How RPG fans ruined RPGs: Telengard on the Fiery BioWhore and the True Nature of the Awesome Button

[Telengard]

You are acting like IWD was ever hard. I had about same experience in IWDEE as far as challenge goes but I had more fun because I had more options to make my characters which is sorely needed when you make 6 characters with 0 personality and the game is only about combat.

Why does a game have to be hard first before it can be made easier?
Why is it wrong to make an easy game even easier?
When a game is easy, and you empower the player even more than they were, what does that do to the challenge?

 

[Delterius]

When a game is easy, and you empower the player even more than they were, what does that do to the challenge?

What challenge?

 

[Telengard]

What challenge?

Exactly. This is the true nature of the Awesome Button. Placing player choice and empowerment above all.

The Awesome Button is the inevitable result of people wanting to make their choices whatever they want and have those choices be visibly validated by the game. More choice, more empowerment, and do keep it coming even if the underlying gameplay has no ability to adapt to your decisions.

Thus is Bioware. You created them in your image. "Player choice uber alles."

 

[Lhynn]

Very wrong telengard.

 

[Telengard]

Very wrong telengard.

Since your point was so eloquently and intelligently argued, I will respond in kind.

How does a company like Biowhore make the journey from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age: Origins? How can such a thing happen? I see that question asked a lot here and elsewhere. The answer: Why, by being a whore, of course.

For all those who don't understand anything about game development, or who are simply dumb, I will illustrate the Biowhorean journey. Let us begin with a picture of the destination. The Biowhorean game DA:O offers every class a long list of special abilities and powers that each class can then implement in combat, and many of those abilities can be chosen by anyone. Which is precisely what people demand, yeah even here on the Codex - whine whine "Fighters need more to do than just select attack!' whine whine. And that is exactly what the Biowhore gave them.

whine whine 'There needs to be lots of character interaction and writing!' And that is exactly what the Biowhore gave, filling out 8 book's worth of writing (which is above average, by the by, but not tops). whine whine 'When I make a choice on my character sheet, the choice needs to be visible on my character!' And that is exactly what Biowhore gave. No matter what choice of armor, hair, or special combat power, all of it shows up on the screen. whine whine 'And my character needs lots and lots of choices on his character sheet!' whine whine. And that is exactly what Biowhore gave, dumping in bunches of armors and hairs and powers, all of them visible in the game.

That is what the Biowhore did, that is all that it did - it gave people (even the people of the Codex) exactly what they demand.

So, where did it all go so terribly wrong? How could there be such a disconnect when the Biowhore does so much work to give people exactly what they demand? How can all that work turn to such shit? Is it the Commutard Sawyarean claim that people are idiots who don't really understand what they want (that part's true), and thus they have to be told what they want.

No. People may not understand what they want, but they can still feel it. I will illustrate with a game type much simpler than an RPG, so that even dumb people can understand: the platformer. When the player's character gets to a pit in a platformer, there is no choice - you jump the pit and move on, or you fail and you don't. The end.*

Now, switch that style to more modern RPG style, and the character would have the skills of Long Jump, High Jump, Climb, and Ice Skating**. And the player would have had 3 points to distribute to those skills as they leveled. In old school tradition, if the player had leveled 3 points into Long Jump, then they would have a chance of succeeding at jumping the pit, and maybe they would also succeed with 3 points in High Jump and a lot of fudging interaction with the environment. But what of those who chose Climb and Ice Skating in this platformer? Answer: Screw them, they're stupid. Ice Skating in a platformer! Pshaw. They can go grind until they get 3 points in Long Jump, and then they can come back and attempt leaping the pit.

Well, no longer is that how things are run, though. That's only how Alde Skulers want it. The Old School RtwP idiots don't like that kind of forced character dynamic. And they have been listend to by the Biowhore. So now, no matter which character direction you choose, a path opens for you. In the modern version of our little problem, there would be stacks of boxes nearby for the character with High Jump do go and catch some long air. There would be a long path for the character with Climb to work their way around along a cliffside. And there would be a nearby ice skating rink for the character with Ice Skating to skate across. All choices would be viable ones. All paths lead to success.

But the clear thing to understand here, is this aspect is also something that all people demand of the Biowhore, even the people of the Codex. They want options, and lots of them, and they want those options to be reflected in the game. They want to be able to succeed along many different character paths. They want their choices to matter.

So, once again, with the Biowhore whoring itself around so flagrantly eager to please, what could possibly have gone wrong? And I'll tell you. It wasn't the Awesome Button. The Awesome Button is - strictly translated - merely a visual representation of the power choices the player made on his character sheet. There's actually nothing troubling there in the fact of it for those who aren't Alde Skul; it's actually exactly what people demand, even the Old School RtwP crowd.

