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

[behold_a_man]

Why is the story unskippable?
1) Because the game heavily relies on choices & consequences, and making a wrong choice may imply disaster, so you can't choose actions during conversations at random (like Kingmaker)?
2) Because the game forces the player to learn about the lore of the world, what each NPC can offer, how to get something, anything (like the conversation model in Ultimas)?
3) Because the game forces the player to suffer through unskippable voiced dialogues and cutscenes on a regular basis?
4) ...?

Option (1) and (2) imply that there is a lot more to the game than combat. In this case, it's not just the story that would need to be bad; it's the writing that would need to be abhorrent to deter me from such a game. And option (3) is very rare among games with good combat - but I usually find watching stupid cutscenes and indulging in the affairs of commoners relaxing after a good fight, so I probably wouldn't have a big problem with it either.

 

[anvi]

1/10 story is too much

 

[luj1]

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

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces so why would you not play them?

 

[ind33d]

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

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces

gears of war too. actually a military RPG like the left/right branching pathways in Gears of War would be superb

 

[MjKorz]

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

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces so why would you not play them?

I liked the story and lore in ToME.

 

[sser]

Got a pretty good taste of this with Midnight Sons and the answer is no.

 

[Tyranicon]

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces so why would you not play them?

I wouldn't describe any of these as having a story "written by a coffee shop barista that exclusively writes Concord fanfiction."

We're talking about a modern, 2024 product with everything that comes with it. Essentially, if Forspoken actually had really good combat.

Personally, I would of course play one, purely for academic purposes to see if I can learn something from it. I can't imagine enjoying it too much though.

 

[Tacgnol]

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.

Was a good conversation. A respectful discussion of the relative pros and cons of various RPGs with some disagreement as to individual games but generally overall agreement on what makes a good RPG.

 

[Butter]

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

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces so why would you not play them?

Those aren't 1/10 stories. They're basic, but inoffensive. They don't bludgeon you with wacky Millennial grrlboss writing. If Diablo 2 and Knights of the Chalice are 1/10 stories, The Outer Worlds and Faggot Age are -10/10.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Those aren't 1/10 stories. They're basic, but inoffensive.

Exaclty.

 

[Serus]

Depends how "unskipable it really is. "I go to the bathroom or the fridge when cinematics play" kind of unskippable or: "there are tons of horribly written dialogues and you must choose your pronouns and which bear to fuck every 2 minutes to proceed" kind?
I propably wouldn't play the latter knowingh that, no matter how good gameplay is, I won't be able to stand it in the long run even if i tried. The former, sure, i'd just ignore the story.

 

[Reinhardt]

barely serviceable story, like "marine on mars, SUDDENLY DEMONS", "retrieve an ancient artifact from the tomb" or "hero-sama defeats demon king-sama" is aready >1. 1 is when "authors" actively making story shit by "improving" working recipe. and no - i won't bother with second case.

 

[Serus]

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces so why would you not play them?

I wouldn't describe any of these as having a story "written by a coffee shop barista that exclusively writes Concord fanfiction."

We're talking about a modern, 2024 product with everything that comes with it. Essentially, if Forspoken actually had really good combat.

Personally, I would of course play one, purely for academic purposes to see if I can learn something from it. I can't imagine enjoying it too much though.

As long as you don't pay for it...

 

[MjKorz]

Depends how "unskipable it really is.

40-50 minutes unskippable cutscenes like the ones in MGS2 and 4. At random intervals during the cutscenes, the game commands you to get off your couch/chair and loudly proclaim: "LUDOKINO!", just as depicted in this SONY patent:

If you delay your exclamation of appreciation for more than 10 seconds, the game automatically restarts the cutscene from the start. That kind of unskippable.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Honestly, yes. However, 1. Failguard's story will be skippable, and 2. The combat looks like absolute trash. So it's a moot point.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

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

You just described Diablo II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tales of Maj Eyal, KotC I-II, etc.

All are masterpieces so why would you not play them?

The story in these games is not 1/10. These are around 5/10 = mediocre, but serviceable.
For me 1/10 = aggressively bad.

 

[TheSecondRanger]

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

You forgot DOS 1 and 2. Most modern CRPGs, actually.

 

[Artyoan]

Yes, but it depends on a lot of other factors.

If the game has great combat but a shit (and mandated) story, does it at least have a decent tone, art style, progression systems, soundtrack, or any other noteworthy aspect that captures my attention? If so, absolutely. I've played a lot of jrpgs that have poor stories but enamored me in one way or another. Those don't have great combat either.

 

[Reinhardt]

I've played a lot of jrpgs that have poor stories but enamored me in one way or another.

again, "poor stories" is not 1/10. 1/10 is not "dumb", "boring" or something like this. most of the shit mentioned in this thread is "meh" or "mediocre" at worst. "poor but charming" is certainly not 1/10.
1/10 is all of the above WITHOUT any redeeming qualities.

 

[Reinhardt]

to make something 1/10 you must actively hate your audience. you take something someone holds dear and then shit aaaaaaaaaall over it. suicide squad for capeshit lovers is pretty close, for example, where they literally piss at the corpse of batman.
even bioware is not at that level yet. close, but not. simply because they can't get their paws on something someone still cares about.

 

[anvi]

Pretty sure the numbers were supposed to be ratios of how much story vs how much combat. Not ratings?

 

[Serious_Business]

Yeah. And I'm sure I'd find some redeeming qualities to the story if the gameplay was amazing. It would just transfer that way, these things are not both made independantly of each other. If they were, then I would assume it's not a "9/10".

 

[BING XI LAO]

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

There's so much variation to that though and how you get there.
Reaching the secret teleporter in Avernum to go to the Emperor's tower to kill him.
Finding a submarine and docking co-ordinates to reach Abyssal Station Zero to purge a shadowlith and loot the ACONR.
Reaching the Fortress of Regrets.

All a million times cooler than the retarded subhumanoid garbage of BG3 and Kingmaker

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

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.

Just how long are these cutscenes? 10m, 30m, 1hr, more? Is it like you get a damn woke movie after each combat? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

Anyone care to list all the games that fit this bill?

 

[S.torch]

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

Kotor 1&2, Arcanum, Shadowrun Dragonfall & Hong Kong, whole Witcher trilogy, all Bethesda games. Those have mid to acceptable gameplay at best but are fondly remembered.

Like it or not MECHANICS without SOUL are NOTHING.