Jagged Alliance The RPG genre is weak. Very weak. Probably the weakest traditional genre in gaming

[onemananadhisdroid]

The weakest of all is actually traditional adventure games, in big parts because it has no core gameplay loop proper to fall back upon should the writing and world building and storytelling department fail (looting, driving your car, blasting demons from hell/Nazi soldiers). A traditional adventure game is really a barebones puzzle skeleton with no much to dress it up. That's both a strength and a weakness depending on the game. If everything goes well, you've got a Grim Fandango. For every Grim Fandango though there had been a hundred Mystery Of The Druids.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Gameplay shortcuts and AI cheesing doesn't really ruin a game. You could get through all of dark sun spamming mass possess, but most people still love it.

It doesn't matter at all since the question is not: "it the game still playable" it's "is the game an unaproachable masterpiece, far beyond anything else in the genre

Fact is, there is much about JA2 that has never been topped by any game, and there is no tactical game that has managed to avoid "Grinding" quite like JA2 has by the teacher/student system. I could go in more depth, but Lilura is the true JA2 expert.

Shadowrun games managed to completely eliminate grinding just by not letting you grind, Fire Emblem just limits the number of random battles. How was grinding ever a problem in tactical games?

Then how is your way of fixing this? What does this exactly have to do with the mechanics of JA2 that Lilura praises too? So not only is it an aside, the actual problem you have with it would make JA2 a different game. Should the Arulcan forces stay in place dragging out the fight, thus pissing off many players? Sure, it's a compromise in "realism", but making the compromise for a better playing game is a decision developers have to make.

It's the devs problem, not ours. There are plenty of games where using one braindead strategy over and over again won't work.

 

[Lilura]

I could go in more depth, but Lilura is the true JA2 expert.

I wouldn't bother engaging with the garbage trying to slander JA2. They haven't played the game, anyway.

The resistance to JA2 is based wholly on envy: it just makes every other RPG look like the work of rank amateurs.

 

[Luckmann]

We don't call a game non-rpg because it hasn't combat. We call a game non-rpg because its gameplay has pretty much nothing to do with the gameplay of Dungeons & Dragons and all other RPGs it has spawned.

Deus Ex is a far better RPG than Baldur's Gate.

Being a better game doesn't make it an RPG.

 

[Häyhä]

Deus Ex is not a CRPG, neither is Jagged Alliance 2.

 

[zaper]

I was going to say something along the lines of "I can't believe you guys waste your time answering an obvious troll thread" but then I realized the author might actually have a point: people are willing to engage in those pointless discussions because they have no good RPGs to play

 

[CryptRat]

I like RPGs.

 

[Mortmal]

I was going to say something along the lines of "I can't believe you guys waste your time answering an obvious troll thread" but then I realized the author might actually have a point: people are willing to engage in those pointless discussions because they have no good RPGs to play

So true and its not the devs lurking on the dex who will change that...

 

[zaper]

I was going to say something along the lines of "I can't believe you guys waste your time answering an obvious troll thread" but then I realized the author might actually have a point: people are willing to engage in those pointless discussions because they have no good RPGs to play

So true and its not the devs lurking on the dex who will change that...

I've been staring at the screen for ten minutes and I still don't have an answer to that

 

[Jvegi]

It's not a troll thread. The op has a point, she just picked wrong games.

There are only three RPGs that can reasonably be put into a top 10 all-time GAMES list without being laughed, booed and egged off-stage. They are:

* Arcanum
* Kotor 2
* Gothic 2 NotR

These three immortal masterpieces approach perfection even though they are tremendously ambitious.

FTFY. The thread can end because it's now unarguable.

 

[Dramart]

Morrowind can never be "RPGs"

Why not? It has character creation, stats, skills, spells, you gain levels, a lot of npc with shit conversations, and also a real time clunky combat.

I loathe Bethesda games

But you said RPG are good because combat and exploration, Skyrim has one of the best world to explore in gaming. Combat is okay, you can't compare it to Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma but still is acceptable, it's not worse than Deus Ex or VtMB.

 

[Jason Liang]

Thirteen pages already? We should rename this forum to Lilura General. Or fuck, rebrand this website to LiluraCodex.

 

[Jasede]

 

[Jason Liang]

Always has been.

There are only three RPGs that can reasonably be put into a top 10 all-time GAMES list without being laughed, booed and egged off-stage. They are:

* Jagged Alliance 2
* Fallout
* Deus Ex

Why do people always forget World of Warcraft, only one of the most commercially and culturally successful computer games ever published?

There are no rpgs in the top ten all-time GAMES list, LOL. There are no rpgs in the top ten all-time COMPUTER GAMES list, or even any computer games in the top ten all-time GAMES list.

 

[Jason Liang]

so whats the top 10 games of all genres ever? someone for sure make a top list for that already -link please.

