly indicates that RPGCodex cares more about butthurt than it cares about RPGs. As such, it should be no problem that a non-RPG wins a GOTY here.
Only need a few pages to establish that the Gothic remake is shovelware decline.
 

V_K

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This thread is self-defeating - it is longer than the thread about Gothic remake which clearly indicates that RPGCodex cares more about butthurt than it cares about RPGs. As such, it should be no problem that a non-RPG wins a GOTY here.
Only need a few pages to establish that the Gothic remake is shovelware decline.
 

undecaf

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
This thread is self-defeating - it is longer than the thread about Gothic remake

Maybe the said remake being both, pointless and unfathomable shit already before it is decided that it even gets made has something to do with it.
 

Alphons

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Combatfags on suicide watch because
they didn't get a good RPG this year :lol:

Were any RPGs released this year?

Yes, silly. Have you forgot about our friends from Obsidian?

b4c5cba2ead3ec771a9ef24e29a6f85b55c81b23.jpg
 

Quillon

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One sided Disco shouldn't be the game to represent the genre but what can we do... competition was weak, bend the knee to Disco's superstardomness guys, you have no choice :dealwithit:
 

Blaine

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Jesus Christ. I stopped playing games for two months, just now happened to notice that Disco Elysium has thousands of ratings and OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE on Steam, and therefore immediately searched up pertinent Codex threads....

...and what an entertaining read. You always know a thread is great when ignore lists start to expand before the first page is even finished with. :lol:
 

Bruma Hobo

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This is what tabletop RPGs were.

sorry but Gary Gygax didn't create a system to facilitate telling stories around a campfire, he created a system of using dice to determine the results of battle actions and tests of skill.
What about asking Dave Arneson?

The current state of role playing, whether utilizing the computer or not, may be summarized in the phrase, "hack and slash." Even pen and paper games do not tell players how to set up adventures. Campaign building instructions are minimal, at best. After a dozen years, there is still no decent set of introductory rules for role playing games (RPGs), nothing to meet the needs of a novice. In spite of all the space that RPGs take up in the shelves of game stores across the country, there is still a lack of quality.

Therefore, even though I believe that computers will never replace a decent Dungeonmaster at anytime in the foreseeable future, let me state that I do believe a good computer role playing game (CRPG) can still accomplish a lot. By this I mean that a good CRPG could: 1) teach lots of
people how to play RPGs; 2) teach players how to set up their own campaigns/quests; 3) supply reasonably interesting situations while doing this teaching; and 4) give instruction about using role playing in games. Yet, we have not seen CRPGs accomplish this.

Perhaps an examination of how RPGs and CRPGs interacted in, the past can point the way towards a mutually beneficial future. For example, computers were doing "find your own adventure" text games long before publishers filled the shelves with these books. These books did what the computer "text" games could not do, provide more words to describe events. "Text" games could not go beyond the bare bones messages. Words take up a lot of programming space! Books are also able to include artwork or neat maps. This makes the books more graphically appealing, but what about the computer games?

One major marketing ploy on behalf of computer games is "the thrill of discovery." Yet, is it always a thrill? For example, when my character takes a key in his hand. I hope that it will open the door that he is standing in front of. The message comes up that "You need a key!" Perhaps, I have the wrong key. So, I try all of them and get the same message. "Rats!" I mutter, "I must have missed one . . ." Off I go, killing guards and searching rooms. Later, I "accidentally" discover that the proper command to use a key was to "Operate" the key, not use the key to "Unlock" the door. Silly me.

No, this little tidbit was not in the "rule book." No, I did not feel any "thrill" at my discovery of the proper command word to use. The aroma emitting from the corpse-filled corridors of the castle seemed more accurate. Thus, in my book, we have more the stink of the feet than the thrill of discovery. Indeed, beyond the parser problem, we have an expression of one of the most significant problems in most CRPGs today. Role playing should not be held captive by the "if it moves, kill it" syndrome.

Good Graphics or a Good Game?

Another common problem in CRPGs may be an emphasis in glitz and glamour rather than substance. If it is pretty, the assumption is that people will buy it. Whether in the print media or in computer games, this seems only too true. Ask any sales or marketing department. The question is, however, do these beautiful graphics really add anything substantial to the game? Seldom is this a consideration by the publisher.

