Incline Disco Elysium - The Final Cut - a hardboiled cop show isometric RPG

[Heroic Liberator]

So, now that theres been some time since this was released, did you guys like it?
Is it as i have read a visual novel point and click adventure or something like that?

It's a goat simulator.

You mean, goose simulator, of course.

It's a goat-y simulator, if you catch my drift.

 

[Optimist]

It's a goat-y simulator, if you catch my drift.

It's a sheep sim.

Spoiler

Cause you know, mutton chops.

 

[Lyric Suite]

When asked about the influence of DE on RPG design: "People will hold all RPGs to this standard, without recognizing what it took to achieve the level of writing here [...] It's going to have a huge impact, we're very much going to be in a post-Disco Elysium world..."

Like we were in a post-Torment world.

And we still haven't got out of it, no thanks to hacks like Laidlaw.

 

[Shadenuat]

So, now that theres been some time since this was released, did you guys like it?
Is it as i have read a visual novel point and click adventure or something like that?

it's like Numanuma but boring npcs are replaced with girls with rocks and avellone companions, skills actually provide extra flavour and there is no terrible combat.
also it's actual pretty isometric game and has good ost.

...so I guess it's not like Numanuma at all.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

So, now that theres been some time since this was released, did you guys like it?
Is it as i have read a visual novel point and click adventure or something like that?

it's like Numanuma but boring npcs are replaced with girls with rocks and avellone companions, skills actually provide extra flavour and there is no terrible combat.
also it's actual pretty isometric game and has good ost.

...so I guess it's not like Numanuma at all.

Numenera had some good parts.

 

[Shadenuat]

yes, I pointed out: it had a girl with a rock.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

yes, I pointed out: it had a girl with a rock.

And blob The Blob!

 

[polo]

Didnt lay numanuma tbh, its there in my steam library waiting for something that probably will never happen.

 

[Shadenuat]

well they're both click on dialogue options the game, but one of them actually makes you want to click more.

Disco confused me because in current era I almost decided to go into the camp of "the less writing the better" of RPGs, and realising that I actually like to read if what I am reading is interesting once again lead to confusion.

 

[AwesomeButton]

well they're both click on dialogue options the game, but one of them actually makes you want to click more.

Disco confused me because in current era I almost decided to go into the camp of "the less writing the better" of RPGs, and realising that I actually like to read if what I am reading is interesting once again lead to confusion.

I was thinking just this the other day. PoE made people cry out against "walls of text", but DE showed that the problem in PoE had been with the quality of the writing, not with the quantity of text in an isometric RPG.

 

[Shadenuat]

Well DE does have some walls of text but the problem is more of a technicality: having too many relevant skills high leads to them activating at the same time too often.

 

[Lyric Suite]

well they're both click on dialogue options the game, but one of them actually makes you want to click more.

Disco confused me because in current era I almost decided to go into the camp of "the less writing the better" of RPGs, and realising that I actually like to read if what I am reading is interesting once again lead to confusion.

I was thinking just this the other day. PoE made people cry out against "walls of text", but DE showed that the problem in PoE had been with the quality of the writing, not with the quantity of text in an isometric RPG.

As if Torment didn't already do that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

well they're both click on dialogue options the game, but one of them actually makes you want to click more.

Disco confused me because in current era I almost decided to go into the camp of "the less writing the better" of RPGs, and realising that I actually like to read if what I am reading is interesting once again lead to confusion.

I was thinking just this the other day. PoE made people cry out against "walls of text", but DE showed that the problem in PoE had been with the quality of the writing, not with the quantity of text in an isometric RPG.

As if Torment didn't already do that.

I don't think Torment was written with the same conscious intent to have descriptive prose and the internal monologue that aids the player in roleplaying.

 

[v1rus]

Now, how does Actual Art Degree and thoughts like that work? From my understanding, every time you pass a Conceptualization check (Conceptualization medium: success - YOU VISUALIZE A PONY BRO...) you should get +10 XP, same with the Encyclopedia thought. I never managed to get those to work tho, and new patches dont seem to fix them (prolly because its the old save).

Just wanna check was it bugged, or i misunderstood something.

 

[JarlFrank]

well they're both click on dialogue options the game, but one of them actually makes you want to click more.

Disco confused me because in current era I almost decided to go into the camp of "the less writing the better" of RPGs, and realising that I actually like to read if what I am reading is interesting once again lead to confusion.

I was thinking just this the other day. PoE made people cry out against "walls of text", but DE showed that the problem in PoE had been with the quality of the writing, not with the quantity of text in an isometric RPG.

