Editorial Matt Chat: Baldur's Gate

[zeitgeist]

I'd like to take a break from this clusterfuck and say that this Matt guy comes across as a true bro and it's a huge shame that his 100 videos combined have less views than the average "funny" cat video. In one of his recent videos he even said that he was thinking of quitting because hardly anyone watches the interviews etc.

edit: eh, too slow, but I completely agree with Vibalist.

Perhaps he should do them in written form instead. Or at least offer transcripts.

 

[Davaris]

I'd like to take a break from this clusterfuck and say that this Matt guy comes across as a true bro and it's a huge shame that his 100 videos combined have less views than the average "funny" cat video. In one of his recent videos he even said that he was thinking of quitting because hardly anyone watches the interviews etc.

edit: eh, too slow, but I completely agree with Vibalist.

Perhaps he should do them in written form instead. Or at least offer transcripts.

I think he should approach the gaming museums that are starting to open up and see if he can get funding through their sources.

 

[J_C]

We should feature all of his videos on Codex to increase his view count. He fights the good fight.

 

[MMXI]

So if people like something = decline?

And judge things by their own merits, not by theories of what idiocy it might or might not have inspired. Even if BG inevitably lead to Oblivion somehow, that shouldn't change the experience of playing a game of BG at all.

Not according to me, no. It just seems that if DraQ believes it then he must believe Baldur's Gate II is a more declined game than Baldur's Gate, which it actually is if you take into account everything it brought to the series.

My point is that if BioWare only released Baldur's Gate before collapsing as a company, the masses today wouldn't give a crap about it due to it not containing talking party members, romances, streamlined locations and a protagonist centred plot. It'll sit there as a standard AD&D game but with Darklands-like real-time with pause combat.

However, if BioWare only created Baldur's Gate II (calling it Baldur's Gate) before going on to create the shit it has done, it would be pointed at for popularising the shitty BioWarian talking NPCs, horribly written romances, limited NPC selection (you can't even make a party consisting of all evil characters with Baldur's Gate II's roster) and huge amounts of zone lockouts due to story progression (Brynnlaw, Spellhold, Sahuagin City, Underdark, Suldanessellar and those three new wilderness areas after you exit Underdark), which ultimately make the game even more linear.

And judge things by their own merits, not by theories of what idiocy it might or might not have inspired. Even if BG inevitably lead to Oblivion somehow, that shouldn't change the experience of playing a game of BG at all.

That's my view too, really. I'm sure the Gold Box games inspired Baldur's Gate and games such as Shard of Spring/Demon's Winter and Wizard's Crown/The Eternal Dagger inspired them.

Baldur's Gate did indeed inspire BioWare to go on to create Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It must have. But Daggerfall went on to inspire Morrowind and then Oblivion and Fallout 3 in exactly the same way. Baldur's Gate was the new AD&D game with real-time with pause combat, while Daggerfall was the new Ultima Underworld but with plenty of surface exploration. Neither of them are guilty of producing Dragon Age II and Fallout 3 respectively.

 

[DraQ]

Isometric, 3D and directly controllable movement? But you made it clear you weren't talking about presentation and controls. Plus, I don't know about you but I wouldn't want any Wizardry game to be isometric.

Why? Not being isometric is an obvious arbitrary trait one can rage against when babbling incoherently flaw.

And what sub-genre is that? The worst sub-genre of all, the first person single character action RPG? You can wrap sub-genre labels around RPGs, but you can't use that as a shield to defend its flaws. I mean, I can pretend Baldur's Gate is in a sub-genre of its own where all its flaws are its features. It achieves absolutely nothing in a discussion, though.

You still don't grasp the difference between, I don't know, design assumptions and mechanics or other gameplay elements that don't work, do you?

Is being unable to play as a gorgeous young female elf in PS:T or Witcher a flaw? We all like to customize and build our characters, after all.

And which ones of those RPGs are considered the best RPGs ever by sizeable part of gaming community? Because both Oblivious and Banal Gate share this trait despite being pretty vapid shallow and ultimately boring generic fantasy romps masking their linearity with vast areas of nothing of interest to wade through.

An RPG with a bland setting! A crime against humanity! And since when wasn't Daggerfall full of vast areas with nothing of interest to wade through? It's probably the worst offender in the entire genre.

Brotip: Press 'W' next time you're playing it.

No, that's Baldur's Gate II for the reasons I've stated.

What reasons?

I haven't finished BG II (due to being somewhat OCD and quitting early because of desire to port my character from BG I which is just chore to wade through), but from my limited experience there is far more content and far less filler in this game, better combat (with mage duels and whatnot - in any case it beats chasing respawning kobolds around Winding Corridors +6 against pathfinding, because what doesn't?) more originality and so on. The game also seems more focused around storylines, quests and interesting locations, which is a good thing, because the prequel failed to be either a good narrative driven experience or a good free roaming one.

