Melcar
Arcane
Don't forget the faster porn streaming.
How about we stick with the strategy games I already listed as being fun for me. I've already stated RPG AI tends to be inadequate, so trying to use it as an argument for DF AI being good enough is logically invalid.
DF AI is not shallow/buggy/quirky by some inviolable law that says complex systems make AI flawed. DF AI has the problems it has because of how it has been coded - as a bunch of special cases (similar to an expert system) rather than as a generic AI (generalized search and learning). With a generic AI all you have to do is codify the rules (the "complex systems") in a format the AI understands. (A generic AI does require more effort/skill to create than a bunch of special cases, but once it's done you can add more rules without having to redo the AI, without having to worry about complex AI bugs, and without ending up with an AI that doesn't know how to use rules except in the few special cases that have been explicitly coded.)
The problem is that those higher level conflicts are scripted stories, and I want something better than that. What DF provides in its place is nothing. There is no higher level conflict in DF. It just doesn't exist. That means there's no real over-arching story lines either. Sure, you can make a blog of what your DF character did this day and the next and the next and call that a story, but that's really not an interesting story, at least not to me.
And what part of that video I posted, where the player sets the elf village on fire, and then the elf elder is happy to have a cordial chat with the player while the village burns (and the elf guards just stand in the fire and burn) was "believable"?
Dude, I watched the video. Awesome it was not. It was boring. Don't think you can use argument to convince me that what I watched was in fact not boring. (Though technically I didn't watch most of it, just listened to it while I read other stuff and only flipped it back to foreground to watch if something interesting was going on. It was almost 20 minutes of pretty much nothing interesting.)
When you were young, things were new. Fewer things felt like "been there, done that", because, well, you hadn't been there, and you hadn't done that yet. In addition, we weren't inundated with games. If you couldn't handle XCOM's godawful interface, tough. There simply wasn't a decent alternative.
So we buckled down and learned the interface, and drew the maps on graph paper, and took notes, with an actual pen, on actual paper, because that's what we had to do. We did all the horrible, dull grinding you had to do in Bard's Tale, and went up and down multi-level dungeons just to heal at a temple, because that's what you did. We didn't even mind, it was part of the challenge. Fast travel? Hah.
And somewhere along the way, games became a big business and supply began outstripping demand, and accordingly, we became demanding, whiny little bitches with entitlement complexes and ADHD. Oh no, it's like 30 seconds to walk across the map! Oh no, nothing exciting has happened for like two minutes now! This game sucks! I bet Naruto would have punched like three dudes' faces off in this time!
Yeah well fuck you. The merit of a game is how much fun can be extracted from it, not how much it shoves at you constantly. Would a game be better if it never wasted your time with pointless backtracking or shitty tutorials? Yeah. But if you're unwilling to make the effort to work past a game's flaws and find the fun in it, then I don't think RPGs are really your thing. Also, your 12-year-old self is ashamed of you.
Praise you
- "Crafting" and "Gathering" - i.e. making player tinker with mundane garbage instead of just finding strategically placed items, or having satisfyingly balanced random drops, or quest rewards. This MMO-derived "feature" is completely out of place in most games, and it destroys them.
Don't forget the faster porn streaming.
Instant travel is a game killing for me.
It is clearly an awfull lazy move from dev considering the billions of more believable options to speed up travel.
It isn't like the only two options are walk slowly like a turtle with crippled legs vs teleport everywhere anytime.
There is no excuse for such a failure when you can copy paste much much much much much better concepts.
As a side note, i think watching Naruto all the way require more patience than playing RPG. I doubt i would have such patience.
In these scenarios, like in "Flowers For Algernon", you start off as a janitor, but eventually your mental facilities are exercised far beyond janitorial work.
.
On the 90's, every time you saw a game it was a mystery, you didn't fuck know how it played or what their setting was.
This is written under the assumption that these flaws are an inherent part of RPG design, and once you take them out, the fun goes with them.
That is false. It's just that some older RPGs actually DID manage to REWARD you for being a glorified janitor, because they DID have some positive qualities, like general depth of interactions or non-linearity or an interesting story.
In that way, "Underrail" mirrors those traits, as it rewards people with in-depth combat (those that are into that sort of thing).
In these scenarios, like in "Flowers For Algernon", you start off as a janitor, but eventually your mental facilities are exercised far beyond janitorial work.
Modern RPGs don't even reward you. They want you to be the janitor and ONLY the janitor, and fucking ENJOY it. Your destiny is to mop those floors forever. Rejoice, for maybe eventually you'll find a nickel.
The problem is, indeed, that these games are aimed at 12-year-olds. And no one else.
