Disco-Like We are reaching Disco-like saturation

[Desman]

I loved Torment but the second part of the game (once you leave Sigil) is full of trashmob encounters that you can't really escape if it's your first playthrough. If you want to make a point, Torment would have been better WITHOUT those shitty fights.

That content was trash, but having a combat system in a role-playing game is good.

Sure but no combat is better than shit combat.

 

[JarlFrank]

Disco Elysium was originally intended to have combat, combat was eventually not included, probably for the better, because it didn't fit the story. Just like you wouldn't expect shootouts from a Colombo episode. DE-clones just deciding up front to never have any combat whatsoever as some kind of unfounded core design principle is just retarded cargo cult behavior. Technically even in Disco Elysium there's one part where you can in fact solve a problem by combat.

This is how it goes with every popular game.

Some developer makes an innovative new game (whether you like it or not, Disco is innovative in that it did something different). The game becomes popular.
Other wannabe developers notice this new game's popularity and decide to hop on the bandwagon. Gotta ride the coattails of its success and milk some money out of it, too!
Being inspired entirely by an existing success and wanting to copy it, they fail to include any original ideas and instead simply copy the successful game as closely as possible.

And then, suddenly, all of the clones that pop up have the same features even though it would make sense for them to do things a little differently. Why? Because the copycat devs don't put a single shred of thought into the whys of the original game's design decisions. They just blindly copy everything.

Disco-likes aren't the only case of this.
We also have Dungeon Master likes and in modern times Grimlock likes - they all use the step-dance real time combat even though turn based works better for most blobbers. But it's what the most popular games in the genre do, so let's copy it!
Then there's the entire soulslike genre. I like Dark Souls, it's a genuinely great game, but most of its clones are pure cargo cult copies that blindly copypaste everything: dodge roll! loss of XP on death! bonfires! boss fights! vague storytelling! It's like the devs have a checklist of features and design approaches they need to tick off to make sure their game is similar enough to Dark Souls.

For every good and successful game that is made, there will be a flood of blind copycats. This always happens. No exceptions.

 

[Serus]

Now that Weather Machine (the devs behind Cultist Simulator) threw their hat into the ring, along with the five million offshoots of ZA/UM, not to mention the literal billions of tiny indie versions, we have to finally admit that we are about to reach complete global saturation of the disco-like genre and the market is not big enough to support all of these.

I'm considering making one as a joke, just like I did when I was drunk and I made a BG3 porn parody.

I have the technology.

I'm afraid to ask what is the technology to make anything with "porn" in its name or description. Drunk. No, don't tell me.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I'm considering making one as a joke, just like I did when I was drunk and I made a BG3 porn parody.

I have the technology.

I'm afraid to ask what is the technology to make anything with "porn" in its name or description. Drunk. No, don't tell me.

Motion capture

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The hate that DE gets for not having combat isn't completely warranted. Planescape: Torment allowed you to skip or bypass all combat encounters besides ~4 mandatory encounters.

That said, removing combat entirely is gonna alien players who like it. I'm sure you could've added a Pokémon-esque combat minigame for those who wanted it.

You're conveniently ignoring that Disco Elysium isn't bashed for being some modern day Sanitarium ersatz. It's bashed for being overtly, intrusively politicised by default, according to the developers' conviction. The game's entire gimmick is larping your fav brand of politics-induced schizophrenia. People like myself also are irked by its smudgy post-art art. The few Disco-bashing enjoyers who are in the know are also personally offended by the way the dev team was gathered, how it raised money, how it worked, and how it's effectively disbanded since.

I never played DE so I thought this convo was just about the combat. I wasn’t trying to offend.

Thanks for letting me know how horrible it is actually is. Definitely never gonna play that.

The hate that DE gets for not having combat isn't completely warranted. Planescape: Torment allowed you to skip or bypass all combat encounters besides ~4 mandatory encounters.

Being able to skip combat isn't quite the same thing as not having combat, though. If it exists, so does the possibility that you will fail to resolve the encounter through dialogue and have to resort to combat. And its presence means that you have the choice to just fight whoever you could be talking to, should you feel like it. There's a difference between allowing the player to potentially avoid most (or even all) combat, and outright not having combat. I would argue that it makes a rather significant difference when it comes to how the game is played, especially if it's a role playing game.