Also, BG II was direct successor to BG I inheriting the overall design philosophy (unlike any of the TES games to their prequels) so it can't really be credited for sparking anything, especially given that it was massive incline over its predecessor.

And why do you consider Baldur's Gate to be the primary influence on the ultimate example of decline that is Oblivion?

Wait, what. Can you even read?

I'm saying both games had similar declining influence not that one influenced another, jesus fucking christ.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

BG II had quests like D'Arnise, Unseeing Eye, Shadow King and a few others of quality that pisses all over BG. The only good part in BG was the Durlag tower added in expansion.

I can't be arsed about the romance and writing, which indeed are decline, because I always play on highest difficulty level with custom made party.

BGII in my book is probably the best example of a game that still manages to be really fun despite having numerous flaws and obvious idiots in development team.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Not much to add to this discussion, but I think you are forgotten about one more aspect – a technical fetish of engine excellency selling point. BG 1 was sort a candy game (I saw once person, who didn't played any RPG games before, who finished Baldurs Gate 1 in just one week. Now, try this with M&M7 or Daggerfall or something...) testing field of new engine, which was, similar like Morrowind and Oblivion own engines, its selling strong point at the time. We are talking 'bout computer games after all. Oblivion was Morrowind director cut into console specifications (Morrowind on Xbox was a sort catastrophic, so they learned their lessons). I think, no-so metaphorically, first was “engine shiney'o” then came “story” and “mechanics” of game (how BG evolved into first NWN? 3D graphics rage glued with rest bits of game).

 

[MMXI]

Why? Not being isometric is an obvious arbitrary trait one can rage against when babbling incoherently flaw.

I generally find multi-character turn-based RPGs more enjoyable to play than single character action RPGs. I would probably find Oblivion fun if it had turn-based combat in its first-person viewpoint. An enemy sees you and the game goes into turn-based mode like Wizardry 8 but with a single character. That way the game can expand on combat options by allowing you to target specific body parts as well as allowing you to select your attack type out of lunge, jab, slash, throw and parry. As Oblivion is pretty much classless, meaning that all characters have the potential to cast spells, the game could even become tactical with only a single character with enough thought.

Would this ruin The Elder Scrolls? For the "unwashed masses", as you call them, it would. Would it incline The Elder Scrolls for me and many other RPG players? I'd say so. In other words, changing a game entirely to another sub-genre of RPG in order to remove the perceived flaws present in its original sub-genre is still a process of removing flaws. The problems introduced with turn-based combat don't matter to me. I don't give a fuck about "immersion" or whatever faggots call it.

You still don't grasp the difference between, I don't know, design assumptions and mechanics or other gameplay elements that don't work, do you?

Is being unable to play as a gorgeous young female elf in PS:T or Witcher a flaw? We all like to customize and build our characters, after all.

Is it? Not really, because being able to play a female elf in both PS:T and The Witcher would detract from other elements of the games. With some thought, however, a decent character creator with far better customisation options in terms of who you are playing could improve both games, but lots of work would need to be done outside of this feature to cater for differing characters, especially in terms of the story,

Being able to play as a dwarf in Mass Effect (while not being an RPG) would be detrimental to the game because it would completely ruin the setting and its believability. However, being able to choose what alien race you want to play as could work very well with some adjustments here and there. This would allow the game to facilitate race specific content and race specific game mechanics. Does this make the lack of racial choice a flaw in Mass Effect? To me, yes. To others? Depends on if they would have chosen to play as an alien, I guess.

It's not a simple matter of adding features into games that work in other games. Features work together to form the whole game. If a feature that works fantastically well in one game is inserted into another, it may ruin it completely. I mean, if that wasn't the case then there would be one ideal game, meaning that eventually genres will merge together into some single hybrid genre full of the best ideas from every individual genre. It doesn't take into account the dilution of gameplay elements.

What reasons?

The reasons I've stated in this very thread. Look them up.

I haven't finished BG II (due to being somewhat OCD and quitting early because of desire to port my character from BG I which is just chore to wade through), but from my limited experience there is far more content and far less filler in this game, better combat (with mage duels and whatnot - in any case it beats chasing respawning kobolds around Winding Corridors +6 against pathfinding, because what doesn't?) more originality and so on.

Less filler? Perhaps. They definitely trimmed a lot of the fat, but in my opinion they trimmed far too much. Baldur's Gate II would have been far better with more locations outside of Athkatla. Not necessarily as much as Baldur's Gate had outside of Baldur's Gate itself, but far more than it had. Perhaps if those three wilderness areas that only appear after you exit Underdark had been completed before the game was released it would have partially made up for it, but I doubt that would have been enough.