The niggle lies in something related to that, in another aspect of the ultimate whoredom of the Biowhore. With so many choices available to the player, all of which must be possible to succeed with, the question arises of where should the Biowhore pitch the difficulty of their game? There is only one answer for a whore of Bioware's caliber, of course. Codexians would be hugely pleased with the Biowhore if they'd left the difficulty of that jump at needing all 3 points devoted to it. It wouldn't matter what skill you choose, as long as you play-maxed it. With 3 in Ice Skating, you could skate the rink, but with 2 or less, you fall on your ass. Thus, under that style of design, you succeed as long as you have some minimal understanding of the game's underlying system. Not a great understanding. This is, after all, still the Biowhore - the devs who made Baldur's Gate specifically with the intention of it being playable by people who didn't know the d&d system. But still, needing some level of understanding of the underlying concepts involved.

However, pleasing that crowd isn't the ultimate level of whoredom. For the Biowhore, the obvious choice would be to set the game difficulty of getting past that pit at 1 point for every skill. As long as people have put one point in some skill, they will succeed. Thus, people can make the character they want to make, have their choices all reflected in their character, and succeed with their chosen character in a diverse number of ways.

And that's all. The Biowhore was just one notch too skanky for the Codex. If they weren't quite so skanky, Codex would gladly hold its nose against the SJW stink and happily pound away at that old whore one more time, and praise them to no end, just like they still do to Baldur's Gate, Awesome Button bedamned. The Awesome Button was iconic for a lot of people for how easy the Bowhore games had become. But the Awesome Button itself is merely a visual reflection of the character's powers and choices.

Choices that people demand and happily implement even when the computer isn't programmed with the ability to counter those options. Because options are Awesome, no matter what...



* For all the tards who are even now getting ready to huffily single-finger bang out on their keyboards that you can't compare platformers to RPGs, this one's for you. If it were an Alde Skule RPG, there would be a monster instead of a pit, and your character would just be a bunch of non-choice leveled stats, with the only question on the table being: are your stats high enough to let you kill the monster? If yes, then you proceed, if not, you don't. There now, isn't that all better?

** Because, gay Biowhore

 

[Neanderthal]

So you're saying that it's too much accessibility and not enough learning to play the game and understand its systems?

Personally I always felt that modern Bioware did fine with all their choices, but there were absolutely no real impactful consequences for those choices.

 

[stony3k]

Personally I always felt that modern Bioware did fine with all their choices, but there were absolutely no real impactful consequences for those choices.

There are no real impactful consequences because of the need for all choices to lead to success. If there is no failure, there is no fun.

 

[Neanderthal]

Oh I get you. So at say beginning of DAO there should have been a choice of saying fuck the wardens, and dying or game ending there say?

 

[Lhynn]

Since your point was so eloquently and intelligently argued, I will respond in kind.

Thanks, god knows i try.

How does a company like Biowhore make the journey from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age: Origins? How can such a thing happen? I see that question asked a lot here and elsewhere. The answer: Why, by being a whore, of course.

Sure, but choice was never their aim with inclusiveness, rather the lack of choice either by streamlining, or by catering to as big an audience as possible. Both reduce the impact of choices, making them simply an illusion, thus breadth of options was never the aim of this company.

For all those who don't understand anything about game development, or who are simply dumb, I will illustrate the Biowhorean journey. Let us begin with a picture of the destination. The Biowhorean game DA:O offers every class a long list of special abilities and powers that each class can then implement in combat, and many of those abilities can be chosen by anyone. Which is precisely what people demand, yeah even here on the Codex - whine whine "Fighters need more to do than just select attack!' whine whine. And that is exactly what the Biowhore gave them.

Its not a question of how many options or features the game has, more is always better if its good. Making fighters more interactive and interesting both in an strategical and tactical way is a noble aim, i dont get the shit you give the codex for this.

whine whine

'There needs to be lots of character interaction and writing!'

This is what some audiences want, and its good, as long as its good. Dont see a lot of people complaining about PST around here.

whine whine

'When I make a choice on my character sheet, the choice needs to be visible on my character!' And that is exactly what Biowhore gave. No matter what choice of armor, hair, or special combat power, all of it shows up on the screen.

Yer giving hate to armor and weapons modifying a characters look? really?

whine whine 'And my character needs lots and lots of choices on his character sheet!' whine whine. And that is exactly what Biowhore gave, dumping in bunches of armors and hairs and powers, all of them visible in the game.

Again not a bad thing.

That is what the Biowhore did, that is all that it did - it gave people (even the people of the Codex) exactly what they demand.

And it was praised for it. Again, its not a bad thing, DA:O was decent. The problem wasnt that they gave the players this, the problem was that its pretty much all they give them nowadays, IF that, you cant actually customize characters gear in DA2 for example, and the writing in both 2 and 3 (for both mass effect and dragon age) literally went to shit. Insufferable levels of shit.