I just said that. Read the second paragraph where I said “you could’ve added a combat minigame for those who wanted it”.

 

[Tyranicon]

Don't you have better things to do anyway? We all waiting for your cyberpunk game.

I'm upgrading my shitposts into shitgames now.

But yeah no, I'm really happy I moved my text box from the right-hand Disco-style orientation because it's a really shitty way to read text. I tried it for one short game and ended up hating it. Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Centralized text boxes are better.

 

[Fargus]

Don't you have better things to do anyway? We all waiting for your cyberpunk game.

I'm upgrading my shitposts into shitgames now.

But yeah no, I'm really happy I moved my text box from the right-hand Disco-style orientation because it's a really shitty way to read text. I tried it for one short game and ended up hating it. Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Centralized text boxes are better.

Yep, as they say don't invent the wheel again or fix what's isn't broken.

 

[JarlFrank]

Don't you have better things to do anyway? We all waiting for your cyberpunk game.

I'm upgrading my shitposts into shitgames now.

But yeah no, I'm really happy I moved my text box from the right-hand Disco-style orientation because it's a really shitty way to read text. I tried it for one short game and ended up hating it. Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Centralized text boxes are better.

Apparently the right side text box works better for people who browse the internet on a phone all day because it has the same aspect ratio as a phone.

 

[Skinwalker]

I don't even know what Disco Hitlerium is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

 

[Fargus]

I don't even know what Disco Hitlerium is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

bunch of champagne commies made a murder mystery visual novel

 

[Skinwalker]

Doesn't sound like it should be discussed in the RPG forums of the Codex, then.

 

[Fedora Master]

Oh and Cultist Simulator was pretentious badly executed bullshit.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I too am frustrated with all the bad games. I would love to write my own, but I had to get a degree for a real job and couldn’t pursue my dream of game design.

 

[Sweeper]

DE was a mistake, but we knew this.

Ahhhhhh, it's the sign tapping time again.

Who's this we you speak of?

 

[Cryomancer]

Some people say that DE is not a RPG. IMO is not even a game.... IS just a visual novel.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Disco Elysium was originally intended to have combat, combat was eventually not included, probably for the better, because it didn't fit the story. Just like you wouldn't expect shootouts from a Colombo episode. DE-clones just deciding up front to never have any combat whatsoever as some kind of unfounded core design principle is just retarded cargo cult behavior. Technically even in Disco Elysium there's one part where you can in fact solve a problem by combat.

Punching Tyrone ranting about haplogroups you mean? First thing I did.

 

[Beastro]

DE was a mistake, but we knew this.

Ahhhhhh, it's the sign tapping time again.

Who's this we you speak of?

Looking at the rest of those names, I can see why it did so well that year.

Tbh, nothing should have won Codex GotY that year.

 

[Beastro]

Disco Elysium was originally intended to have combat, combat was eventually not included, probably for the better, because it didn't fit the story. Just like you wouldn't expect shootouts from a Colombo episode. DE-clones just deciding up front to never have any combat whatsoever as some kind of unfounded core design principle is just retarded cargo cult behavior. Technically even in Disco Elysium there's one part where you can in fact solve a problem by combat.

Punching Tyrone ranting about haplogroups you mean? First thing I did.

Wow, I didn't know Humanophage was in DE.

 

[Daemongar]

Don't you have better things to do anyway? We all waiting for your cyberpunk game.

I'm upgrading my shitposts into shitgames now.

But yeah no, I'm really happy I moved my text box from the right-hand Disco-style orientation because it's a really shitty way to read text. I tried it for one short game and ended up hating it. Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Centralized text boxes are better.

The right hand text master race would like a word with you.

 

[Fedora Master]

DE was a mistake, but we knew this.

Ahhhhhh, it's the sign tapping time again.

Who's this we you speak of?

Not my president GOTY
I didn't vote for DE

 

[Harthwain]

But yeah no, I'm really happy I moved my text box from the right-hand Disco-style orientation because it's a really shitty way to read text. I tried it for one short game and ended up hating it. Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Centralized text boxes are better.

My guess is the reasons for it are twofold:

1) When text is centralized you have effectively less space to use before you start obscuring characters who are talking and so text is also smaller as a result. You really don't want that in a game with a lot of text.

2) Text box is located on the right side, because majority of the people are right-handed and that's where they turn their eyes to first.

