TemplarGR
Dumbfuck!
I have been thinking a lot lately, about something i noticed about myself. I have tried many times to play supposed "incline" isometric crpgs, like DOS 1 and 2, Pathfinder Kingmaker, PoE 2 Deadfire, Atom RPG, Tyranny, Underrail, Wasteland 2 etc but i just can't progress after a certain point because i want to cut my wrists from boredom. For much time i couldn't pinpoint why was that, i mean, i grew up with isometric crpgs and i am the supposed target group, but for some reason i can't find any interest to proceed. But i think i understand now what is the problem with those games. There are 2 main issues, which boil down to 1, essentially. Let me explain.
1) The games do not respect the player's time. Now this is a sin many games in all genres commit, but those games do it much more. From the slow walking and traveling time, to the slow combat, to the unfair combat that leads to savescumming, to the trash mobs, to the grinding, to the tedious pixel hunting for loot, to the tedious reading of ridiculous dialogue etc etc, it seems the designers of those games never stopped to think "hey, what would the player feel with this?". What i feel when i play those typically crowdfunding games was that they lack respect for the player. In their rush to include more "stuff" into their games, they never stop to think if those things are worth the time of the player.
2) The games don't seem to have any focus. They feel like they are designed by a commitee. Many of those games don't even seem to make up their "minds" about what kind of games they want to be. They end up including everything and the kitchen sink in an effort to please more crowdfunders and reach higher funding, they keep adding stuff because some retard asked for those during early access, and end up with something that on paper seems fine but on actual gameplay feels off. Oh.... need kingdom simulator? Put that in. What you said? ship combat? Put that in. You want some retarded crafting minigame to ruin itemization? yes sir! You want telekinisis and pokeman elemental damage to replace the actual tactics by just hitting barrels everywhere? Yeah baby! Wants tons of lore dumbs that no one cares about? Yup.
I just can't find any motivation to play those games to completion. The stories aren't interesting, the characters are bland. The combat is pseudo-tactical but in the end it is just "build your character and just pray for RNG". Actually, this is the worst thing about the nu-crpgs: They lack interesting decisions. I don't feel like i am making any interesting decisions. Most of the stuff you need to decide are options you pick at the beginning of the game (character creation), then you just lvl up your build to some pre-conceived target you had from the start. How often do you level up? Not often. What other choices are there to make? Dress up, picking 1 armor piece or the next, some items, and some dialogue options. That's about it. You are playing 60 or 80 or 100 or 120 hours, and how many times you make interesting, worthwhile decisions in the game? The rest is just traveling from map to map doing braindead trash mob combat with the occasional boss and the occasional exposition. Is that worth that many hours of your life?
In a sense those games are light-strategy games, but with a tacked-on story that is most of the times retarded and uninsteresting, and 100 hour campaigns that really should have been just 10 hours if designed by someone with respect of the player's time. The strategy/tactics part of those nu-crpgs is light compared to something like proper 4X or proper tactics games. Most of the time you just make up the stats of your 4-6 units by changing some items or picking an option at lvl up. That's about it. Then you just play a light-strategy minigame and pretend this is "deep" gameplay. Why not play proper strategy games? Because proper games lack Divinity Original Sin "shakespearean" story for example? LOL. RPGs drag on the gameplay with retardeds hit because unlike proper 4X/Tactical games they are not as much replay-able, thus they need to justify the cost by proclaiming "120 hours of content".
Combat in isometric crpgs is just an rts or 4x combat, only you have a few units that are customizeable with items and experience. This is not bad, i typically like that, but they should be offering more interesting combat and more importantly more frequent combat. Icewind Dale was well designed because it had no delusions of grandeur, it was a dungeon crawler through and through. It had a story and some NPCs and villages but in the end it was about the combat. I never felt tired playing IWD. But i feel tired trying to walk around Cyseal. It is boring. If it is a combat crpg, why do i have to talk to every single toon on the map? Why do i have to pixel hunt like a moron? Why walking is so slow? If it is not a combat crpg, then why the story and characters suck?