Filler encounters? Yep. It had filler encounters. On the other hand, the filler encounters worked well with low level AD&D because at level one you get slaughtered by them, while at level three you blast through them with ease. It creates that sense of progression that all the old greats like Might & Magic had that is lost in today's RPGs thanks to things like level scaling. I have to admit, though, that Baldur's Gate had terrible respawns, especially in dungeons and in the Gnoll Stronghold.

Combat? I used to think that Baldur's Gate II had better combat but recently I've changed my mind completely. Thinking back to the great fights in Baldur's Gate II I've realised that they were basically giant games of rock-paper-scissors with protection spells and other buffs needing to be countered. They were fun, but that's because they were basically puzzles. And I like puzzles. Basically, the difference between the most optimal solution for a single encounter and standard battle tactics was so huge that the game relied heavily on trial and error in order to discover just how to easily win fights. Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, was far more traditional in that it tended to be you versus the enemies, with tactics heavily involving the statistics, classes and equipment of each party member rather than the order of protection stripping spells needed to take down the enemy mage's protections. In other words, Baldur's Gate was more about the roles each party member plays in combat rather than solving a puzzle by trial and error.

The game also seems more focused around storylines, quests and interesting locations, which is a good thing, because the prequel failed to be either a good narrative driven experience or a good free roaming one.

I want less of a focus on the storyline in my RPGs, thank you. Much less. RPGs being bogged down by the story is one reason why all modern RPGs are completely mechanically uninteresting. Not that Baldur's Gate was mechanically any different than Baldur's Gate II or anything.

Also, BG II was direct successor to BG I inheriting the overall design philosophy (unlike any of the TES games to their prequels) so it can't really be credited for sparking anything, especially given that it was massive incline over its predecessor.

That's rather farfetched. Baldur's Gate II had a closer design philosophy to Dragon Age: Origins than it did to the first Baldur's Gate. Each consecutive pair of The Elder Scrolls games (excluding perhaps Arena) share closer design philsophies than between the two Baldur's Gate games, in my view. I mean, Baldur's Gate II and Dragon Age: Origins are both story and character focused RPGs with both being streamlined in terms of locations. Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, is almost an open world low level AD&D adventure with characters who don't speak, no romances and a story that you stumble across rather than being the centre of.

Wait, what. Can you even read?

I'm saying both games had similar declining influence not that one influenced another, jesus fucking christ.

Jesus fucking Christ! You've missed the point entirely. Is Dragon Age II another ultimate example of decline? Of course it is. Is Baldur's Gate partly responsible for it? Of course it is. In fact, Baldur's Gate influencing later RPGs is one of the reasons why you believe it was fully part of the decline. But Daggerfall was an influence on Oblivion just as much as Baldur's Gate was on Dragon Age II. Perhaps even more so. So why isn't Daggerfall fully part of the decline of RPGs? It even came out a whole year before Fallout.

In other words, I don't see how you can blame Baldur's Gate for causing the shit we get these days without also blaming games like Daggerfall for influencing Oblivion and Fallout 3. You are right in saying that both Oblivion and Baldur's Gate had a declining influence, but you can't exclude games like Daggerfall, Ultima Underworld and Dungeon Master. In fact, even Ultima VII, as much as I adore the game. Just look at its shitty, idiot friendly combat, for example.

 

[Pony King]

BG II had quests like D'Arnise, Unseeing Eye, Shadow King and a few others of quality that pisses all over BG.

Why were these quests so fantastic again? It's admittedly some time since I last played a BG game (years, actually) but I remember these quests as simply more linear and boring quests in a long line of quests whose main attraction was the combat.

Unless of course that you find Nalia's useless banter to be thrilling and interesting.

 

[RPGMaster]

Dude needs a haircut.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

BG II had quests like D'Arnise, Unseeing Eye, Shadow King and a few others of quality that pisses all over BG.

Why were these quests so fantastic again? It's admittedly some time since I last played a BG game (years, actually) but I remember these quests as simply more linear and boring quests in a long line of quests whose main attraction was the combat.

Unless of course that you find Nalia's useless banter to be thrilling and interesting.

Yes, comparing to BG's kobold corridors, chicken and bring me the ring quests they totally don't shine.

Jesus fucking christ why I even bother replying to such posts

 

[MMXI]

Baldur's Gate II does have far better quests. Even I can admit that. Though the ones involving party members were pretty fucking gay.