Today, the adventurer's figure moves across the screen in an incredible sixteen color, three-dimensional masterpiece. It took hours to program and uses lots of memory space on the disk. Too often in the rush to get the product out the door, the programming was sloppily done and the figure took up more space than was expected. Time is always short, however, so . .
.. Of course, the figure moving across the screen is the information being conveyed to the player. Now, a one color figure with limited animation conveys that information in a lot less program space. The additional memory could be used to further enhance the game itself. Unfortunately, such an attitude does not sell games.

Frankly, computers crunch numbers beautifully. They can form intricate patterns in less time than you can read this sentence. Words and pictures take up a lot of memory, so shouldn't designers have computers do what they are good at instead of what they are less adept at.

Morale Check

In any given battle, our surrogate warriors will beat each other to a pulp until one side or the other comes out on top.
If the player wins, loot is gathered, wounds healed, and experience points gained. If the nasty Nazis (or supply your
own villain) win, they just vanish back into the nether regions that spawned them.

In Dungeons and Dragons, there called "Morale." This deals with the situation where creatures see that they are going to get killed. Then, they pack up their claws and scamper off into the shadows rather than be slaughtered. It is a pretty basic and simple rule.

Each creature has a certain courage rating. Then, when losses reach a certain percentage, a die is thrown. If the courage number is exceeded, the critters take off. The same procedure is used for large numbers of human troops and adventurers.

Players don't like it. They, and the referee, consider it to be one more number to keep track of. Besides, you don't get any experience points when the bad guys run away. Of course, a "good" referee (speaking of efficiency, not alignment) will still award the players points, even though such an event is not specifically mentioned in the rule book(s). On the computer, working such an equation into the program should be no problem at all. It also ought to be able to award partial points, even if the goblins did run away. Most experience points should come from the treasure, anyway, not in killing the monsters.

Of course, some players won't like it when their "friends" leave them to face the music. "Well, tough noogies!" Non-player characters would have their morale affected by the Charisma of their leader. This, in turn, could be affected by the leader's "Reputation" which would be an evaluation of how well that leader has been in the past.

Another problem would involve division of the spoils. Max of Marysport may be better with a sword than Felix, but will Felix really just hand his new magic sword over to Max. No! Felix's actions will be based on Group Loyalty or Personal Loyalty. This may sound like a complex problem, but it is one a computer can crunch numbers to handle. The Group Loyalty evaluation would be a numerical estimate of how successful the group has been to that point, which indicates how likely it is that there will be more loot in the future. The Personal Loyalty quotient would be a numerical calculation which determines how much the NPC likes the group's present leader.

Fortunately, CRPGs are becoming more interactive. In days of yore, one delved into the dungeon's depths. Then, CRPG emerged into open country and villages. Today, they are vivid animated graphic spectacles. Yet, players must still hack and loot again and again in order to gain experience.

In general, characters in CRPGs only develop their fighting techniques or learn more spells. A character's alignment is represented only by occasional comments from the computer to"Not be such a goody two shoes." A character's profession is still Fighter/Magic User/Cleric/Thief. Players get to name their surrogate robot . . . er . . . adventurer, assign a few numbers, and give the character its marching orders. Whoopee! . . .

Many players and reviewers have reflected on this robotic mentality. Another deficiency is games that over-emphasize "Combat Mechanics." When major player decisions revolve around whether Marfeldt the Barbarian will use his #3 Axe or #7 Mace to deal with monsters, it hardly seems like role playing (rather "roll" playing).

Hope was expressed that Ultima IV would break new ground. It did give the character more depth and new text games have given the characters more choices. Unfortunately, rather than being harbingers of a new age, these games have stood pretty much alone as quirks instead of trend setters.

Today, many new games claim to be the "cutting edge." Among them are Strategic Simulations, Inc.'s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and Electronic Arts' Wasteland. Each will shortly be released. Both are touted as being "state of the art." Each does contain "new" features.