Deadfire is the best example about what i am trying to convey. In a sense, it is the most well designed isometric crpg ever made. And that inevitably makes it the most boring. Deadfire's devs understood all the issues with isometric crpgs and tried to remove them, and by removing them, they showcased to everyone what a pointless waste of time this type of crpgs is. Combat in Deadfire is awesome. The AI and scripting work incredibly well, the effects are awesome, controls very fluidly. I don't have to micromanage like an idiot like in other games. But this creates another problem: It is BORING. I don't have to micromanage, which means i don't have anything to do. All is decided at character creation and scripting and every time i get a new armor or weapon. Afterwards in most battles i just let my toons do their thing. I don't have anything to do. But the worst part is that even if the AI wasn't in place, it wouldn't be better, it would be more tedious. Now instead of spells and abilities triggering automatically by the script, i would have to select them manually. But here is the thing, those abilities and spells are so few, that typically i would choose the same things the script chooses. So in the end, i am just adding tedium by removing the AI. But with the AI, i am not playing, i am watching. This thing showcases that this kind of gameplay is fundamentally broken, it is just a pseudo tactics game. And all isometric crpgs are like this, even our beloved BG.
In the end, i found that i can waste hundrends of hours playing proper strategy games like 4X games or Xcom (imagine xcom with DOS story, would you play it?), or a proper dungeon crawler like Darkest Dungeon or Iratus, but i can't be bothered to complete any of the "incline" nu-crpgs. I think people should be more critical of their faults and not be blind to them, because in the end, by promoting bland design we keep getting bland games. I think crpg developers really have to think what kind of experience they want to offer, and what kind of interesting decisions they offer their players. And they need to be focused on those. If you make a combatfag crpg, make it real combatfag, drop the bullshit. If you are making a storyfag crpg, stop pretending to be "hardcore" about combat and also make the story interesting. If you are making an explorationfag or sandboxfag crpg, stop pretending to be about story or combat and make traveling and exploring interesting, and make sandboxing fun with lots of stuff to do. Developers need to respect our time and pack many meaningful decisions or very interesting stories per hour played and they need to make their games more focused. That's my opinion.
1) The games do not respect the player's time. Now this is a sin many games in all genres commit, but those games do it much more. From the slow walking and traveling time, to the slow combat, to the unfair combat that leads to savescumming, to the trash mobs, to the grinding, to the tedious pixel hunting for loot, to the tedious reading of ridiculous dialogue etc etc, it seems the designers of those games never stopped to think "hey, what would the player feel with this?". What i feel when i play those typically crowdfunding games was that they lack respect for the player. In their rush to include more "stuff" into their games, they never stop to think if those things are worth the time of the player.
2) The games don't seem to have any focus. They feel like they are designed by a commitee. Many of those games don't even seem to make up their "minds" about what kind of games they want to be. They end up including everything and the kitchen sink in an effort to please more crowdfunders and reach higher funding, they keep adding stuff because some retard asked for those during early access, and end up with something that on paper seems fine but on actual gameplay feels off. Oh.... need kingdom simulator? Put that in. What you said? ship combat? Put that in. You want some retarded crafting minigame to ruin itemization? yes sir! You want telekinisis and pokeman elemental damage to replace the actual tactics by just hitting barrels everywhere? Yeah baby! Wants tons of lore dumbs that no one cares about? Yup.
I just can't find any motivation to play those games to completion. The stories aren't interesting, the characters are bland. The combat is pseudo-tactical but in the end it is just "build your character and just pray for RNG". Actually, this is the worst thing about the nu-crpgs: They lack interesting decisions. I don't feel like i am making any interesting decisions. Most of the stuff you need to decide are options you pick at the beginning of the game (character creation), then you just lvl up your build to some pre-conceived target you had from the start. How often do you level up? Not often. What other choices are there to make? Dress up, picking 1 armor piece or the next, some items, and some dialogue options. That's about it. You are playing 60 or 80 or 100 or 120 hours, and how many times you make interesting, worthwhile decisions in the game? The rest is just traveling from map to map doing braindead trash mob combat with the occasional boss and the occasional exposition. Is that worth that many hours of your life?