 

[CorpseZeb]

In other words, I don't see how you can blame Baldur's Gate for causing the shit we get these days without also blaming games like Daggerfall for influencing Oblivion and Fallout 3. You are right in saying that both Oblivion and Baldur's Gate had a declining influence, but you can't exclude games like Daggerfall, Ultima Underworld and Dungeon Master. In fact, even Ultima VII, as much as I adore the game. Just look at its shitty, idiot friendly combat, for example.

Out of curiosity, after which games you find declining of crpg starts? And what you consider as zero ground, as a basic line upon we should calibrate arrow head of quality (dec/inc)? And how do you define “influence” - which factors you consider as important? Because I don't see any similarity between BG a DA2 or Daggerfall and Oblivion other then simple process of ongoing entertainmentization and customization to console hardware restriction. And, finally, do you really think, at dawn of console era, decent and complicated crpg have chance not to decline to pure entertainment area?

I don't fully understand, why in certain moment of time, game developers drops all past achievements and start something else from fresh – after fo1/fo2, after bg1, bg2, after M&M9 (or M&M8 because 9 was not finished), after DX – we have today games. Its like after diesel we discovered steam engine and proclaim a technical revolution. Its not about why old games are great, but why new games are not greater. Can't build greatness only on the past, one must goes beyond that. Who does that? Everybody just looks at great past... and copy that... in best case.

For me, main change of shift was done from authoring projects to team projects. From vision of one or few to team building game based on statistics, surveys, studies and so on. From one men responsibility for project to gray area of statistical trial and error. Its like writing book based on what readers want to read, while imagined “readers” are foggy clouds of... who knows what... good wishes at the best. You don't get Dostoyevsky in that way. Nor better Fallout.

Ok. I'm feeling better now.

 

[MMXI]

Out of curiosity, after which games you find declining of crpg starts? And what you consider as zero ground, as a basic line upon we should calibrate arrow head of quality (dec/inc)? And how do you define “influence” - which factors you consider as important? Because I don't see any similarity between BG a DA2 or Daggerfall and Oblivion other then simple process of ongoing entertainmentization and customization to console hardware restriction. And, finally, do you really think, at dawn of console era, decent and complicated crpg have chance not to decline to pure entertainment area?

I don't fully understand, why in certain moment of time, game developers drops all past achievements and start something else from fresh – after fo1/fo2, after bg1, bg2, after M&M9 (or M&M8 because 9 was not finished), after DX – we have today games. Its like after diesel we discovered steam engine and proclaim a technical revolution. Its not about why old games are great, but why new games are not greater. Can't build greatness only on the past, one must goes beyond that. Who does that? Everybody just looks at great past... and copy that... in best case.

For me, main change of shift was done from authoring projects to team projects. From vision of one or few to team building game based on statistics, surveys, studies and so on. From one men responsibility for project to gray area of statistical trial and error. Its like writing book based on what readers want to read, while imagined “readers” are foggy clouds of... who knows what... good wishes at the best. You don't get Dostoyevsky in that way. Nor better Fallout.

Ok. I'm feeling better now.

I don't like to pinpoint the start of the decline because in truth there wasn't one. The thing is, in the past, declined RPGs rarely caught on or claimed dominance in the genre. Take a look at Dungeon Master from 1987. By any definition it declined the first-person party-based dungeon crawler by being real-time. There were loads of Dungeon Master clones well into the mid 90s, but quality RPGs kept coming out well after Dungeon Master clones dried up. I mean, Fallout wasn't released until 1997, for example. Similarly, Ultima Underworld technically declined the genre even more by stripping away the party, but it went far enough to basically spawn a new genre which included the likes of System Shock and, ultimately, Deus Ex. Because it went far enough away from the traditional RPG we still received quality RPGs, like Fallout, five years later.

Then at some point, spurred on by the rising costs of video game development, developers closed their doors and the remaining ones switched to appealing to a larger market in order to compete... against each other. They did this by copying already declined (and commercially successful) games until they finally dominated the genre, killing of quality RPGs entirely. Bethesda and BioWare are two of the survivors. Daggerfall was watered down to create Morrowind, which was watered down to create Oblivion. But Daggerfall itself was basically like an Ultima Underworld type game which tried to merge back into the traditional side of the genre. Baldur's Gate was a success which ultimately led to Baldur's Gate II and the BioWare shit we get today. But Baldur's Gate could be seen as a combination of many past games such as Darklands (real-time with pause combat) and Pool of Radiance (AD&D). If the combat is indeed the main culprit for being called a game that started the decline then why wasn't Darklands considered a watered down RPG due to its combat? I guess it's because it did other things exceptionally well, which Baldur's Gate failed to do.

