Has C&C become the cancer of RPGs?

[Neanderthal]

C&C is not how you spell Elf.

 

[Alexios]

I've never seen an E3 like game actually talk about choices and consequences. People on console can't read the text from the couch they absolutely don't care

I could go on and on. My point is that C&C has seemed to become the defining feature of the genre, and much to the genre's detriment. It seems to me that developers are compensating for their total lack of innovation by shoving something in our faces that has been a given in RPGs for decades. Since the braindead masses and gaming journalists know no better, it works.

 

[Corvinus]

Okay, but how would the implementation of C&C be detrimental when it is a lie to appease the "braindead masses", and not actually impelemented in any meaningful way? The true problem would be the total lack of innovation, wouldn't you agree?

 

[BrotherFrank]

How do the later ME games compare to the first one? No spoilers, please.

It gets less RPG and more popamole as you progress through the series, you've been warned. Is why Me1 is my favorite of the series, although...
The finale of Me2 is imo the most C n C the series ever gets, which is kinda relevant to this thread.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

CnC has always been an overrated feature of RPGs on the Codex. Is it a cool and interesting feature of RPGs? Yes. It it the sole defining feature of RPGs? Fuck no.

Going by that logic, Mass Effect 2 is a better RPG than Wizardry 6.

 

[Alexios]

Okay, but how would the implementation of C&C be detrimental when it is a lie to appease the "braindead masses", and not actually impelemented in any meaningful way? The true problem would be the total lack of innovation, wouldn't you agree?

You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. C&C, even if not implemented particularly well, doesn't necessarily detract from a game. It is rather that developers have made it so that the ONLY thing that defines an RPG is the presence of C&C, hence Mass Effect, Witcher, and so on. There is virtually no substantive difference between playstyles in these games, but "your choices matter!!!1!1" so they're branded as great RPGs. I have to give some credit to the Bloodlines 2 developers for not marketing their game this way, but every other big-budget RPG I've seen in the last few years has been marketed with sole focus on C&C.

 

[RNGsus]

I think the cancer crept in through C&C, because its given narrative too much weight in design and development.

 

[undecaf]

Despite all the advancements in game production technology and the huge increase in budgets, there has been virtually no focus on gameplay in big-budget RPGs in the last several years.

C&C isn't cancer, it's a desired feature. But what you describe up there is. Almost every more mainstream "RPG" developer wants to be a storyteller who gives fuck all about proper RPG gameplay and what kind of C&C and other gameplay opportunities and events it could potentially bring forth in unison with the storytelling, and also as means of situational storytelling itself. There are some negligable amount of stats with merely nominal effects and applicability thrown in for show, but they are never taken seriously enough to be leashed in as a wider element of providing roleplaying in a gameplay form. They tend to just exist so one can advertise their FPS game belonging to a "media sexy" genre. And more often than not, instead of real interactivity, the stats exist only to distrot combat gameplay, which in itself isn't bad, but it's really only halfway there as far as optimal RPG design goes.

 

[Saerain]

I still don't get why Command & Conquer is even relevant to RPGs.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I still don't get why Command & Conquer is even relevant to RPGs.

It's one of the early and popular RTS games which eventually led to RTwP RPGs and games like Baldur's Gate and other Biodrone games.

Checkmate.

 

[Doktor Best]

C&C simply spread out to other genres, just like level advancement or attribute systems. There are now many genrehybrid games that, while not passing the initial core definition of rpgs, still share similarities with them in certain areas.

I think there is no real loss as i think the market grew so big because those gameplay elements spread out. Classic rpgs are still produced and will be produced but they are and will stay a niche.

It's just a marketing buzzword, because actual C&C is still a rare thing.

What is actual C&C compared to unactual C&C?

 

[JarlFrank]

The story of a game is only as good as the amount of interactivity it offers to the player.

I'd rather have a highly interactive but mediocre story in an RPG, than a high literature level story that is completely linear. The painful linearity is why I never could get into most JRPGs because of how hands-off it all feels. It's a game, not a fucking book or movie. Planescape Torment is often lauded for its story but it only works so well because you have some say in how your character develops, what his personality is like, and you get to make some minor plot-affecting choices too: how to deal with Trias, which companions to take, and how you deal with TTO at the end. If it were missing that player interactivity, that player choice, it wouldn't be as highly praised as it is.