So, where did it all go so terribly wrong? How could there be such a disconnect when the Biowhore does so much work to give people exactly what they demand? How can all that work turn to such shit? Is it the Commutard Sawyarean claim that people are idiots who don't really understand what they want (that part's true), and thus they have to be told what they want.

It all happened because bioware wants a broader audience, so stuff like difficulty and complexity need to be sacrificed. Player choice was gone with that too.

No. People may not understand what they want, but they can still feel it. I will illustrate with a game type much simpler than an RPG, so that even dumb people can understand: the platformer. When the player's character gets to a pit in a platformer, there is no choice - you jump the pit and move on, or you fail and you don't. The end.*

You can always try to fall on the pit, or look for a secret passage to another world, mario 3 had that, megaman X had different types of movement, it was cool.

Now, switch that style to more modern RPG style, and the character would have the skills of Long Jump, High Jump, Climb, and Ice Skating**. And the player would have had 3 points to distribute to those skills as they leveled. In old school tradition, if the player had leveled 3 points into Long Jump, then they would have a chance of succeeding at jumping the pit, and maybe they would also succeed with 3 points in High Jump and a lot of fudging interaction with the environment. But what of those who chose Climb and Ice Skating in this platformer? Answer: Screw them, they're stupid. Ice Skating in a platformer! Pshaw. They can go grind until they get 3 points in Long Jump, and then they can come back and attempt leaping the pit.
Well, no longer is that how things are run, though. That's only how Alde Skulers want it. The Old School RtwP idiots don't like that kind of forced character dynamic. And they have been listend to by the Biowhore. So now, no matter which character direction you choose, a path opens for you. In the modern version of our little problem, there would be stacks of boxes nearby for the character with High Jump do go and catch some long air. There would be a long path for the character with Climb to work their way around along a cliffside. And there would be a nearby ice skating rink for the character with Ice Skating to skate across. All choices would be viable ones. All paths lead to success.

Thats only a bad thing when its immediately apparent. Deus ex masterful level design gave every character a chance at passing any given obstacle, but it hid the paths of least resistance very well. Good exploration is good.

But the clear thing to understand here, is this aspect is also something that all people demand of the Biowhore, even the people of the Codex. They want options, and lots of them, and they want those options to be reflected in the game. They want to be able to succeed along many different character paths. They want their choices to matter. So, once again, with the Biowhore whoring itself around so flagrantly eager to please, what could possibly have gone wrong? And I'll tell you. It wasn't the Awesome Button. The Awesome Button is - strictly translated - merely a visual representation of the power choices the player made on his character sheet. There's actually nothing troubling there in the fact of it for those who aren't Alde Skul; it's actually exactly what people demand, even the Old School RtwP crowd.

Nope, you are misunderstanding here. Its not what the players want, its what bioware thinks will get them more players. Even the best things can be twisted to serve something else, what bioware is is no different. DA2 and ME3 effectively ruined biowares reputation as story tellers and rpg makers with this crowd.

The niggle lies in something related to that, in another aspect of the ultimate whoredom of the Biowhore. With so many choices available to the player, all of which must be possible to succeed with, the question arises of where should the Biowhore pitch the difficulty of their game? There is only one answer for a whore of Bioware's caliber, of course. Codexians would be hugely pleased with the Biowhore if they'd left the difficulty of that jump at needing all 3 points devoted to it. It wouldn't matter what skill you choose, as long as you play-maxed it. With 3 in Ice Skating, you could skate the rink, but with 2 or less, you fall on your ass. Thus, under that style of design, you succeed as long as you have some minimal understanding of the game's underlying system. Not a great understanding. This is, after all, still the Biowhore - the devs who made Baldur's Gate specifically with the intention of it being playable by people who didn't know the d&d system. But still, needing some level of understanding of the underlying concepts involved.
However, pleasing that crowd isn't the ultimate level of whoredom. For the Biowhore, the obvious choice would be to set the game difficulty of getting past that pit at 1 point for every skill. As long as people have put one point in some skill, they will succeed. Thus, people can make the character they want to make, have their choices all reflected in their character, and succeed with their chosen character in a diverse number of ways.

Going on a retarded rant here bro, just letting ya know.

And that's all. The Biowhore was just one notch too skanky for the Codex. If they weren't quite so skanky, Codex would gladly hold its nose against the SJW stink and happily pound away at that old whore one more time, and praise them to no end, just like they still do to Baldur's Gate, Awesome Button bedamned.

The Awesome Button was iconic for a lot of people for how easy the Bowhore games had become. But the Awesome Button itself is merely a visual reflection of the character's powers and choices.
Choices that people demand and happily implement even when the computer isn't programmed with the ability to counter those options. Because options are Awesome, no matter what...