So in other words, there have been loads of games in the history of the genre that showcased shitty elements that could possibly have led to a decline. However, decent traditional RPGs were released right through these periods, right up until the point where most developers ceased to exist and traditional RPGs failed to grab markets large enough to allow for equivalent development costs as FPSs.

 

[Gord]

Out of curiosity, after which games you find declining of crpg starts? And what you consider as zero ground, as a basic line upon we should calibrate arrow head of quality (dec/inc)?

Don't expect any coherent and satisfying answer for that. Not from those that are yelling the loudest.

 

[Volourn]

"You should rerate the NWN OC so everything stays in proportion."

NWN OC is just as good as BG if not better. Better role-playing, better C&C, better character system, better quests, better combat, etc., etc.

 

[CorpseZeb]

MMXI - thank you for answer.

Well then, I see one question here – one may say semantical, I say ontological - is game described by definition of genre – or is genre described by game realization? And which was first? Game or definition? Paper RPG systems was first – mind a plural mode – and each one system was “correct” and “true”. I don't see any reasons why crpg system treat differently – each one is “correct” and “true” - in spite of non existence of true “TRUTH”. Its much like medieval dispute about universals. Without “base” or “ground” or “definition” one can't say much about “decline” or “incline”. We can of course, analyzing particular titles and comparing them and making a plenty accurate parallels – which you do - but always in borders of particularity – between titles – between A and B. And this is totally arbitrary. So, I'm so bitchy here not about core matter but more 'bout status.

 

[Pony King]

BG II had quests like D'Arnise, Unseeing Eye, Shadow King and a few others of quality that pisses all over BG.

Why were these quests so fantastic again? It's admittedly some time since I last played a BG game (years, actually) but I remember these quests as simply more linear and boring quests in a long line of quests whose main attraction was the combat.

Unless of course that you find Nalia's useless banter to be thrilling and interesting.

Yes, comparing to BG's kobold corridors, chicken and bring me the ring quests they totally don't shine.

Jesus fucking christ why I even bother replying to such posts

You replied so you could show your enormous wit by posting three retardo smilies in a row. Bravo.

What I don't understand is that you think that you're so obviously in the right that you don't need to explain why. Surely if it is so obvious it should be easily explainable, and you would waste less time than you did spamming smilies.

Here, I'll start:

The d'arnaise quest was about fighting snake-men in corridors so tiny that the pathfinding fucks up (strong flashback to BG1 here).
I remember two parts that could potentially be called puzzles: One was the flail which you were told about and had to fedex all over the castle. Was this interesting to you? The other was killing the dogs and luring the umberhulks away with it, this could have been somewhat cool if you weren't told to do it in conversation (IIRC) and as such not involving much thinking.

The unseeing eye quest I remember to be a lot of fighting boring fighting in sewers so tiny that the pathfinding fucks up. I don't remember much else so perhaps you will use you infinite intelligence to shine some light on how this quest was fun and interesting.

The shadow king thing was the one with Mazzy, right? Do we count the shadow dragon then? That was a fine fight. Unfortunately the rest of it was fighting shadows in corridors that weren't just linear but locked off until you found a thingy for each forcefield that you wanted to pass. I also remember puzzles that required you to memorize answers from some papers, thrilling!
Was it perhaps the letters-on-floor-and-find-correct-path-through-them puzzle that made this quest so superior?
I also remember pathfinding fucking up in the shadow-temple like in almost every other dungeon on the infinity engine.

So, to recap:
Area design that doesn't take engine limitations into account.
Fighting lots of samey monsters in a game with a less than stellar combat system.
Boring puzzles that require no creativity or thinking.

What gives? Am I forgetting something important or are our tastes simply so different that you will have to explain why you thought these quests to be vast improvement on BG1? Perhaps I'm forgetting something important that you can be so kind as to remind me about? No pressure.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Not the person you're looking for, but I guess I can white knight BG2 a bit.

The d'arnaise quest was about fighting snake-men in corridors so tiny that the pathfinding fucks up (strong flashback to BG1 here).
I remember two parts that could potentially be called puzzles: One was the flail which you were told about and had to fedex all over the castle. Was this interesting to you? The other was killing the dogs and luring the umberhulks away with it, this could have been somewhat cool if you weren't told to do it in conversation (IIRC) and as such not involving much thinking.

There's actually a bit more there as well. Figuring out a way of dealing with the golems, the fact you could charm the guard captain who was under con-troll (heh...), and the fact that trolls present a decent challenge for lower level parties make it a decent introductory quest for a dungeon crawling, hack and slash. I wouldn't count it as exemplary content when looking at BG2, but it certainly does a decent job of both educating new players as well as being entertaining enough. I would have liked more troll shamans and yuan-ti mages about, but what can you do?

