Decline Worst travesties in the genre?

[luj1]

A relatively late entrant but I think Underworld Ascendant could still beat all those other titles without breaking a sweat.

Sure, you'll get no arguments from me that UA is anything but a crock of shit, however bear in mind that: 1) it's too recent, everything was shit already, 2) it has 0 influence on anything, and 3) years in advance the disaster was predicted in full, causing no disappointment, no mystery and no surprise to anyone (except Infinitron).

 

[Harry Easter]

Fans.

 

[Rahdulan]

Not joking about them falling from the ceiling btw:

Lest we forget about so-called levels in DA2 as well. There's cutting corners and then there's obstructing passageways with boulders, removing said boulders and pretending it's a brand new cave altogether. Interior designs were also questionable.

 

[luj1]

the Piranha Bytes game - I will never stop being amazed at the ability of those folks to keep selling the same game for two and a half decades.

Not a huge fan of their games but this thread is not for mediocrities or anything like that, it's for genre-shifting abominations

 

[Akratus]

I'm not much of a technical person. I don't quickly mind balance issues or a lack of features or design elements. Most important to me is art design, originality, atmosphere etc. That's what makes games boring or not, mostly. Therefore I hate most of all games that feel generic. Oblivion and Dragon Age Origins therefore are the worst offenders in my book.

 

[Somberlain]

1. Planescape: Torment
2. Fallout 1
3. Fallout 2
4. Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn
5. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
6. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
7. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
8. Fallout: New Vegas
9. Gothic 2
10. Wizardry 8

 

[ADL]

Todd Howard as a game director. I think he fundamentally opposes what OG fans of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series want out of new installments out of new games in those series'. He's basically a shitty dungeon master in a tabletop game. Everything he creates is incredibly limited and linear and outside of very basic approaches to a given situation, there's only a small handful of solutions to anything we get in his games.

Not to mention his view on sequels. He's said some line about not wanting sequels to be "*insert previous game* but more" to the point where I believe it. When Morrowind came out as a Daggerfall fan, I saw it as an acceptable downgrade given their financial situation and the significant downsizing they gave the game. I thought they'd expand on it, not dumb it down even more.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

This is a prime participation award thread if i ever saw one.

 

[111111111]

Oblivion - the beginning of consolification and dumbification

Fallout 3 - one of the worst travesties in the RPG genre

Fallout 4 - same shit but more logarithmic (even worse)

Skyrim - travesty to gaming in general, a half-broken unplayable mess

Pillars - made some critical errors, but in this group a very minor offender

Numenera - same

Outer Worlds - one of the worst incoming travesties

BG3 - probably one of the worst incoming travesties, aka the Fallout 3 of IE games (God forbid)


some honorable mentions - DA: Inquisition (was never a spectacularly promising franchise so who cares), ME: Andromeda (it was so good that everyone wiped it out of their brain memory)

Should probably wait for actual information to release before declaring it a 'worst incoming travesty' but I doubt that will stop your circlejerk.

 

[111111111]

Is OP actually an NPC?

If codex was a game this post would be like radiant AI dialogue.

 

[luj1]

Todd Howard as a game director. I think he fundamentally opposes what OG fans of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series want out of new installments out of new games in those series'.

He's basically a shitty dungeon master in a tabletop game.

You're giving him way too much credit. He is basically a programmer turned CEO who likes logarithms to do everything for him. I bet he hates doing stuff by hand. I do agree with you however, moving away from the artistic aspect of making RPGs into depths of industrial logarithmic filth was the biggest of Bethesda's sins and he is almost solely responsible for it (along with Pete Hines who is covering for his bullshit).

 

[Martyr]

imo the worst travesty is implementing the cinematic presentation of story (Heavy Rain *cough*) into the genre of roleplaying games. I'd rather read walls of text like in Planetscape: Borement than watch cutscene after cutscene in Twitcha or Kingdom Comrade. those games would be much better with a normal style of presenting their plot.

Spoiler

the worst implementation of cinematic story presentation was in MGS V though. Episode 1/2/3/etc ... directed by Hideo Kojima ... starring Harakiri, Nagasiki, Fukushima etc.
uhm yeah. you're not directing an Episode there buddy, you're developing a game.

