3D made RPG's SHIT!

[deus101]

I remember when i first played baldurs gate, i was blue eyed, woefully trapped in fantasy world and all the locations...

And i remember thinking..."Wouldn't it be amazing if i could see these locations in full 3D, beautifully vistas of the fortresses, temples and landscape"..

Well...years later...my dreams came through and turned into a nightmare....



AWSD keys, cameras that's locked onto the characters , useless fucking minimap in the corner, useless zoom distance which gives you no fucking overview.

And to make the play through more "accessible", they try to take over the entire AI of the characters.
In dragons age i try to order one of my long distance attachers as far away of combat as possible, after i done that i move to another character, and five seconds later the archer/mage/asshole with low HP is dead because the moment i choose another PC to order about the order i gave to the first PC was cancelled because the retarded TACTICS SETTINGS say that she is suppose to stand her ground and attack when not in control of me!
I could turn off the AI but then every asshole in my party goes "ENCHANTMENT" and the tanks that's suppose to be fighting just stands there after finishing off the opponents it was dealing with!

Add that that i have NO idea what half my party is doing because they are out of my field of view!



Lets talk traversing the MAP!

In "tactical" view I can't just pick a spot on the map and tell them to go there, so i would have to leading step by step! So i turn on ROAM....FUN!!!!

I just try to break my fingers on the AWSD to traverse a massive map...with...ROCK walls!

So you just walk walk walk walk, you could say that the numbers of encounter would interupt the boredom, but when its generic boring timeconsuming grindfight number #12345 accompanied by(see above), then you almost prefer no combat at all just so you be done with the shitty map.
(same thing in NWN2 OC, ok you are going to a house to kill/protect a target, but every square meter is covered by a bunch clones so generic its a wonder they didnt just vanish out of sight, because...ITS A 3D WORLD! ITS EASY TO JUST SCRIPT ENCOUNTERS! One hallway = 10 generic guys placed side by side with no thoughts on positions)

Combat was so frustratingly annoying so i just set the difficulty to easy and let my mages go holocaust, just so i could get the fight over with as quickly as possible.



...I'm just gonna stop there....

Thing is...If you are going to do a RPG where you have control over several PC's, learn from the RTS regarding the interface!

The infinity engine was suppose to be a strategy game, and for me, it sat the standards on how you control a party.
The shitty pathfinding didnt bother me at all, at least i could give them simple strides at a time or let them just be ADHD over the entire map until they got where they were suppose to be.
But micromanage the traversing of a fucking map reeks, and getting to watch bland uninspiring 3D scenes does not make it up for that.

The old 2D isometric map of Fallout and the IE games was a consistent frustrum that actually told you were the different actors was located.
If you can't recreate that in 3D its..fucking



.....

 

[Dormir Con Las Arañas]

how edgy

gothic, gothic 2, risen, point disproven

 

[deus101]

It wasn't meant to be a proof.

 

[SoupNazi]

trying too hard

 

[BethesdaLove]

So you just walk walk walk walk

True dat.
Never finished a single fpv or tpv game. Never will. :patriot:

 

[Malakal]

I rather dislike 3D rpgs but well they also have their good sides and sometimes we get good 3D games so... Lets not generalize.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

Diablo 2 is a repetitive action game, you just click your enemies to death. 2D RPG is SHIT!

 

[Glyphwright]

I can think of a couple of good 3d RPGs. Vampire: Bloodlines. The Sith Lords. Deus Ex. Mask of the Betrayer. Arx Fatalis. Morrowind. Don't be so hasty to generalize.

 

[taplonaplo]

Bland and uninspiring graphix... anything before 92 or so?

 

[treave]

No it didn't.

See: Final Fantasy 7.

 

[muffildy]

3d

I read an article saying that dragon age 2 is going to have a tactical cam and a first person cam. I sure hope the tactical cam makes the game play like bg2 and not just the old da cam.

Anyhow, i think the biggest problem with 3d genre isnt that its 3d, its that games are just having a hard time making truly compelling stories. Bioware is kind of hit and miss with this aspect - like i really liked their nwn2 campaigns but i kind of felt that the story was a little weak for the OC and motb and pathetic for SoZ.

As far as new cam styles i would love to see an isometric 3d that has quick set keys to reverse the direction your viewing the scene from. Like it would have settings for north, south, east, west and a setting for close up, medium, and long distance. The cam should not be tied to characters either.

and as far as the original poster complaining about AI, well, i dont see what your problem is. I found that the AI is extremely competent and so you mostly dont have to micromanage them to get anything done. But if you wanted to micromanage then just turn it off and order everyone around like you would in bg2. Its true your characters wont do anything on their own, but thats the whole point - your in total control; pause is your friend.

 

[deus101]

trying too hard

More then the posters above?

 

[tetsuo]

Re: 3d

Bioware is kind of hit and miss with this aspect - like i really liked their nwn2 campaigns but i kind of felt that the story was a little weak for the OC and motb and pathetic for SoZ.

NWN 2 was made by Obsidian not Bioware.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Baldur's Gate is one thing; the differences between newer CRPG's and Ultima V, VI and, in many ways, VII is disgraceful.

Say whatever you like, but role playing games never did pick up what they lost from the older games. Never.

3D is also a visual effect that, as used, does not lend itself to tactical gameplay either. It is much simpler and more efficient to run a turn based tactical battle in an ancient, top down view than in 3D. The only thing that can be used is a better sense of elevation, and this has been used in...Silent Storm and spin off games....what else? So far, 3D has been used for nothing else except the 'cool' factor, and usually only makes command and control more frustrating than it used to be.