The unseeing eye quest I remember to be a lot of fighting boring fighting in sewers so tiny that the pathfinding fucks up. I don't remember much else so perhaps you will use you infinite intelligence to shine some light on how this quest was fun and interesting.

Again, not exactly the best choice of example, but it does offer some decent content. You get to fight some fun undead encounters, and it serve as an introduction to Beholders as well. There are also two routes of dealing with the quest, one direct and one with a bit more subterfuge; nothing huge, but it does offer some "choice". And it has some unique encounters, like the gas chamber with the mists, the demon that needs to be killed with healing spells, and the Unseeing Eye itself.

The shadow king thing was the one with Mazzy, right? Do we count the shadow dragon then? That was a fine fight. Unfortunately the rest of it was fighting shadows in corridors that weren't just linear but locked off until you found a thingy for each forcefield that you wanted to pass. I also remember puzzles that required you to memorize answers from some papers, thrilling! Was it perhaps the letters-on-floor-and-find-correct-path-through-them puzzle that made this quest so superior?

I actually liked the puzzles in the Temple, especially the throwback to The Last Crusade (tho' it was kind of annoying seeing it come back again in DA:O; just like how the Darth Malak fight was Aec'Letec recycled...real lazy Bioware). Your mileage may vary of course...puzzles are a controversial topic in RPGs, even things adhering more towards the traditional dungeon crawl model. Some love puzzles, others hate them and would rather they be able to bypass them with high INT/WIS/PER/etc. characters.

Plus, the way the shadows spawned worked really well in the temple; it seemed like they would just come out of any patch of darkness, really giving you the incentive to keep moving or to stay in the light. One of my favorite moments is when you have to take the light gem out of the post in a room, the place goes dark, and then shadows spawn at a rapid rate. Kind of a cool little piece.

Throw in a couple of nice "boss" fights, and you have a well-crafted dungeon, at least by my appraisal.

Personally, if I had to point out content that represents the best of BG2, I'd put forth Brynnlaw, the Underdark, the Windspear Hills, the Sphere, and the previously mentioned temple.

 

[waywardOne]

i can't read this thread because 3 of the major participants are on ignore.

the codex would be much improved by banning the beating of horse corpses. every retard thinks his opinion is fresh and controversial. fuck you.

 

[DraQ]

I generally find multi-character turn-based RPGs more enjoyable to play than single character action RPGs. I would probably find Oblivion fun if it had turn-based combat in its first-person viewpoint. An enemy sees you and the game goes into turn-based mode like Wizardry 8 but with a single character.

And how exactly would it help? With single character TB is somewhat superfluous even without any detrimental factors. Here, you'd have detrimental factors - for example the trace amount of whatever is left of any sort of diversity in combat would vanish due to movement limitations. This would kill any remnants of playability agile characters making use of environment still enjoyed even in oblivious. With deterministic combat system and deterministic, utterly predictable AI, combat would boil down to repeating memorized sequences of actions till successful. Then to the next combat. Oh god. I think you've managed to invent something exponentially worse than oblivious itself... BRB, need to puke.

That way the game can expand on combat options by allowing you to target specific body parts as well as allowing you to select your attack type out of lunge, jab, slash, throw and parry.

Except you don't need TB for that when controlling single character. Bethshitda dropped even the humble beginnings of locational damage (RND+separate AR) featured in Morrowind because they didn't want to force their players to keep helmets on.

And it's not just that you don't gain extra control over the single character when going TB - you lose that control, because chopping the time into large discrete chunks prevents you from reacting quickly, and enforces other restrictions (like movement) due to non-simultaneous actions. Even if you go phase based, movement is going to be non-simultaneous if it's directly controlled and in a relatively complex 3D environment (not really, Morrowind would be a better example, but still sufficiently complex for the purpose of this discussion) you want to use direct control rather than entrusting pathfinding algorithm with hopping on that ledge over there.

tl;dr:

Other things equal, combat is generally made better the more player can influence it.
TB doesn't improve player's control in non-party game.
TB worsens player's control in a game designed around unrestricted movement in complex environment.

As Oblivion is pretty much classless, meaning that all characters have the potential to cast spells, the game could even become tactical with only a single character with enough thought.

Hahahaohwow.

Therefore...

Would it incline The Elder Scrolls for me and many other RPG players? I'd say so.

...no, not really.

TES games are built around exploration and immediate fine control (levitate there, jump on that), that is also part of the combat (or hostile encounters in general).

Making them TB would turdify them beyond all help, just like making Wiz 8 a single character, real time crawler would turdify it beyond all measure.

You can build a nice helicopter, you can build a nice submarine, but you can't build a nice hybrid of those two.