 

[Zer0wing]

Codex never changes

Codex likes swords. That's why so many people around here like Final Fantasy VIII.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Mizhena

 

[Master]

Lest we forget about so-called levels in DA2 as well. There's cutting corners and then there's obstructing passageways with boulders, removing said boulders and pretending it's a brand new cave altogether. Interior designs were also questionable.

Looks like a dwarwen gym.

 

[a Goat]

Also don't forget anything NWN related. Holy shit, they all suck gigiantic dick.

 

[Vulpes]

I'm suprised no one has mention blobbers yet

 

[DJOGamer PT]

>thinks F:NV is a bad game just because sub-par gameplay despite it's great content
>thinks Oblivion has any strong points
>thinks clunky and poorly-designed melee combat systems are worthwhile

Y I K E S

 

[Dodo1610]

Arcania Gothic 4: Shit writing, boring combat and murdered the gothic franchise
Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods: remember the time Indian devs raped Gothic?
Fable 3: Apex casualization
Risen 2: I wish I pirated this game
Ultima 9: It exists to reminds us all hat happens when we get old
Sword Coast Legends: Let's make a DND game that's somehow worse than NWN
Daggerdale: Never forget!

Can I get my participation award now pls?

 

[Riddler]

Dragon Age II

DA2 sucked because there was no encounter design. Every single fight was identical: baddies pop out of nowhere(sometimes they literally fall from the ceiling), you beat them, then more magically appeared.
It destroyed any point of tactical positioning because enemies randomly spawned on top of your ranged characters.
There were a handful of enemy types and all enemies were reskins of these. Spiders were just archers with spider skins.

Not joking about them falling from the ceiling btw:

This is how enemies spawn in DA2.

It also sucked because of the writing.

 

[sullynathan]

Risen 2: I wish I pirated this game

Because it's about pirates, huh, get it?

 

[JarlFrank]

Todd Howard as a game director. I think he fundamentally opposes what OG fans of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series want out of new installments out of new games in those series'.

He's basically a shitty dungeon master in a tabletop game.

You're giving him way too much credit. He is basically a programmer turned CEO who likes logarithms to do everything for him. I bet he hates doing stuff by hand. I do agree with you however, moving away from the artistic aspect of making RPGs into depths of industrial logarithmic filth was the biggest of Bethesda's sins and he is almost solely responsible for it (along with Pete Hines who is covering for his bullshit).

On this note, the trend of procedurally generated levels is a big massive decline. It's infected indie RPGs to a large degree and every second game that comes out these days is some kind of roguelike or roguelite. As if level design wasn't important at all and you can just slap a bunch of mechanics together, have the levels and encounters be generated by the computer, and call it a day.

 

[Fedora Master]

Dragon Age II

DA2 sucked because there was no encounter design. Every single fight was identical: baddies pop out of nowhere(sometimes they literally fall from the ceiling), you beat them, then more magically appeared.
It destroyed any point of tactical positioning because enemies randomly spawned on top of your ranged characters.
There were a handful of enemy types and all enemies were reskins of these. Spiders were just archers with spider skins.

Not joking about them falling from the ceiling btw:

This is how enemies spawn in DA2.

It also sucked because of the writing.

It's irredeemable on every level.

 

[MajorMace]

Witcher 2 Kraken fight made me facepalm really hard, which i never did for any game.

What ?
I recall some nintendo-esque 3-times gimmick, was there something particularly bad at release or something ?

To answer OP : Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
Although it's a fun game.

 

[Tacgnol]

A relatively late entrant but I think Underworld Ascendant could still beat all those other titles without breaking a sweat.

Sure, you'll get no arguments from me that UA is anything but a crock of shit, however bear in mind that: 1) it's too recent, everything was shit already, 2) it has 0 influence on anything, and 3) years in advance the disaster was predicted in full, causing no disappointment, no mystery and no surprise to anyone (except Infinitron).

Yeah Ascendant was a slow motion car crash. Quite entertaining from a detached perspective.