Whatever floats your boat. Let's call Sorcery! a cRPG while we're at it.
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Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,058
Was actually born out of a NMA interview with a Fallout Tactics developer, who also frequently posted here back in the day, Section8.
I'm aware of what it is and how it came about. I think something that was part and parcel of adventure gaming shouldn't necessarily be what constitutes a genre-defining trait for the computer RPG. Mutually-exclusive content and branching nodes are nice but they don't really have much to do with what makes an RPG an RPG, nor are they even genre exclusive; whereas gameplay-driven consequences that arise from the interaction between the game's mechanics and the player's conflict resolution skew much closer to the heart of the matter.
I place more value in an RPG giving you many different ways to accomplish something by using different character abilities or builds that have differing interplays with the game world, think something as simple as waiting for night-time in Arcanum and then breaking into a house and stealing a quest item instead of talking or fighting for it, because the game itself organically created an expectation in the player and then made this decision affect the way your character continues to develop and the interactions that govern the relationship between the player character and the game world.
Something like the above has more to do with actual table-top role-playing than having differing branching quest nodes that don't affect the way the game is played and instead merely affect non-mechanical layers like a story scenario or one named character replacing another in a cutscene or dialog; these things certainly have to do with role-playing but not in the way most Codexers think so, as I've seen people praise Witcher 3's "c&c" (and thus its RPG credentials) simply because it offers branching story states that are largely divorced from mechanical influences in gameplay.
Mutually-exclusive outcomes and/or branching nodes tend to be popular (though personally I don't really care for this kind of design) on a superficial level of appreciation because they easily provide an illusion of choice and consequence, but they are more a holdover of adventure gaming and not something integral to the core experience of a computer RPG. The core experience lies in the interplay between the layers of mechanical interaction and abstraction presented to the player characters and the ability for the game to allow the player to navigate them; in the ability for the player to create their own conflict resolution via mechanically-driven gameplay.
TLDR: "C&C" is a mutual accountability between the game, the game world, the character and the player, seperate from superficial things like plot, story or scenario.
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Humanophage
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2005
- Messages
- 5,072
9 is extremely and unusually enjoyable, while 7 is pretty pleasant but not extraordinary. Haven't played any RPGs of late that would be 10.
Underrail - 9
Risen - 8.1
Battle Brothers - 7.1
Age of Decadence - 7.5
Caves of Qud - 7.1
TOME - 7
Dragonfall - 7
Expeditions: Viking - 7
Lords of Xulima - 7
Darkest Dungeon - 7
Invisible Inc. - 6.3
I postponed playing Fallout NV and Blackguards, the latter because I overdosed on TB combat where trivial opponents take a minute to take their turn and there is no way to speed up animation. I'll eventually try it with CheatEngine for the speed.
The main issue with Dragonfall and Expeditions: Viking is their rather uninspired character building, which is too glaring a flaw because of the turn-based combat that ordinarily would encourage diverse styles. I'll give them another run later on, especially Viking, but for now I am fed up with this.
I'm currently playing Deadfire, and I think the Codex has been too harsh on it. It has very solid exploration, and RTwP doesn't seem so bad after playing so many turn-based games with a lot of slow filler combat which seems so feeble compared to actual tactics/strategy games.
Underrail - 9
Risen - 8.1
Battle Brothers - 7.1
Age of Decadence - 7.5
Caves of Qud - 7.1
TOME - 7
Dragonfall - 7
Expeditions: Viking - 7
Lords of Xulima - 7
Darkest Dungeon - 7
Invisible Inc. - 6.3
I postponed playing Fallout NV and Blackguards, the latter because I overdosed on TB combat where trivial opponents take a minute to take their turn and there is no way to speed up animation. I'll eventually try it with CheatEngine for the speed.
The main issue with Dragonfall and Expeditions: Viking is their rather uninspired character building, which is too glaring a flaw because of the turn-based combat that ordinarily would encourage diverse styles. I'll give them another run later on, especially Viking, but for now I am fed up with this.
I'm currently playing Deadfire, and I think the Codex has been too harsh on it. It has very solid exploration, and RTwP doesn't seem so bad after playing so many turn-based games with a lot of slow filler combat which seems so feeble compared to actual tactics/strategy games.
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majorsoccer
Prospernaut
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2019
- Messages
- 175
Better than skyrim and fallout 4
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