Of course, I'm ignoring the fact that, of all TES games oblivious is actually a complete shit without any modifications.

In other words, changing a game entirely to another sub-genre of RPG in order to remove the perceived flaws present in its original sub-genre is still a process of removing flaws.

What if you remove mechanical flaws from an RPG game by changing it into an action game and ditching RPG elements? Hey, flaws = gone so it's net incline, right?

The problems introduced with turn-based combat don't matter to me. I don't give a fuck about "immersion" or whatever faggots call it.

Except immersion is not really relevant here. TB has some immanent problems because it replaces finely grained time with time chopped up into large blocks, affecting pretty much entire mechanics. TB is tiling, except applied to time, rather than space and all tiling reduces resolution. Sometimes the tradeoff may be worth it - for example, it's better to directly control a party of 6-8 in TB than it is in RT (as BG happens to demonstrate), but sometimes it's just a pure loss.

Is being unable to play as a gorgeous young female elf in PS:T or Witcher a flaw? We all like to customize and build our characters, after all.

Is it? Not really, because being able to play a female elf in both PS:T and The Witcher would detract from other elements of the games.

PREFUCKINGCISELY.

It's not about whether being able to make a female elf character is a good thing or not, it's about how it meshes with all the other stuff.

It's like evolutionary adaptations - lugging around a bulky, lengthy digestive tract with state-of-the-art fermentation chambers and whatnot would be a massive hindrance to a wolf, but a deer can't really live without one.

Filler encounters? Yep. It had filler encounters. On the other hand, the filler encounters worked well with low level AD&D because at level one you get slaughtered by them, while at level three you blast through them with ease. It creates that sense of progression that all the old greats like Might & Magic had that is lost in today's RPGs thanks to things like level scaling. I have to admit, though, that Baldur's Gate had terrible respawns, especially in dungeons and in the Gnoll Stronghold.

Combat? I used to think that Baldur's Gate II had better combat but recently I've changed my mind completely. Thinking back to the great fights in Baldur's Gate II I've realised that they were basically giant games of rock-paper-scissors with protection spells and other buffs needing to be countered. They were fun, but that's because they were basically puzzles. And I like puzzles. Basically, the difference between the most optimal solution for a single encounter and standard battle tactics was so huge that the game relied heavily on trial and error in order to discover just how to easily win fights. Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, was far more traditional in that it tended to be you versus the enemies, with tactics heavily involving the statistics, classes and equipment of each party member rather than the order of protection stripping spells needed to take down the enemy mage's protections. In other words, Baldur's Gate was more about the roles each party member plays in combat rather than solving a puzzle by trial and error.

Really? Because I had strong impression that BG combat was all about giving everyone a secondary ranged weapon, scouting ahead, then preemptively bombarding area offscreen with AOE spells.

The game also seems more focused around storylines, quests and interesting locations, which is a good thing, because the prequel failed to be either a good narrative driven experience or a good free roaming one.

I want less of a focus on the storyline in my RPGs, thank you. Much less. RPGs being bogged down by the story is one reason why all modern RPGs are completely mechanically uninteresting. Not that Baldur's Gate was mechanically any different than Baldur's Gate II or anything.

Me too, but I will pick a good storyfag ride over extremely ill thought out sandbox 10 out of 10 times.

That's rather farfetched. Baldur's Gate II had a closer design philosophy to Dragon Age: Origins than it did to the first Baldur's Gate. Each consecutive pair of The Elder Scrolls games (excluding perhaps Arena) share closer design philsophies than between the two Baldur's Gate games, in my view.

Really? Huge, procedural generated sandbox concentrated on background mechanics to small, handcrafted sandbox concentrating on worldbuilding, to small procedural turd concentrating on turd, bloom and turd scaling are somehow lesser changes than from unfocused generic D&D storyfag romp to slightly more focused, less generic D&D storyfag romp? Elucidate.

I mean, Baldur's Gate II and Dragon Age: Origins are both story and character focused RPGs with both being streamlined in terms of locations. Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, is almost an open world low level AD&D adventure with characters who don't speak, no romances and a story that you stumble across rather than being the centre of.

Except characters did speak and did have some goals in BG1. They reacted to other characters and party's actions and that's actually one of the few positive things about BG1. So I guess expanding it was a good decision, because wandering aimlessly around copypasta forests certainly didn't do it for me.
If I want a sandbox RPG, I fire up Morrowind or Daggerfall.

Jesus fucking Christ! You've missed the point entirely. Is Dragon Age II another ultimate example of decline? Of course it is. Is Baldur's Gate partly responsible for it? Of course it is. In fact, Baldur's Gate influencing later RPGs is one of the reasons why you believe it was fully part of the decline. But Daggerfall was an influence on Oblivion just as much as Baldur's Gate was on Dragon Age II. Perhaps even more so. So why isn't Daggerfall fully part of the decline of RPGs? It even came out a whole year before Fallout.