Well, I wouldn't describe Disco Elysium's dialogue as "walls of text". It's engaging dialogue, often funny, sometimes poignant, melancholic, heartfelt. And mostly dialogue with some description of what NPCs are doing (pulling on their cigarette, moving a strand of hair out of their face, etc).

When we look at Pillars and Numanuma, what do we get? Is it 90% snappy dialogue and descriptions of people's mannerisms?

No, it's lengthy descriptive purple prose written for the writers to wank off over how many adjectives they know. It wears you out because it's just not interesting.

Meanwhile Disco Elysium has kids that keep calling you faggot, a superstitious bookstore owner whose superstitions just mask her insecurities, a buff racist guy who tells you about his race theories, a slimy workers union leader who holds your gun hostage, etc etc. Interesting characters with actual personalities, whose personalities are delivered entirely through dialogue rather than long stretches of descriptive text.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

well they're both click on dialogue options the game, but one of them actually makes you want to click more.

Disco confused me because in current era I almost decided to go into the camp of "the less writing the better" of RPGs, and realising that I actually like to read if what I am reading is interesting once again lead to confusion.

I was thinking just this the other day. PoE made people cry out against "walls of text", but DE showed that the problem in PoE had been with the quality of the writing, not with the quantity of text in an isometric RPG.

As if Torment didn't already do that.

Torment did everything, but it was 20 years go. Ten more years, and it will be unplayable for average gamer.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Now, how does Actual Art Degree and thoughts like that work? From my understanding, every time you pass a Conceptualization check (Conceptualization medium: success - YOU VISUALIZE A PONY BRO...) you should get +10 XP, same with the Encyclopedia thought. I never managed to get those to work tho, and new patches dont seem to fix them (prolly because its the old save).

Just wanna check was it bugged, or i misunderstood something.

it definitely was bugged. not sure if they patched it yet.

 

[user]

Oh god, this game is so fucked up but in a wonderful way.

 

[The Fish]

So the politics in games I've been warned about has finally arrived. Really enjoyed it, don't know what the youtube men were afraid of.

Well, for what it's worth I admit I failed a logic check on the eve of release and threw a hissy fit on here ranting about communards and whatever bullshit. You have to understand that paranoia is hard work.

 

[Silentstorm]

No, it's lengthy descriptive purple prose written for the writers to wank off over how many adjectives they know. It wears you out because it's just not interesting.

Meanwhile Disco Elysium has kids that keep calling you faggot, a superstitious bookstore owner whose superstitions just mask her insecurities, a buff racist guy who tells you about his race theories, a slimy workers union leader who holds your gun hostage, etc etc. Interesting characters with actual personalities, whose personalities are delivered entirely through dialogue rather than long stretches of descriptive text.

Listen to this man, he knows what he is talking, while there is some big text, few characters are intelectuals and will speak like it, your detective won't go for prose when describing things, at most only using words to describe things in a police like manner, almost as if he was a detective or something.

Text with prose, if done too often and too badly, just comes across as writers pretending to be smarter than they are or assuming the only way for games to "grow up" and be more "artistic" is to copy high art like books or movies, forgetting, you know, that video games are a different medium and that we can see a lot about the world just by walking in it, but DE doesn't do that, heck, put too much points in skills like Encyclopedia and you do get more prose like text, or just way more trivia about the setting, or Drama making things more complicated, and they are treated in-universe as being annoying, pointless and actually detrimental to your investigation in quite a few cases.

No, DE doesn't have a lot in a wall of text because...well, it doesn't need it, people aren't going to go on big dramatic speeches all the time, or think in poetic terms all the damn time, so why should the characters do it when you can have them speak in a more normal fashion?

And it works, you don't get overwhelmed with too much text that makes you sometimes feel like skipping them and you manage to understand everything the game tells you, and even when there is quite a bit of text, it happens so rarely you don't mind...unless you put a ton of skill points at a few skills, honestly, i would avoid putting 7-8 points in any skill, much less two skills with that many points, they can and will talk if you put that many points.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I bought a box of cigaretten and I chose to smoke later in the first-time dialogue with Electrochemistry. Now, when I'm outside, I click on the cigarettes but I nothing happens. Is this a bug? I'm under effects of drinking beer right now. Could this be that I'm not allowed to have two bonuses at the same time, in some twisted Sawyerist logic?

 

[JarlFrank]

It's funny how Disco Elysium, with its low fantasy down-to-earth setting manages to have more interesting and engaging dialogues than Pillars and Numanuma with their high fantasy/weird fantasy settings, because everyone actually has something interesting to say.

