Would you play 9/10 combat game with 1/10 unskippable story?

[rojay]

I can suffer a shit story for the sake of good gameplay.

Yep. It'd have to be really good gameplay, though.

 

[Konjad]

Good story and bad combat is alright, (i.e. Arcanum), just as the opposite (ToEE). However, it'd be best if the weaker aspect is also decent. Making acceptable story seems also easier than making acceptable gameplay because usually you have control over any changes to it, whereas gameplay aspects can change without you even knowing about them unless you work in a really small team.

 

[Modron]

We've all played Warband yes.

 

[Beans00]

JarlFrank, Tacgnol and I engaged in some healthy discussion and debate in a voice call yesterday. Regarding the quality of various rpg's, fps and rts games.


We concluded that Dragon age was terrible. Sorry to say.

 

[Stoned Ape]

But Veilguard's combat looks less fun than a prolonged session on the toilet with a bad case of gastroenteritis the day after eating a phaal...

Anyway, to answer the question it would depend how much of my time spent playing the game is made up of combat, and how much time involves having my eyes sandpap... sorry, I mean how much time is spent experiencing the story.

 

[flyingjohn]

Depends on how much story there actually is. If the unskippable stuff is less than 5 minutes and has a spread rate around every 30-40 minutes, than the answer is yes. Rpgs primary gameplay mechanics are combat and a game that does that well is always playable.
But the bigger question is the quality of the level and encounter design. You can have the best combat system in the world but, if you are wasting it on killing a million kobolds in boring caves, the game is boring.

 

[ADL]

Yes, but I highly doubt Bioware of all studios in the current year are capable of a 9/10 combat system.

 

[Modron]

Yes, but I highly doubt Bioware of all studios in the current year are capable of a 9/10 combat system.

Are you suggesting Bioware was ever capable of such a feat?

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I cannot imagine a gameplay so good that make me forget an offensive story, if the latter is not invisible in the background. And no, games with no story, like chess, are not 1/10 story. It is better to have no story than a bad one.

 

[MjKorz]

I cannot imagine a gameplay so good that make me forget an offensive story, if the latter is not invisible in the background. And no, games with no story, like chess, are not 1/10 story. It is better to have no story than a bad one.

Many dedicated connoisseurs of the TBT genre played the Japanese version of Front Mission 2 without understanding anything narrative wise due to the game being in Japanese. They sat through the entirety of gibberish character dialogues and cutscenes just to experience the gameplay which was good.

 

[Maxie]

what is there to even say in a video game other than go kill X there will be treasure

 

[Suicidal]

So the newest marketing push from Dragon Age: Veilguard seems to be prioritizing their new, flashy action combat and we're getting headlines like:

View attachment 52483

Which besides sounding really bad, is also disrespectful to the devs that worked on previous games but whatever.

So a thought popped in my head. Would the grognards of codex actually grit their teeth and suffer through a modern game for good combat?

It's a thought experiment. Good combat is of course up to your definition.

As for the story, it's basically the entire rest of the game. Characters, quests, item descriptions, etc. Imagine something written by a coffee shop barista that exclusively writes Concord fanfiction. Unless you like that for some reason, then just imagine the opposite.

Would you do it?

Yes because I can just alt tab the game and watch youtube while they yapp. However, I highly doubt the combat in the new Dragon Age will be more than a 3/10

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

No. And I believe everyone who says that they would are lying to themselves to some extent.

A game with mediocre mechanics but excellent or interesting story & atmosphere is enjoyable. The Codex Top 10 is solid proof of this. Those games have absolutely joke combat and mechanics but they're high regarded for their other merits.

The opposite doesn't exist. There's just so much stupidity you're willing to endure. Character's fist two or three idiotic quips? Sure. Dozens of hours hearing the same cretin throwing reddit punchlines and ironic yapping? haha NOPE. At the end of the day people will drop something faster if it clashes with their own personality.

What games? Planescape, VtMB and New Vegas? Morrowind?

Fallouts and others in the top 10 don't have truly horrible combat

 

[Herumor]

Death to all those that prioritize gameplay over story in video games.

 

[huskarls]

ToEE didn't have bad story it had no story

Midnight suns has bad story, its majority dialogue and cutscenes and dialogue runs during gameplay. play that then get back to this thread

 

[0sacred]

idc much for "story" but cringe writing overall, that's a pass from me

 

[mondblut]

I think you're mistaking complexity of combat rules or computations with its quality.

They are the same picture. Any "combat" that doesn't strive to simulate the real thing is a glorified puzzle.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Fortunately, Tyranicon , your stories are 8/10, so the 4/10 combat is completely bearable

 

[the mole]

it depends on the content of the story as well

if 1/10 means woke garbage about literal cuckolding or something, then no, I wouldn't support it

like for the japanese buying the new assassins creed game with a black main character samurai is totally unacceptable

but of course story ratings are subjective, if it's just bland story then that can be coped with, but woke shit and trannyniggers is unacceptable

 

[MjKorz]

I think you're mistaking complexity of combat rules or computations with its quality.

They are the same picture. Any "combat" that doesn't strive to simulate the real thing is a glorified puzzle.

You can have complexity both in simulators and abstract rulesets that do not aim to simulate anything. On one hand, you can have games like 7.62 High Caliber that aim to simulate squad-level tactical combat down to the microsecond while on the other hand you can have abstract turn based games like Mordheim that present the same squad level tactical combat from an abstract turn-based perspective that has nothing in common with real combat, yet does not lack complexity in its ruleset.

 

[JarlFrank]

I play games that have no story because the gameplay is awesome. Sometimes a story game is cool, but the primary purpose of games is to provide fun gameplay.
The Knights of the Chalice games only have a basic story to give you an excuse for crawling dungeons, and they're a lot of fun.
I play a lot of Total War, Civilization, Rimworld, etc, which has no story beyond the one you create through your actions.

What I find annoying is when a game dumps shitloads of lengthy unskippable cutscenes on me and I have to sit through that shit when what I actually want to do is play. Even if the story is good, this will put me off.

I'd rather have a shit story told unintrusively than a great story told intrusively.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Generally speaking? Of course I would.
Even in a lot of old classic games that I loved over the years I often considered the story basically perfunctory.
Combat and exploration that would be genuinely good and engaging by *my definition* would more than make up for it.

Then again a 1/10 story sounds like something that I wouldn't find just accessory, vestigial or simply bad but actively grating... So maybe my enthusiasm would significantly fade over the hours.

 

[Lagole Gon]

We already have BG3 thread.

 

[luj1]

You mean games like tales of maj'eyal, bg3, pillars of eternity, pathfinders, colony ship?

Gj putting ToME with that trash

 

[luj1]

Would the grognards of codex actually grit their teeth and suffer through a modern game for good combat?

if the combat is good, what is there to suffer from?

none of the KS and post KS era games usually mentioned here (Pillars, Pathfinder, DOS) had good combat except KoTC and Underrail