And of course, we have the usual cost in power that goes with 3D...and if power and resources get used on this, other parts of a game are, by necessity or plan, given less attention.

Could it be used for more? Yes it could. But it won't. Enjoy.

 

[tunguska]

I think 2d vs 3d modeling is a non-issue in the real world. It all depends on whether your art team is mostly 3d modeling oriented or more traditional artists used to 2d mediums. It is true that the correlates somewhat with the change from 2d to 3d rendering techniques but I think it is just a coincidence. The would have happened with or without 3d. Of course some devs didn't have the 3d modeling talent to make the transition from sprites to true 3d. So 3d sucked in the beginning, but it has gotten a lot better. Although to be fair, not so much with cRPGs.

It really is too bad that Bioware didn't remember all of the things they did right with the BG2 infinity engine. I also liked being able to just click on a point on the map and have my party move there. Also the BG2 pathfinding wasn't so bad. It worked most of the time.

 

[obediah]

I have a scraped knee and a broken arm. This scraped knee broke my arm!

I don't think you're looking deep enough.

 

[skyst]

I think it is more a result of the decline/simplifying of the genre cooinciding with the 3d "revolution".

Yes, earlier 3d CRPGs look like shit but can play alright (thinking NWN here). However, I vastly prefer the look of 2d games that use IE or whatever the hell Arcanum has, for example.

Any modern 3d RPG I just zoom out as much as possible and play from an overhead view anyway, the 3d does very little to enhance my enjoyment of the game.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I think it is more a result of the decline/simplifying of the genre cooinciding with the 3d "revolution".

Perhaps, but I still remember Bioware and others talking about why they only have one or two party members next to the six of Baldur's Gate in their new 3D games: Because of the implementation of the 3D engine and the extra resources needed. This same reason was initially given across the board by other developers as well.

The same happened when many games moved from the ancient top down view to the more grapically intense isometric 2D games. Many things were lost and never recovered, just replaced by prettier scenery and graphics/bells and whistles.

 

[Phelot]

I've seen some very nicely done 3D art and like others have touched on it boils down to the artists abilities. If we are just talking about graphics then yeah I'd say that 3D has done a terrible job of allowing players to just enjoy the atmosphere. Bloom often times hides terrible art and most games I've seen have all kinds of stupid particle effects that has dust and shit flying everywhere in the player's face. I still say Hexen's blowing leaves were more visually appealing then anything I've seen in 3D.

As to whether or not 3D brought about "The Decline" I'd say it hasn't. There have been a few good games to come out in 3D and I see no reason why we can't have the same mechanics in the oldies in a 3D environment. Hell, it sounds like AoD and that zombie RPG will be pretty old school.

 

[Antihero]

Re: 3d

and as far as the original poster complaining about AI, well, i dont see what your problem is. I found that the AI is extremely competent and so you mostly dont have to micromanage them to get anything done. But if you wanted to micromanage then just turn it off and order everyone around like you would in bg2. Its true your characters wont do anything on their own, but thats the whole point - your in total control; pause is your friend.

Which was his point. The DA:O AI was pissing me off non-stop until I put everybody on hold position and kept pausing and giving orders. If it wasn't companions running off ahead into a nest of archers, it was something else and it seemed like nothing in their tactics settings could change that - and it's been ages since I checked the scripts, but I think your followers could still get easily kited even with the most cautious behaviour setting. Not to mention you can't queue up orders (supposedly because of the dynamic nature of being able to use them), so it's even more tedious to micromanage. And when people were complaining about follower AI using AOE spells and hitting the party, devs would often just say to use easy difficulty as if that was the solution for a stupid AI - so even more micromanaging necessary. I usually just cleared out the tactics table so I'd have full control over mage spells and followers using their abilities so as not to waste stamina/mana on useless things.

 

[racofer]

This thread is so stoolpeid I don't feel like posting on it.

 

[muffildy]

tactics

If you dont want anyone running off on their own, there are tactics options for you. For example, you could order everyone to always attack what your attacking. Now of course this can lead to overkill, but atleast things will be dieng fast and no one will be running off on their own.

For the area effect spells - i usually take them out of tactics and use them myself as it is dangerous to let the AI use. so the tactics would be filled instead of single target damage spells, healing spells, and crowd control spells, and drink potions. AI for area spells has never been good in any game ive ever played so i cant say i wouldnt like for someone to improve it, but seeing as how its sucked for so long it may just be best to let the player use them at discretion.

 

[Konjad]

i dont think 3D ruined RPGs, what ruined them is just money milking.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

how edgy

gothic, gothic 2, risen, point disproven

Different subgenre, point disproven.

 

[Lightknight]

Not to mention you can't queue up orders (supposedly because of the dynamic nature of being able to use them)

True, that. Despite KOTOR from the same company a few years earlier actually ALREADY HAD EXACTLY the same combat mechanics AND orders queue (although they completely broke that in KOTOR2).

For example, you could order everyone to always attack what your attacking.

For example, you could order everyone to go agressive, and always attack the closest enemy. And when you turn some corner and there are like 6 darkspawn 5 meters away from you - half of your party runs to attack, and another half decides to stick with you and do nothing.

AI for area spells has never been good in any game ive ever played

Once again, in KOTOR default scripts actually tried (poorly) to throw grenades responsibly. Maybe it failed to compute most of the time, but at least there was some motion in that direction. Dragon Age few years later ? Lobotomized.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

It's funny because he's a horse. Oh wait, no he's not. I am.