Why end 80s/earlier 90s JRPG's so different than modern ones?

[Nutmeg]

Are about winning and maximizing numbers, so forcing the player to deal with consequences for his actions, like losing honor after pillaging a village on M&B is just illusions of choices and making everyone eqqual. Now, if M&B forced you to follow a specific path with specific instructions, now we have a game that respects the player agency and who has emergent gameplay /sarcasm.

It doesn't sound like you're talking to me any more. You seem to be putting words in my mouth and bringing up things that weren't part of the conversation and I'm not sure how they follow.

M&B has no ending IIRC. You're given a score on retirement, so I guess the goal is to get as high a score as possible before retiring. But it doesn't make sense cause you can indefinitely increase your score at 0 risk. So, you can't play for the clear, and playing it for score is broken, so all you're left with is "winning is whatever you make it to be!" or playing it for the LARP, which is what most people do, and from the sounds of it, what you do. As stated before, I'm not super interested in either.

As for emergent gameplay, even simple games have emergent gameplay. I've argued before that as soon as a game is real-time, then it has emergent gameplay because humans aren't robots that can input the exact same inputs at the exact same timings every run so every run will give you variations on the challenges. This is what makes arcade games so fun.

But this isn't what Western RPG players call emergent gameplay. What Western RPG players call emergent gameplay is usually "haha there's so many inefficient ways to overcome this challenge, in addition to the one clear most efficient way, how fun!" or simply a euphemism for "broken".

 

[Cryomancer]

You're given a score on retirement, so I guess the goal is to get as high a score as possible before retiring.

No, your goal is to do wathever you like. If you wanna play as a Hussar for eg, you can. If you wanna play as a Viking mercenary, as a Calif or even a Sultan, as a mercenary, as a raider, as a bandit, as a slaver, you do whatever you wanna and the world react to you.

"haha there's so many inefficient ways to overcome this challenge, in addition to the one clear most efficient way, how fun!" or simply a euphemism for "broken".

Nope. Siding with vampires or thieves is the same thing on BG2?

The comparison many times is more Apples to Oranges and not Apples to Apples. For eg, what is the most efficient way to become a king on M&B. That depends. If "most efficient" = fastest. If "most efficient = safest". If "most efficient = cheapest. If "most efficient" = With more economic gain and honestly, after the player has enough money, enough and etc. For eg, the fastest is clearly by launching a siege in a large town and taking it. But even if you could siege and take a large town alone, everyone will hate someone holding lands without a "right to rule" and maintaining the city will not be easy. The "safest" is by slowly building relationships with many NPC's. If is taking the richest city then is complicated cuz "richer" cities often has way more protection and unless you are playing a high fantasy mod as a necromancer, food and wages will cripple you if you don't have a high steady way to obtain income. Even if you manage to capture a huge town and put a lot of Rhodok sharpshooter which has a siege corssbow capable of 2HKilling the enemy in the heaviest armor, they can make impossible for you to move your city and the lack of trade and constantly caravan raiding will make your city less and less prosperous.

Doesn't matter which path you take, there are no "best" way to establish a kingdom and it is not a "game objective", is a thing that the player can do.

People do low STR/ low INT runs on Fallout 1/2 because it is FUN!!! Optimal or not. RPG's aren't just "arbitrary challenges". In fact, this mindset is what is ruining RPG's.

 

[Black]

I just picked BG2 because it's beloved on the Codex

Truly Codex's greatest folly.

 

[Nutmeg]

No, your goal is to do wathever you like

This is a bad thing IMO.

Earlier you agreed with me that everything being equal in games makes things meaningless. You complained about cult of balance. On this we 100% agree.

But do you not understand that games that ultimately say nothing about what a player chooses to do makes every player choice equal in the eyes of the game?

You hold two contradictory views.

It's fine to like toy boxes / second realities / virtual worlds like Mount and Blade. I don't care for them, but if that's what you like great, good for you.

But what you can't do is say you dislike equality in games while at the same time liking it. It makes no sense.

It's like if you said it's good moves in chess lead to different consequences but ultimately the result of the game is up to the players. That wouldn't make sense. Oh I moved my rook and got checkmated, but you see I was actually playing with the goal of moving my rook as many times as possible in 6 turns. I set my own goals. Fun!!!

It's just crazy.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Why are there WRPG trannies in this sub-forum? Get out of here and go to your manly "woman".