If you handed me a game with a completely hands-off story told entirely in static cutscenes with no dialogue trees, dialogue wheels, keywords, whatever - just JRPG-style static storytelling, I'd hand it right back to you even if it were the collaboration of a resurrected Homer, Shakespeare, Dickens and Dostoyevsky. Because games are about interactivity. If the story isn't interactive, then it should be as minimal as possible as to not get in the way of the gameplay. Games like Diablo and Might and Magic don't offer you much in the way of story C&C. You control a party or character and fight the bad guys and then win. But the story isn't shoved into your face all the time, it takes a backseat to the gameplay. That's fine.

If there is a greater focus on the story, it must be interactive and offer the player some amount of C&C, or it will just get in the way of the gameplay because it isn't gameplay.
C&C turns the story into gameplay, therefore making it into something that actually fits into a fucking game.

I'd rather have a simplistic "bad guy wants to take over world, hero has to stop him" story but you get to choose whether you want to support the good Paladins or the good Wizards or the wild Amazon Warrioresses who all oppose the bad guy but don't like to work together for some reason, and each faction offers you a different style of play. Like in Gothic and Risen. And even better if you can join the bad guy instead of having to oppose him, that offers even more gameplay variety and replayability!

That would make for a much better game than one where the story is deep and meaningful but it's entirely linear and you never get to have a say about your character's decisions. Why even make it a game then? Why not a movie or a novel? Those are much better mediums for telling linear stories.

 

[Sigourn]

Building a character is choice and consequence. Many games can't even get this right.

 

[Duraframe300]

I've never seen an E3 like game actually talk about choices and consequences. People on console can't read the text from the couch they absolutely don't care

I could go on and on. .

You could? Because WTF. You literary mentioned the only two rpg titles that lead heavy focus on C&C at E3.

Furthermore, you chose 2 games that are developed by people that have gone their entire careers focused on C&C based RPGs.

CD PROJEKT RED, which did the C&C thing since the first Witcher in 2007
and Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, which have done the C&C thing together since 1997, literary the people that started this focus.

Then you talk like this is some recent emergence

What's your point?

 

[Strange Fellow]

CnC has always been an overrated feature of RPGs on the Codex. Is it a cool and interesting feature of RPGs? Yes. It it the sole defining feature of RPGs? Fuck no.

Going by that logic, Mass Effect 2 is a better RPG than Wizardry 6.

Wizardry 6 has some p cool C&C, though

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Only in the end, though

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

You will always have this conflict between C&Cers and gameplay-ers. I like games with good C&C, but ultimately, gameplay is more important to me. I enjoyed Arcanum, but because the gameplay was crappy (combat, exporation, etc), so I will never enjoy Arcanum as much as games with great gameplay but less C&C (e.g. Gothic, Ultima Underworld, Kingdom Come: Deliverance).

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I could go on and on. My point is that C&C has seemed to become the defining feature of the genre, and much to the genre's detriment. It seems to me that developers are compensating for their total lack of innovation by shoving something in our faces that has been a given in RPGs for decades. Since the braindead masses and gaming journalists know no better, it works

Yes, choice and reactivity are defining features of the genre, because they allow you to role play. In an action RPG, if you strip out the C&C to focus on innovative gameplay... well, congratulations, you’ve just made an innovative first person shooter. Horizon Zero Dawn has better gameplay than a Bethesda or BioWare game, but hardly any C&C. HZD was a pretty underwhelming experience, especially when you consider that the lead writer was John Gonzalez of Fallout: New Vegas fame.

I think you’re overestimating the degree to which extensive C&C is taken as a given. BioWare level C&C has become pretty standard, but those are fairly linear games built around narrative C&C that only slightly changes the main story. It’s just not that consequential. That’s common. These are games that say: this is your character, this is your quest, now what flavor of Shepard are you?

On the other hand, a game like New Vegas is built around player choice from the ground up and it results in a qualitatively different experience. You have a lot more freedom and your choices are a lot more consequential. But even New Vegas doesn’t have a ton of gameplay C&C.