Because Daggerfall is actually good or, at least, ambitious.

Ambitious games don't decline the genre, because they don't lower the standards.
Plus, Daggerfall didn't popularize control scheme where the player is using RTS interface in futile attempt to herd a bunch of suicidal lemmings - that also counts.

In other words, I don't see how you can blame Baldur's Gate for causing the shit we get these days without also blaming games like Daggerfall for influencing Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Except most stuff oblivion actually shares with Daggerfall isn't bad (save for scaling). It's at worst neutral. I like RPGs, I like FPSes and if you successfully graft RPG-like mechanics, world and possibilities onto an FPS engine - all the better. It's when you start inexplicably derping one or both elements that the problems start.

Now, bland, generic setting, on the other hand can't really be anything but bland, and control scheme completely unsuitable for the task at hand can't help being inadequate.

And I wouldn't consider Morrowind to be 'just' simplified Daggerfall. Sure, background mechanics, scale and similar stuff took inexcusable hit, same with chargen and enchanting, but stuff like combat mechanics was refined (barring the control scheme and effects of speed, Morrowind had the best combat of the series, as funny as it may sound), presentation was unified with the mechanics, mechanics was unified for all characters, spell system was ultimately expanded (though not without loses), same with weapon selection, plus the game picked up some really good lore. Changing the world from large procedural sandbox with delightfully convoluted, but ultimately pointless dungeons, to something tighter, but hand-crafted and sprinkled with little details and hidden stuff also wasn't a clear decline or incline, but rather a sidestep.

Which game do you like more is up to personal preference, but seeing merely a simplified Daggerfall in Morrowind is gross oversimplification.

 

[MMXI]

First, please do excuse me for not quoting each line individually. The reason why I won't bother is because the argument seems to boil down to the fact that I find all the supposed benefits that real-time introduces to not be benefits at all.

You may see the introduction of turn-based combat to The Elder Scrolls as being detrimental to the real-time nature of the games. Of course it is! And that's my point. I don't particularly like real-time games at all and thus the less my own agility and reflexes are tested the better. Removing all possible player skill from fundamental actions performed by the character is a big plus in my book, even in a game that sits within a sub-genre that emphasises the merger of player skill and character skill (the action RPG). It's purely a matter of taste.

In fact, you said it all near the bottom of your post:

I like RPGs, I like FPSes and if you successfully graft RPG-like mechanics, world and possibilities onto an FPS engine - all the better. It's when you start inexplicably derping one or both elements that the problems start.

That's your stance and I'm fine with it. I don't like FPSs at all and tend to stick with turn-based games almost exclusively. In other words, I find that real-time is almost always detrimental to my enjoyment of a game. That's all there is to it.

So given that, what started the decline from my point of view if I felt the need to pinpoint a single game? I don't know. Probably something in the long line of games that led to Oblivion and Fallout 3. Baldur's Gate had real-time combat but I'm far more comfortable with pausing and issuing orders than I am with swinging a sword in real-time. I'm also far more of a fan of party combat than I am of single character combat. From my point of view Daggerfall would be a far more likelier culprit than Baldur's Gate. How about Baldur's Gate II, though? They both led to things I hate about modern RPGs. Baldur's Gate II led to shitty BioWarian romances and characters while Daggerfall led to more Bethesda games.

Oh, by the way, I actually like Daggerfall and quite like Morrowind, just to clear that up. Similarly, I actually quite enjoy Baldur's Gate II. I hope this confuses you.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

You seem to (accidentally, I'm sure) forget that I've specifically stated that average quality of quests in BG2 pisses all over BG, not that they (or the game as a whole) shine particularly brightly on their own. So by stating all the awesome quests from BG you almost got me convinced to your point of view, almost.

Also if you want me to write a cool stories about why I enjoyed a specific quest (I can also add sphere, watcher's keep and a few more to that list) then keep on waiting I guess. The length, variety, different fights with different enemies, phat loot etc. should be enough to anyone who doesn't cling to subjective stuff like mood and presence/lack of romances. And before you get a sudden influx of genius - yes, BG2 also has some "bring me teh generic item for 6000 exp" quests and yes - they're as shitty as in BG.

Also writing things like "fighting samey enemies" when defending BG against its sequel should probably earn you a few more retarded smileys, but I excuse you because there's clearly nothing better you could come up with.

Keep fighting the good fight

 

[Zed]

BGII is the best game ever made.

 

[Xor]

Bullshit.