In a sense those games are light-strategy games, but with a tacked-on story that is most of the times retarded and uninsteresting, and 100 hour campaigns that really should have been just 10 hours if designed by someone with respect of the player's time. The strategy/tactics part of those nu-crpgs is light compared to something like proper 4X or proper tactics games. Most of the time you just make up the stats of your 4-6 units by changing some items or picking an option at lvl up. That's about it. Then you just play a light-strategy minigame and pretend this is "deep" gameplay. Why not play proper strategy games? Because proper games lack Divinity Original Sin "shakespearean" story for example? LOL. RPGs drag on the gameplay with retardeds hit because unlike proper 4X/Tactical games they are not as much replay-able, thus they need to justify the cost by proclaiming "120 hours of content".
Combat in isometric crpgs is just an rts or 4x combat, only you have a few units that are customizeable with items and experience. This is not bad, i typically like that, but they should be offering more interesting combat and more importantly more frequent combat. Icewind Dale was well designed because it had no delusions of grandeur, it was a dungeon crawler through and through. It had a story and some NPCs and villages but in the end it was about the combat. I never felt tired playing IWD. But i feel tired trying to walk around Cyseal. It is boring. If it is a combat crpg, why do i have to talk to every single toon on the map? Why do i have to pixel hunt like a moron? Why walking is so slow? If it is not a combat crpg, then why the story and characters suck?
Deadfire is the best example about what i am trying to convey. In a sense, it is the most well designed isometric crpg ever made. And that inevitably makes it the most boring. Deadfire's devs understood all the issues with isometric crpgs and tried to remove them, and by removing them, they showcased to everyone what a pointless waste of time this type of crpgs is. Combat in Deadfire is awesome. The AI and scripting work incredibly well, the effects are awesome, controls very fluidly. I don't have to micromanage like an idiot like in other games. But this creates another problem: It is BORING. I don't have to micromanage, which means i don't have anything to do. All is decided at character creation and scripting and every time i get a new armor or weapon. Afterwards in most battles i just let my toons do their thing. I don't have anything to do. But the worst part is that even if the AI wasn't in place, it wouldn't be better, it would be more tedious. Now instead of spells and abilities triggering automatically by the script, i would have to select them manually. But here is the thing, those abilities and spells are so few, that typically i would choose the same things the script chooses. So in the end, i am just adding tedium by removing the AI. But with the AI, i am not playing, i am watching. This thing showcases that this kind of gameplay is fundamentally broken, it is just a pseudo tactics game. And all isometric crpgs are like this, even our beloved BG.
In the end, i found that i can waste hundrends of hours playing proper strategy games like 4X games or Xcom (imagine xcom with DOS story, would you play it?), or a proper dungeon crawler like Darkest Dungeon or Iratus, but i can't be bothered to complete any of the "incline" nu-crpgs. I think people should be more critical of their faults and not be blind to them, because in the end, by promoting bland design we keep getting bland games. I think crpg developers really have to think what kind of experience they want to offer, and what kind of interesting decisions they offer their players. And they need to be focused on those. If you make a combatfag crpg, make it real combatfag, drop the bullshit. If you are making a storyfag crpg, stop pretending to be "hardcore" about combat and also make the story interesting. If you are making an explorationfag or sandboxfag crpg, stop pretending to be about story or combat and make traveling and exploring interesting, and make sandboxing fun with lots of stuff to do. Developers need to respect our time and pack many meaningful decisions or very interesting stories per hour played and they need to make their games more focused. That's my opinion.