 

[buffalo bill]

I can imagine a good RPG that has no combat, like a talky playthrough of Age of Decadence or of Fallout (of course, I prefer games with good combat systems, but it doesn't seem strictly necessary). Imo the core problem with DE isn't the lack of a combat system, it's that the game is almost completely linear (despite superficial non-linearity) and offers no challenge whatsoever (despite superficial challenge in the form of completely illusory time pressure).

 

[ropetight]

But yeah no, I'm really happy I moved my text box from the right-hand Disco-style orientation because it's a really shitty way to read text. I tried it for one short game and ended up hating it. Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Centralized text boxes are better.

My guess is the reasons for it are twofold:

1) When text is centralized you have effectively less space to use before you start obscuring characters who are talking and so text is also smaller as a result. You really don't want that in a game with a lot of text.

2) Text box is located on the right side, because majority of the people are right-handed and that's where they turn their eyes to first.

I agree with the first point; second point is where problems arise for DE, as it should be actually opposite for text-based game made for western countries that are reading from the left to the right.

When you design application organized in two columns, content(most important part) is on the left/center, given the most important place of the screen, and rest of tools and info are moved to the right or edges of the screen.
Lots of classic games have this organization of the screen, like HoMM3, Ultima and it works.
App layouts all changed with mobile phones and catering to RTL reading part of world, but that is it in the nutshell.

DE, by how it presents its information, should be more alike to the VN or Text Adventures (Interactive Fiction, as they are rechristened later) with text at the lower part of the screen, with graphics above - or even in the style of the subtitles, with transparent background.
This layout could work, if DE text isn't self-important, unredacted verbal diarrhea that goes on, and on, and on; and there are 4-6 choices based on your senses.
Text box would take half of the screen if you put it on the bottom, so ZA/UM put it on the right.

This results in player spending most of the time reading on the smaller, right side of the screen, while characters loop their talk/idle animations on the most important part of the screen.
Eccentric painting-style graphics are just a nuisance; you try not to get distracted by it from reading and understanding text and plot of the game.
This is unnatural, and you feel growing irritation after a while.

TL;DR - DE is flawed from the core in the way it presents its gameplay and content - which is also flawed by not removing extraneous parts in pure fucking hubris.
Every game that follows DE design anti-pattern will have none of novelty that made it successful and all the audience repelling faults.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Disco-likes aren't the only case of this.
We also have Dungeon Master likes and in modern times Grimlock likes - they all use the step-dance real time combat even though turn based works better for most blobbers. But it's what the most popular games in the genre do, so let's copy it!
Then there's the entire soulslike genre. I like Dark Souls, it's a genuinely great game, but most of its clones are pure cargo cult copies that blindly copypaste everything: dodge roll! loss of XP on death! bonfires! boss fights! vague storytelling! It's like the devs have a checklist of features and design approaches they need to tick off to make sure their game is similar enough to Dark Souls.

For every good and successful game that is made, there will be a flood of blind copycats. This always happens. No exceptions.

Nearly every CRPG subgenre exists because the popularity of one game resulted in its imitation by other developers, who identified and copied certain fundamental aspects that define the subgenre; this is generally true of subgenres in other videogame genres and also of the CRPG genre itself, which is the result of developers imitating Dungeons & Dragons.

In the specific case of Dungeon Master, bringing Wizardry-likes into real-time enhanced exploration at the expense of combat (with the "step-dance"); returning to turn-based combat would revert the subgenre back to Wizardry-likes, and either way developers would be working in a subgenre established by a single game.

It is not a bad thing that Rogue-likes, Wizardy-likes, Ultima-likes, Dungeon Master-likes, Underworld-likes, Morrowind-likes, and Souls-likes exist. Although many developers will simplistically mimic the subgenre progenitor, others will alter the initial template in various ways, providing gamers with variety, and some in doing so will establish new subgenres, as Dungeon Master emerged from Wizardry-likes, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss from Dungeon Master-likes, and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind from Underworld-likes.

 

[JarlFrank]

It is not a bad thing that Rogue-likes, Wizardy-likes, Ultima-likes, Dungeon Master-likes, Underworld-likes, Morrowind-likes, and Souls-likes exist.

Fully agreed that it's good these sub-genres exist... except Roguelikes, fuck those and their vile touch of proc gen