In the SSI product, a new feature to CRPGs is that of NPC character alignment and objectives. NPCs will actually leave the party, due to alignment or because their "personal" goals have been achieved. In other areas, AD &D will only be a refinement of existing features. Better graphics, more magic spells, etc. will be available, but the product will turn out to be a cross, in many respects, between Questron and Wizard's Crown presented in a new setting.

Wasteland promises to provide something quite different in the area of NPCs, skills, and information gathering. Mike Stackpole, who assisted Alan Pavlish in the design, has an extensive background as a respected designer of RPGs and scenarios. Thus, he is well qualified to add aspects of "Live" RPGs to CRPGs. Wasteland contains some of the best features of Ultima IV mapping and Bard's Tale combat. In the game, characters have skills, but the only way to improve them is to use them. Also, NPCs will refuse to march off to death and glory like little robots. Beyond this, Wasteland contains a vast amount of information. It is the 200 paragraphs of text in the accompanying booklet that set it apart. It looks like players will really be able to communicate with the creatures of Wasteland. All this and graphics, too.

Where is character development taking place in CRPGs? Each of the newer games mentioned brings in a significant addition to the CRPG scene. Will there be more improvements, additions, and expansions? Or are we still dealing with quirks?

Only tomorrow will tell, but it would be nice to see all of these RPG features in the same game! That would be a real step forward. Then again, maybe that would make it too much like the real thing.
Dave Arneson said:
Another deficiency is games that over-emphasize "Combat Mechanics." When major player decisions revolve around whether Marfeldt the Barbarian will use his #3 Axe or #7 Mace to deal with monsters, it hardly seems like role playing (rather "roll" playing).
This may be yet another manifestation of the Gygax vs Arneson eternal fight though, not unlike Wizardry vs Ultima, Baldur's Gate vs Fallout, or Underrail vs The Age of Decadence. Which is a more interesting struggle than this combatfags vs storyfags bullshit.


Is Disco Elysium a good role-playing game? To me, it completely depends on how many dice rolls it has influencing how the player plays the game, how different character builds feel from each other, and how many character-driven choices this game presents. I haven't played it yet, but after reading many reports this seems like a failure in this regard, with most choices being cosmetic and most skillchecks adding just fluff text, which would mean this is indeed an adventure game and not an RPG.

But I hope I'm wrong, as I would love more RPGs about something other than heroic fantasy or post-apocalypse survival, and I think it's completely appropriate for a detective RPG set in a modern urban setting not to have combat at all (in fact, having mobs appearing every now and then to shoot at the main characters would be completely retarded). Combatfags think otherwise though, they believe the only valid gameplay possible in RPGs is endlessly fighting goblins, so fuck them.
 

V_K

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I think it's completely appropriate for a detective RPG set in a modern urban setting not to have combat at all (in fact, having mobs appearing every now and then to shoot at the main characters would be completely retarded).
I agree, but I also think there should still be some non-combat challenge to overcome - and dialog choices just have none to them. I think Whispers of a Machine is a good example of such detective RPG - it's technically an Adventure game, but with some minor character development and moral choices (that impact character development), both of which affect what puzzles solutions become available. This way you can both have role-playing and challenge in an investigation scenario without any combat (well, technically, there is one shoot-out, but mechanically it's a puzzle).
 

Harthwain

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I haven't played it yet, but after reading many reports this seems like a failure in this regard, with most choices being cosmetic and most skillchecks adding just fluff text, which would mean this is indeed an adventure game and not an RPG.
That got me thinking...

Usually when you're presented with a skill check you either succeed at it or you do not. Failure usually means you don't get what you want out of it. In life or death scenario it could literally be "You failed. Game over, man!" result. Conversely success means you accomplish something. It's very binary. In Disco Elysium there were situations where succeeding at a skill check wasn't actually rewarded and I had at least one situation where failing a skill check resulted in me getting what I wanted. In this regard I like what DE does - it goes away from straightforward (and somewhat boring) win-lose state into more interesting territory.

There is also the matter of White Check and Red Checks. White Checks can be redone, by putting in an extra point to the skill (which also means that you aren't really "losing" anything, as that skill can come in handy later on). Red Checks encourage you to put extra effort into succeeding at something. I had one Red Check with the
corpse
and I really, REALLY wanted to find out what was going on in there, so I made sure I got as high chance as possible in order to succeed, because I didn't want to reload (save-scumming kind of takes away from the experience and failure manages to be interesting on its own in Disco Elysium).

