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

Another way to consider the quest compass is simply that the PC has an idea of where to go, even if the player does not; the novice player does not know the city... yet the PC might have lived there all of their life. They might know where the old mill is, or where the Blacksmith shop is, or the wizard's tower. The quest compass is pointing to where they know they need to eventually go; its a reminder for the player.

There are games where the quality of the automap depends on the skill of the PC who draws it. Quest markers are only truly onerous when the designer ONLY indicates the information via the quest marker; without even so much as a mention of it from the NPC.

*The exception to this is the moving target; of course the PC cannot know the target's movements if they cannot perceive them...barring a specialized magical means. They cannot know that the NPC left one town for another, and have the marker point to the next town without any new information given.

 

Arkham Knight had a quest compass, but you could navigate Batman by gliding over the city and identifying quest hot spots by eye. In fact you needed to do this if you wanted to unlock the side missions early.

 

RPGs should focus on quality over quantity: shorter, but meatier campaigns instead of padding the playtime with pointless filler.

Anyone with a brain would agree that having, say, 20-25 hours of fun is much better than having 60+ hours of boredom.

 

To be fair, that opinion is only controversial outside Codex, around here I believe 90%+ of people agree with that idea.

 

Depends on a person. I wouldn't post this if I didn't encounter statements of the contrary on a semi-regular basis.

Then again, it might mean 'holy shit I enjoyed it and want more, gimme a sequel right fucking now' in some cases, but the wording appears deliberately negative in most of them.

 

Haven't played the game but I think what you're saying is that Arkham's system encourages exploration despite having a quest compass?

In terms of your previous comment that everyone uses the quest compass - I admit that once it's there I end up relying on it. For example, I'm playing The Witcher 3 and the quest compass is more like a bread crumbs compass where it tells you exactly the path you need to take to get to your objective. When I realised this at the start of the game I rolled my eyes at the immense hand-holding the game forces upon you. Having said that, I end up following the bread crumbs to quickly get from one destination to another (so purposely relying on the compass), basically destroying any possible exploration. If it wasn't there I'd do things differently, as I would in Daggerfall or Morrowind or any open-world game, but now that it's there I just end up using it all the time.

 

An RPG is like a hurdy gurdy in that there is no exact formula for constructing one yet any hurdy gurdist can look at one and recognize it as such. The musician may construct their instrument differently, but so long as certain features are present - strings, the central wheel, keys - then it is a hurdy gurdy. The difference between a hurdy gurdy and an RPG is that nobody knows what the central wheel is for an RPG. If consensus can be achieved there, then the genre can be defined.

Another similarity between RPGs and hurdy gurdys is that they are both traditionally played by society's dregs and outcasts.

 

It would have been a more controversial (but still true) opinion if you said 10-20 hours.

 

Pretty much this. Arkham Knight allows you to breeze through using the quest compass, but to get an actual ending to the game, you need to explore Gotham.

 

I saw a vid regarding the new Ass Creed, "less content on purpose", seems even the normies and mongoloids are beginning to tire of the endless hamster wheel of modern game design.

 

Don't know if this has been said already but Tim Cain fucking sucks now.

 

That's not really about RPGs though. It is not even controversial since he announced that himself a few years ago when he left carbine.

 

If it's about the creator of Fallout 1, it's about RPGs alright. Also where did he say that he fucking sucked? Even if he said that, he apparently didn't mean it, because he still thought he was good enough to help create another game i.e. The Outer Worlds.

 

Ya'll go talky talky rpg convos to yourselves like MPS disorder when gaming? RECORD THAT CRAZY SHIT!

After watching the latest Matt Chat and some info about Phantasie I did notice that SSI liked to make a lot of games in trilogy-like engines. Maybe they were lazy. I'll have to pull out the old ads (maybe MOCAGH has them) and look this over. And you know what, back in early 80s to late I had that mind set "JUST USE SAME ENGINE PUMP OUT SEQUEL." Simple games why the fuck not. Richard Garriotte didn't follow that but some people in magazines did use game company engines to pump out faux sequels and cheat trainers (check dragon/rpg mags and old computer mags in the classifieds).

I'm all for remakes and nostalgia but some games need a whole new system that isn't frustrating to use or cumbersome. Face it, some suck arse bad. (The engine not the game so much)

 

He's not wrong. Or to be more precise you may have falsly made an innuendo when you wrote *Tim Cain sucks now"

He does. As in cocks. He's gay.

Simple misunderstanding.

 

He might not if he's a top.

 

Thank you for the clarification good sir.

 

The real problem with markers is the shitty quest design they inspire. It often just makes you feel like you're playing "follow the marker" with no more thought or design put into it. There are games with markers that have done it better. Not usually a console guy, but I played the last Zelda and it had markers but only to general areas or the quest giver themselves, and everything else you had to find on your own. New Vegas had great quest design despite its markers, and you could turn them off on the HUD and only very occasionally check them on the map. Dishonored I turned off quest markers and never needed them, same for the recent Deus Ex games. In something like The Witcher 3 though? You're just following the marker most of the time, and the quests feel too guided as a result IMO.

I still think the best route to go down is in-game events creating a marker. I have no real issue with an NPC saying "I'll mark it on your map" and then getting a quest marker. Or maybe you find a note/book that adds one. As long as the quest feels like you're actually questing, I'm fine with it.

 

Quest markers are a symptom of a bigger problem that are quests themselves. The idea that you can split narrative/gameplay into completely separate chunks that proceed in linear stages (which in turn amount to variously dressed fetch quests) is utter decline. This is where late 90s RPGs are a considerable letdown compared to the earlier era.

 

Let's be real here, Tim Cain is not on top.

 

How can anything about RPGs be true? We don't even know what a RPG is!

 

I didn't play many games with quest compass, except expeditions vikings and sometimes, you HAVE to use it because they barely give any direction for locations you should know about or they know and should tell you.

 

Actually, I'd like to see RPGs try a different approach: instead of a single overarching story, the game offers several separate scenarios that can be completed in 8-15 hours, connected by a 'town' where you can assign various jobs to your characters to earn money w/o grinding and shit. Basically, something closer to Sorcerian when it comes to the overall game structure.

With a modular approach like this, I might even enjoy the idea of getting new scenarios as paid DLC.

 

Unless each scenario would require you to create a new party, I foresee huge balancing issues.
Plus that would imply a mission structure, preventing free exploration.