On the kickstarter front, it was major disappointment after disappointment, even most people that like them (exception of the retarded fanboys) say they are just good for what it is, bad/mediocre clones of games made 20 years ago. Funny that games made by "professional" game designers, people who live by making money from games and are supposed to be very knowledgeable about game design are inferior products when compared with enthusiast projects.
No. I didn't say or imply that these flaws are necessary for an RPG to be good. I'm simply saying they're unavoidable. It's just not possible for an RPG to avoid timewasting, whether it be with trash mobs or boring hiking while nothing happens, or backtracking, or whatever. It's too difficult a design goal.
No. I didn't say or imply that these flaws are necessary for an RPG to be good. I'm simply saying they're unavoidable. It's just not possible for an RPG to avoid timewasting, whether it be with trash mobs or boring hiking while nothing happens, or backtracking, or whatever. It's too difficult a design goal.
You'll notice that none of the original rants mentioned any actual examples of RPG that completely avoided wasting your time. That's because THERE ARE NONE. Literally none. And that's why I said that if you can't tolerate a bit of timewasting, RPGs aren't for you.
There is a genre of games that do mostly avoid wasting your time, but they're not RPGs. The genre in question is minimalistic action/puzzle games, like Bejeweled or Super Hexagon. Those games don't waste a second of your time: you get to experience the full fun of the game every moment you're playing it. It's possible for them to do this, because they're so simple. And I say this without scorn; I play and enjoy both of the games I mentioned. But they're not RPGs.
In theory, an RPG that avoided pointless busywork without becoming ridiculously simple would be awesome! But that game doesn't exist, never has, and never will. Not because time-wasting is an intrinsic part of the fun, but simply because it's not possible to design perfectly interlocking complex systems that aren't sometimes inefficient. It's simply not a realistic design goal.
Praise you
- "Crafting" and "Gathering" - i.e. making player tinker with mundane garbage instead of just finding strategically placed items, or having satisfyingly balanced random drops, or quest rewards. This MMO-derived "feature" is completely out of place in most games, and it destroys them.
finding recipes to make food that gave you a .05 of 1% increase in some stat for 300 seconds in PoE is a major fucking immersion killing experience. Can't believe josh sawyer thought this was a good idea. hate gathering shit to make pies and crap in RPg's, its fucking ridiculous.
No. I didn't say or imply that these flaws are necessary for an RPG to be good. I'm simply saying they're unavoidable. It's just not possible for an RPG to avoid timewasting, whether it be with trash mobs or boring hiking while nothing happens, or backtracking, or whatever. It's too difficult a design goal.
You'll notice that none of the original rants mentioned any actual examples of RPG that completely avoided wasting your time. That's because THERE ARE NONE. Literally none. And that's why I said that if you can't tolerate a bit of timewasting, RPGs aren't for you.
There is a genre of games that do mostly avoid wasting your time, but they're not RPGs. The genre in question is minimalistic action/puzzle games, like Bejeweled or Super Hexagon. Those games don't waste a second of your time: you get to experience the full fun of the game every moment you're playing it. It's possible for them to do this, because they're so simple. And I say this without scorn; I play and enjoy both of the games I mentioned. But they're not RPGs.
In theory, an RPG that avoided pointless busywork without becoming ridiculously simple would be awesome! But that game doesn't exist, never has, and never will. Not because time-wasting is an intrinsic part of the fun, but simply because it's not possible to design perfectly interlocking complex systems that aren't sometimes inefficient. It's simply not a realistic design goal.
You went from
"horrible, dull grinding"/"went up and down multi-level dungeons just to heal at a temple"/drew the maps on [...] paper"
to
"backtracking"/"a bit of timewasting"/"sometimes inefficient".
You retconned this exchange, making me into someone who "can't tolerate a bit of timewasting". Now I supposedly have to come up with an RPG that "completely avoids wasting your time"? Really?
That was pretty shitty of you, but hey, thanks for the tip - I'm no longer wasting time on this exchange.
I have no clue what your problem is. How do the two things you quoted from me contradict each other?
I like your Karate Kid review, by the way
I have no clue what your problem is. How do the two things you quoted from me contradict each other?
I am too old for this shit. Do yourself a favor and google "shifting goalposts" and "strawman argument".
And anyone who's looking for an RPG with no trash mobs, no backtracking, and no bits without meaningful decisions... is going to be looking for a long time.
Or no time at all (Age of Decadence).And anyone who's looking for an RPG with no trash mobs, no backtracking, and no bits without meaningful decisions... is going to be looking for a long time.
I am too old for this shit. .
Joined: Jan 10, 2008