What I think Disco shouldn't have done was allowing you to heal up your stress and health mid-conversation. Or even at all. Because doing so means you can pretty much ignore risks to your Health and Sanity. When I didn't know I could heal myself mid-conversation felt that being low on Health/Sanity was actually meaningful as I actively avoided doing something that'd lead me to losing that 1 HP point I had left for the day (and regaining that point via interactions felt rewarding). It had an impact. Once I knew I was pretty much safe, even when I was at my last point, the tension was gone.

Of course, the above would mean either getting rid of the stuff like chair - to not block out people who decided to go with atricious levels of Health/Sanity - or give them ways around that (for example, I think we should've had a choice to stand and damn the consequences).

Still, I think Disco comes out very positively in terms of choices and consequences than most games.
 
Last edited:

Paul_cz

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So I bought it due to hype at launch but haven't played it.

Can anyone explain honestly if the writing is good and the socialist nonsense doesn't infect it?

How do post-communist estonians become socialist anyway?
 

Saduj

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If you are an insecure ideologue who feels uncomfortable outside your echo chamber, you’ll find something in the game to trigger you.

If you’re a relatively rational human being, you’ll see that all political commentary in the game is tongue in cheek and there are no favorites being played.
 

Vibalist

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Definitional debates aside, I actually think there is merit to experimental indie titles that focus on one element exclusively. The danger with small-scale studios creating their first game is spreading themselves too thin and either aping existing formulas in a way that doesn't do anything for the genre or creating a wonky game that can't do everything it sets out to do with the same level of refinement. Disco Elysium is not a model for the genre, it is not going to take away your precious combat sims. It is part of the family of RPGs but it only wants to do one thing: change how we think about writing in games.

What Disco Elysium focused on was bringing out an element of character-building that has generally been neglected in RPGs (and pretty much all video games) - having a range of ways for the character to think about the world and respond to it whether it's singing karaoke or punching a mailbox. Your character has a perspective on the world that is both extremely dense and literary, and you can nudge it in certain directions with the way you skill your character. Games with predefined characters that spout really generic or inane dialogue, like everything I've seen in Outer Worlds, look even more bankrupt and pathetic in comparison. I expect that Disco Elysium is going to change how other RPG developers think about characterisation and writing, which would not be a bad thing. Have a little ambition. Write like you've actually read something in your life and not just imbibed banal pop culture like fucking Firefly.

There's really only two ways to go with narratives in RPGs - either the reactivity and faction/reputation system of a Fallout-style game that allows for a more free-form approach, or a more literary approach that you can see in games with predefined characters like Disco.

I also think the semantics of the debate about RPGs in this thread are pointless. Tabletop roleplaying games don't require combat. Computer RPGs emerged as simulations of TTRPGs. You can imagine that because historically RPGs have always had combat that this means all RPGs require combat to be good, but that would ignore the source of this genre to begin with. Computer RPGs don't exist in glorious isolation. I would also argue that the combat in RPGs are derivative of strategy titles or action titles, and they are often markedly inferior to both. I would argue that the combat-fags are just importing standards from genres that already exist and that are distinct from RPGs.

First reasonable post in this entire thread.

People seem to forget that this game was made by a small team of developers who actually had the guts to do things their own way: They removed combat entirely (despite combat being the main draw of 98% of all games out there), they created a completely new setting (in an era where everything is based on existing IP's), went with a middle aged, white, alcoholic loser with a beer gut and the world's most ridiculous facial hair as their protagonist (which probably made at least 20% of potential buyers go "fuck that shit") and went text heavy in an age where the ADHD "if-I-don't-understand-it-within-five-minutes-I-give-up" kid is the primary customer. That alone is commendable. Is it enough to make DE good on its own merits? Of course not, but it says something about this forum that we will shit on absolutely everything, despite its objective qualities. Even if some developer made the 'perfect' RPG, you can be sure there'd be a thread similar to this one within a month, probably speculating about the game's 'hidden marxist leanings' or whatever.