JA2, Doom, ...some strategy like what (x-com) ?... other?

1. Netrunner/ Android Netrunner
2. Bridge
3. Truth or Dare
4. Tigris and Euphrates
5. Spin the Bottle/ Twister
6. Modern Art
7. Basketball
8. Egyptian Ratscrew
9. Medici
10. Twenty Questions
11. Texas Holdem Poker
12. Concordia

EDIT: Fixed

 

[Thac0]

I was going to say something along the lines of "I can't believe you guys waste your time answering an obvious troll thread" but then I realized the author might actually have a point: people are willing to engage in those pointless discussions because they have no good RPGs to play

Summerhole + Corona do be hitting different. Can't even remember the last big western rpg release.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What if rpg the weakest genre not because it's shit, but because it is actually a subgenre, like dating sims and flight sims being subgenre of simulation or first-person shooter and third person shooter are subgenres of shooter.

JA2 - strategy with rpg elements
Deus Ex- shooter with rpg elements (extra subgenre: first person shooter)
Fallout - adventure with rpg elements

 

[Jason Liang]

The problem with nearly every computer rpg is that they are single player, solitaire experiences, which end up being either some form of masturbatory or voyeuristic pleasure, at best. When the best games of all time are always communal, whether competitively or co-operatively.

 

[JarlFrank]

If I had to choose between JA2 existing or clear genre boundaries, I would choose JA2 every time.

You can have both, as JA2 neatly fits within clear RPG boundaries. The only consistent argument against it has always been "but but its combat doesn't suck, how could it be an RPG?"

For some unfathomable reason, an RPG suddenly stops being an RPG if your party size exceeds a certain arbitrary number.

4 characters? RPG. 6 characters? RPG. 8 characters? Yeah that's still an RPG. 10 characters? Now we're stretching it but it still qualifies. Anything more than 10? LOLNO now it's a strategy or tactics game LMAO.

That's literally the argument some people used here. JA2 has RPG-style characters and stats, but you control too many at once!
Battle Brothers would be a roguelike-ish RPG but you have up to 16 mercs in your party instead of just 6 or 8 so it's not!
They're not RPGs (even though their rulesets are pure fucking RPG and if your party size were smaller, nobody would even remotely doubt their RPG credentials), they're strategy games!!

Imagine inviting a few too many people to your D&D session. You all thought you were going to play an RPG, but it suddenly turned into a wargame. Oops.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

so whats the top 10 games of all genres ever? someone for sure make a top list for that already -link please.

JA2, Doom, ...some strategy like what (x-com) ?... other?

1. Netrunner/ Android Netrunner
2. Bridge
3. Truth or Dare
4. Tigris and Euphrates
5. Spin the Bottle/ Twister
6. Modern Art
7. Basketball
8. Egyptian Ratscrew
9. Medici
10. Twenty Questions
11. Texas Holdem Poker
12. Concordia

EDIT: Fixed

Why is Truth or Dare higher than Tigris and Euphrates?

 

[Jason Liang]

so whats the top 10 games of all genres ever? someone for sure make a top list for that already -link please.

JA2, Doom, ...some strategy like what (x-com) ?... other?

1. Netrunner/ Android Netrunner
2. Bridge
3. Truth or Dare
4. Tigris and Euphrates
5. Spin the Bottle/ Twister
6. Modern Art
7. Basketball
8. Egyptian Ratscrew
9. Medici
10. Twenty Questions
11. Texas Holdem Poker
12. Concordia

EDIT: Fixed

Why is Truth or Dare higher than Tigris and Euphrates?

Because women are horrible at Tigris and Euphrates, so I had to dock it down for not being a game men and women can play together. This keeps Tigris and Eufrats from near perfection. Like women can learn to play and enjoy Modern Art and Medici.

 

[Butter]

Imagine inviting a few too many people to your D&D session. You all thought you were going to play an RPG, but it suddenly turned into a wargame. Oops.

Many such cases!

 

[DalekFlay]

The weakest of all is actually traditional adventure games, in big parts because it has no core gameplay loop proper to fall back upon should the writing and world building and storytelling department fail (looting, driving your car, blasting demons from hell/Nazi soldiers). A traditional adventure game is really a barebones puzzle skeleton with no much to dress it up. That's both a strength and a weakness depending on the game. If everything goes well, you've got a Grim Fandango. For every Grim Fandango though there had been a hundred Mystery Of The Druids.

It's pretty telling that some 90s adventure games are among my favorite games of all time and yet I barely ever touch the genre now.

 

[Eisen]

Deus Ex is an RPG

 

[Dramart]

Games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Vandal Hearts, Langrisser, are called tactical RPG, JA2 it seems to fit in that category for what I've seen. Lot of characters you have to move them on a map, they level up, you can equip them weapons, armors.