With Cyberpunk and The Outer Worlds, they’re advertising major narrative and gameplay C&C. Whether they end up executing well is another story, but both games are pitching a level of interactivity that you rarely see in AAA video games, including RPGs. Well-executed narrative C&C is uncommon, well-executed gameplay C&C is very rare. They’re not hyping this stuff to bamboozle idiot journalists into giving them fawning coverage, they’re hyping it because it will probably be the best thing about either title.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It seems that nearly every new big-budget game that is marketed as an RPG is marketed with a heavy focus on C&C.

Same marketing as pornsites, throw in as many keywords as you can to catch the crowd's eye.

Not a teenage not blond 18yo daughter being willingly gangraped by not her 7 not dwarves not brothers ...

Replace the keywords by C&C, RPG, ACTION, TURN-BASED, STORY, UNIQUE CHARACTERS and SKILL TREES and you got every other wannabee RPG marketing plan ...

 

[Covenant]

JarlFrank has a fair take on it and makes a good argument for how C&C makes story into part of a game, but for me, even when 'done well', story cannot replace gameplay. So I prefer games that come down on the 'minimalist story, focus is on the gameplay' side of things. From that side of things, it's hard not to see C&C as little more than an excuse for devs to focus less on their combat systems, itemisation and area design, and more on dialogue trees and ending cutscenes.

Also quoting my comment from the 'What is most important in an RPG' thread because nobody ever answered me about the fanfiction and I suspect you're all too ashamed to admit your degeneracy.

I always thought 'C&C' being important was pretty much just a meme. I mean, what's the point? It's still just narrative. Visual novels have plenty of C&C, but they're still closer to books than games. And I like books, but I don't need alternate endings to enjoy them. No one's clamouring for a version of A Christmas Carol where if you turn to page 450 Scrooge decides to dismiss the spirits as a dream and in the morning he fires Bob Cratchit. Or maybe they are; I guess that's what fanfiction is about, in a way? Are all the storyfags here massively into fanfiction? I'm curious to know.

A good plot can really enhance a game and I certainly appreciate a nice atmosphere and immersion but for me, the mechanical systems are prime. I want something where I'll be forced to make tactical and strategical choices, preferably involving a robust character creation/development system, and where as I progress I'll be encountering new threats and gaining new rewards. All I want the plot to do is provide a nice bit of flavour to go on top of that.

I don't care whether I can pick a certain action (or, more likely, befriend a certain faction) and thereby choose an alternate ending. So long as the plot is engaging, I'll happily take it as a enhancement to the murdering and character development. But the idea that the plot suddenly becomes better/more important simply because you can branch it off into one of a few variants... I don't get it. Sure, it can be done well - but so can a fixed plot. Why would one intrinsically be better than the other?

 

[Strange Fellow]

Only in the end, though

I'm compelled to yell FAKE NEWS. The choice happens in the Hall of the Dead. That's only a little past midway, I'd say.

 

[JarlFrank]

JarlFrank has a fair take on it and makes a good argument for how C&C makes story into part of a game, but for me, even when 'done well', story cannot replace gameplay. So I prefer games that come down on the 'minimalist story, focus is on the gameplay' side of things. From that side of things, it's hard not to see C&C as little more than an excuse for devs to focus less on their combat systems, itemisation and area design, and more on dialogue trees and ending cutscenes.

Ideally, a game dev would set the C&C-heavy story upon a foundation of good gameplay.

I'm firmly in the gameplay-first camp, too, don't get me wrong. A C&C-heavy story is great icing on the cake, however, and when done right can propel the game to the next level.

If you focus on C&C only and leave out exploration and all that other jazz you get Age of Decadence, which is a good game and interesting experiment but can't hold a candle to Fallout and Arcanum because of how it streamlines everything in favor of the C&C focus, ultimately leading to the game being a more complex version of a gamebook.

 

[Falksi]

Agreed. RPG's which base their foundation around Command & Conquer are always gonna be doomed to fail.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Covenant fanfiction is a weird comparison. CRPGs that let you make narrative choices are trying to approximate the feeling of playing pen and paper RPGs that theoretically let you do anything.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's just a buzzword, developers don't actually understand what it means. Developers of Wasteland 2 said they would use MrBtongue video as inspiration, and the first quest makes you choose between 2 arbitrary things in the most heavy handed design possible.

Also endgame slides are very over used too.