Let me get this out of the way: Disco Elysium is definitely a disappointment in the sense it doesn't live up to its lofty promises. The story is not very reactive, the game world smaller and more confined than what I expected, it's way shorter than I hoped, the RPG system is at times superfluous, but I can't think of a recent title that managed to be as creative and fresh as this. Seriously, DE is on Planescape's level in terms of inventiveness. The setting is original, interesting and utterly strange in a way I haven't personally experienced since Mask of the Betrayer. It has so many new takes on old tropes (party members being different thoughts inside your head, for one) that it ought to be commended for this alone.

I don't wanna use the "you should feel sorry for the developer angle" here, but try making a game that has DE's density of writing, worldbuilding, characterization and sheer originality. You will fail 90% of the time. Now try doing the same, but add a solid combat system, good encounter design, truly branching paths and all the other stuff people are saying is missing. On a small budget. With limited clout in the gaming industry. In fucking Estonia. You will now fail 99% of the time. That DE has narrow focus is to be expected due to the circumstances of its development. That it even exists is a small miracle. That it's fairly good is an even bigger one. That the Codex is utterly incapable of understanding or appreciating this is sadly to be expected.
Side note: All of this does not, of course, excuse ZAUM hyping DE as having many features it didn't end up having. I'm not making excuses for the developer here, just the game itself, which I think is, if nothing else, a damn good prototype for future games (in the same way D:OS was) and thoroughly enjoyable while it lasted.

And yes, fuck the 'is it a true RPG??' discussion. This is a question the Codex has debated since before I registered here, and no one has come up with an answer even 25 % of the other users agree on. Seriously, go back and look through the countless debates we've had on this topic. The more we debate this non-issue, the further we get away from the answer because people keep chiming in with their own definition. There is no answer, despite how much whiny reactionaries like Mundblut will insist there is. Just let it go. DE takes enough cues from the roleplaying genre to be considered an RPG by today's loose and shifting definition of the word, and that's good enough. It's certainly more RPG than 85% of AAA 'RPG's', that's for sure.

OP also says a bunch of paranoid nonsense about the game's (perceived) politics, conveniently ignoring that
the main villain of the entire game is a deluded communist asshole
and that the leader of the commie faction is a fat, degenerate tub of lard who does nothing but lie and manipulate (kind of like what OP accuses all the real commies of doing). It's been repeated and repeated, but it's obvious DE makes light of all the political ideologies (to the point of not even taking them seriously). I should know, since I played a commie detective and all my lines were fucking ridiculous.
I guess you can once again fault the game for hyping its own political commentary but only delivering vague, over the top satirical meme dialogue, but biased it ain't (unless the facist dialogue options are somehow even stupider than the commie ones).
Side note: How do you make fascist and racist dialogue choices nuanced and intelligent anyway? Fascism and racism is for retards. Trust me, the best thing the devs could have done for your vapid ideology was to make it silly and over-the-top, because it would only look even stupider if it were played straight.

And last: It's insane how much of a contrast there is between this inane thread and the DE spoiler thread. This one is shitty one liners, "COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA" and low effort trolling, the other actually has in depth discussion. Just how schizophrenic is this place?
 

Harthwain

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And last: It's insane how much of a contrast there is between this inane thread and the DE spoiler thread. This one is shitty one liners, "COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA" and low effort trolling, the other actually has in depth discussion. Just how schizophrenic is this place?
I doubt that people who stopped on "ACHTUNG! Product contains COMMUNISM!" are the same people who participate in discussing the finer points of the story/setting.
 

Paul_cz

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If you are an insecure ideologue who feels uncomfortable outside your echo chamber, you’ll find something in the game to trigger you.

If you’re a relatively rational human being, you’ll see that all political commentary in the game is tongue in cheek and there are no favorites being played.

Thanks for answer.
 

Valky

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To be fair to games journalists the 2018 Game Award for Best RPG went to Monster Hunter World, so they have a history of not actually picking RPGs to win.
In their defense at least they picked a video game in 2018.

This thread is self-defeating - it is longer than the thread about Gothic remake which clearly indicates that RPGCodex cares more about butthurt than it cares about RPGs. As such, it should be no problem that a non-RPG wins a GOTY here.
Agreed. The problem is when a non-game wins a GOTY anywhere.
 

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