Infodumps are limited to Encyclopedia interjections if you level up that skill enough, and to asking Joyce about the world and all the things you forgot in your amnesia - which is completely optional. NPCs won't give you loredumps if you don't ask them to. Your own brain will only give you loredumps if you level up Encyclopedia.

When asked about their lives, NPCs won't just blather on about how they grew up on a farm and did X and Y in their youth, they actually talk to you like real people rather than infodumping you to death about their past. And they show more personality through their mannerisms and choice of words than PoE's NPCs have in their entire infodump backstories.

If Racist Lorry Driver were an NPC in PoE, he would tell you all about how he grew up in a poor white family, learned to hate niggers in school, used to hang with a crowd of white supremacists, has been driving a lorry for 10 years, has a wife somewhere else whom he probably beats, etc etc etc.
Disco Elysium just has him say a bunch of racist stuff, bond with you over your mutual racism if you agree with him, or tell you to fuck off if you disagree. He's not going to share his entire life story with you in big infodump texts.

90% of dialogue in Disco Elysium actually consits of you interacting with the NPCs, rather than just being a passive sounding board to receive infodumps about their life.

Disco Elysium lets you agree or disagree with people on their ideological positions, lets you use your authority as a policeman on them, lets you convince them of retarded ideas, lets you punch them in the face, lets you share jokes with them, etc etc.
Meanwhile those RPGs criticized for having too many walls of text don't let you interact with NPCs in the same way. They go more like:
PC: "So what's your story?"
NPC: 3 paragraphs of infodump
PC: "Ok cool."

 

[Shadenuat]

It's funny how Disco Elysium, with its low fantasy down-to-earth setting

I understand what r u saying, but Disco setting is about down to earth as some of the Terry Pratchett settings are ie only in appearance; the levels of absurdity sometimes reach into Very High.

 

[AwesomeButton]

When asked about their lives, NPCs won't just blather on about how they grew up on a farm and did X and Y in their youth

I can't prove it but I suspect the crime in PoE is even bigger - they simply copy-pasted the character drafts and changed the pronouns from 3rd to 1st person: He grew up on a farm -> I grew up on a farm. The Millenial Brainlet Team is perfectly capable of doing it.\

Disco Elysium lets you agree or disagree with people on their ideological positions, lets you use your authority as a policeman on them, lets you convince them of retarded ideas, lets you punch them in the face, lets you share jokes with them, etc etc.
Meanwhile those RPGs criticized for having too many walls of text don't let you interact with NPCs in the same way. They go more like:
PC: "So what's your story?"
NPC: 3 paragraphs of infodump
PC: "Ok cool."

Just what I'm saying.

 

[fantadomat]

It's funny how Disco Elysium, with its low fantasy down-to-earth setting manages to have more interesting and engaging dialogues than Pillars and Numanuma with their high fantasy/weird fantasy settings, because everyone actually has something interesting to say.

Infodumps are limited to Encyclopedia interjections if you level up that skill enough, and to asking Joyce about the world and all the things you forgot in your amnesia - which is completely optional. NPCs won't give you loredumps if you don't ask them to. Your own brain will only give you loredumps if you level up Encyclopedia.

When asked about their lives, NPCs won't just blather on about how they grew up on a farm and did X and Y in their youth, they actually talk to you like real people rather than infodumping you to death about their past. And they show more personality through their mannerisms and choice of words than PoE's NPCs have in their entire infodump backstories.

If Racist Lorry Driver were an NPC in PoE, he would tell you all about how he grew up in a poor white family, learned to hate niggers in school, used to hang with a crowd of white supremacists, has been driving a lorry for 10 years, has a wife somewhere else whom he probably beats, etc etc etc.
Disco Elysium just has him say a bunch of racist stuff, bond with you over your mutual racism if you agree with him, or tell you to fuck off if you disagree. He's not going to share his entire life story with you in big infodump texts.

90% of dialogue in Disco Elysium actually consits of you interacting with the NPCs, rather than just being a passive sounding board to receive infodumps about their life.

Disco Elysium lets you agree or disagree with people on their ideological positions, lets you use your authority as a policeman on them, lets you convince them of retarded ideas, lets you punch them in the face, lets you share jokes with them, etc etc.
Meanwhile those RPGs criticized for having too many walls of text don't let you interact with NPCs in the same way. They go more like:
PC: "So what's your story?"
NPC: 3 paragraphs of infodump
PC: "Ok cool."

Tho it was not a surprise,you could see that outer worlds will be massive garbage months ago. It is really easy to spot when a studio have a bunch of good writers and when it is filled with political demagogues. Which is very ironical since Disco guys were pretty political themself,still they managed to curb their opinions and deliver a good writing,shame that they couldn't curb their homosexuality...