mobile games must have damaged what little brain you had if you fail to see how a party is more fun to (micro)manage than a single character. of course the underlying system must offer enough diversity between party members to justify party size, but that's a given. if you make a game like Knights of the Chalice where you only have 3 different classes but party size is fixed at 4 it won't be praised as much as Baldur's Gate / Baldur's Gate 2 where there are more classes than party slots and even some class combinations.
this is not about single player vs multiplayer, it's about single character vs party.
no idea where did you get multiplier from in there. Higher party size games tend to railroad you into creating 1 awesome button for each character and executing it. I prefer having smaller size and each time actually thinking what action suits best.
the devs were either too lazy to develop a more complex system, or they thought, and rightly so, that mobile players don't have the brain capacity to handle more complex systems. after all they chose to play on their fucking phones.
1 programmer, 1 graphix guy
Fact that you compare them to bethesda, think that it was PC game first and complain on their laziness might be best praise they ever had.
if "The Quest" is a mobile game i can see why it's turn based, but not why it's single character.
simplifies UI. It was originally for iphone to be played in portrait mode -> the less buttons the better.
if you easily get confused by too many letters in a text, here's the short version: you are a moron and mentioning path of exile is by itself qed.
it appears that your path fully 'experience' rpg genre barely started. You are like this horse:
Needs to limit its view or would panic.
Worry not, those can be removed and I can be your guide if you permit.
Lets start though with learning about logic and presenting arguments. We shall move to rpgs after that
glad you provided the horse. creating an awesome button for every character. riiight. {low heal - high heal, select target, unless they also fight when party is at full health, or buff} = 1 awesome button. talk about the horse ffs. and that's only the healer / a healer. then there's mages with specific spells, buffs, and targets, maybe a bard or psyonic, again, different targets and spells and then there's maybe party formation and inventory micromanagement (more party members provide more equipment slots to fill). how can you run into the fucking spear like that??? you
can get all that with 4 party members, but i prefer 8. also with 8 you could make an archer be more than just another spear man when it comes to party formation.
aside from the fact that the game has no party i'm not criticizing "the quest" at all. the game has quite a big amount of spells, skills, attributes, items, enemies. ffs, it even has real C&C. you can also actually fail quests or solve them in different ways. it's an underrated and overlooked gem. what i'm criticizing is bethesda for having the money and manpower to deliver quality and depth and releasing one steaming pile of turd after another and am using the quest as an example of a turn based open world game of roughly the same scope which shares the same major flaw with bethesda titles.
it's a kind of ad absurdum argument showcasing that these single character open world "RPGs" couldn't even be saved from being turds by something as fun as turn based combat. only my ad absurdum (while usually a theoretical argument) actually has a real live example of a game that does everything bethesda does + turn base. it narrows down the problem i have (and every other codex member should have) with enjoying a core aspect of bethesda games, the combat, to party size in addition to being real time.
.........AI
......U..... I
...itemization
..tb......combat
party....(4-8) size ..................... is maybe a good visualization of optimal RPG combat system.
the fact that wizardry 8 managed to provide a working example of a first person, free movement, high party size, turn based RPG shows that it's possible at least to some extent. and while open world could pose a difficulty curve problem without level scaling, there are solutions. of the top of my head, world and encounter design like this:
........................................
B...........................................
..................................................................................
.....................B..................................B..........................
................................F..............F...................................
....................................................................................
............B...........F.............................F.............B............
.......................................X..........................................
....................................................................................
.........................F..........................F.............................
................B..............................................B.................
.......................................F..........................................
..................................................................................
..........................B..........................B..........................
.......................................B..........................................
x - starting point
f - filler / low dificulty encounters
b - boss / boss like dificulty encounters
just imagine concentric circles, i'm not good at drawing them but you should get the picture.
now sprincle some quests and you're done.