Options are awesome, i fucked around with nwn like a year after the prc hit, it was fucking fun as hell.


Anyway bro, your entire rant is misguided. It isnt that bioware is pleasing its audience, its that bioware found another larger audience and its giving them what they want or demand.

 

[prodigydancer]

Oh I get you. So at say beginning of DAO there should have been a choice of saying fuck the wardens, and dying or game ending there say?

WL2 has story branches that end in failure and you get a game over screen describing what will happen next. Some are just punishment for doing obviously dumb stuff like setting off the nuke in the Ranger Citadel, others are genuine branches like betraying the Rangers and joining CotC.

In PS:T there were ways to make TNO die permanently before reaching the Transendent One.

In Morrowind you could accidentally or intentionally kill a story NPC. It didn't lead to game over but the main quest could become unsolvable and the game would tell you about that.

Bottomline? Every good CRPG should have branches that count as failure (or semi-failure) beyond banal party wipe.

 

[Infinitron]

Telengard talks about Bioware the same way Durance talks about Magran.

It's kind of awesome, actually.

 

[Delterius]

Telengard talks about Bioware the same way Durance talks about Magran.

It's kind of cool, actually.

And just like Durance, it seems Telengard was betrayed by his whore. A sentiment I can understand.

 

[Telengard]

Thanks, god knows i try.
Options are awesome, i fucked around with nwn like a year after the prc hit, it was fucking fun as hell.

Anyway bro, your entire rant is misguided. It isnt that bioware is pleasing its audience, its that bioware found another larger audience and its giving them what they want or demand.

But the essence of adding options that the game is not programmed to respond to is the same as empowering the character by reducing the difficulty of all tasks. Gameplay wise, it functions the same. And the Biowhore has listened to you. You modded in Pole Vault to give yourself High Jump and Long Jump at the same time and be totally Awesome. So in their next game, they listened to you and added Pole Vault for you, so you could be the Awesome person you wanted to be. And on and on, adding in more and more options, on down the chain of NWN2 lookalikes, giving you the things that were most modded or most asked for on their forums, until we come to giving you the Awesome Button.

And that is because adding in things that the game has no answer for is the same thing as reducing the enemy so that they have no answer to give the player in the first place. Gameplay wise, it functions the same. Either way, it reduces the challenges to be faced to a level of mediocrity and simplicity. The Biowhore just gives you the tools you asked for upfront rather than you having to mod them in. And thus those who label those kinds of changes fun, those are the people who gave shape to the Awesome Button. The Biowhore are the company made in your image.

 

[Lhynn]

But the essence of adding options that the game is not programmed to respond to is the same as empowering the character by reducing the difficulty of all tasks. Gameplay wise, it functions the same. And the Biowhore has listened to you. You modded in Pole Vault to give yourself High Jump and Long Jump at the same time and be totally Awesome. So in their next game, they listened to you and added Pole Vault for you, so you could be the Awesome person you wanted to be. And on and on, adding in more and more options, on down the chain of NWN2 lookalikes, giving you the things that were most modded or most asked for on their forums, until we come to giving you the Awesome Button.

Thats where you are wrong, they are not adding options, they are taking them away constantly. You can see this in every facet of the games, from dialogue, to class variety, to character non combat skills, quest resolution paths, etc. You could not be more wrong about this if you tried.

And that is because adding in things that the game has no answer for is the same thing as reducing the enemy so that they have no answer to give the player in the first place. Gameplay wise, it functions the same. Either way, it reduces the challenges to be faced to a level of mediocrity and simplicity. The Biowhore just gives you the tools you asked for upfront rather than you having to mod them in. And thus those who label those kinds of changes fun, those are the people who gave shape to the Awesome Button. The Biowhore are the company made in your image.

Not really, i dont even know where you come up with this stuff. nwn with prc had 150 unique classes, most of them with their own unique mechanics. Where do you see this happening in bioware games? its mindbogglingly stupid to pretend bioware is giving us what we asked for when we asked for more, not less.

As for challenge, thats another thing entirely and it has nothing to do with player options, not from the player standpoint anyway. The game developer is the one that has to solve that problem to the best of their ability.

 

[Delterius]

But the essence of adding options that the game is not programmed to respond to is the same as empowering the character by reducing the difficulty of all tasks.

Lhynn is right in this case. Modern BioWare is about doing away with character options. To do away with the excess fat, if you will, in order to create a more focused experience that requires less experimentation. The so called "easy to learn, hard to master" that Blizzard talks about constantly. Of course, they also stew whatever's left in a cauldron of sameness called The MMO Conventions -- cooldowns, aggro mechanics, obtuse level scaling, gated encounters, items that can be summarized as pluses to 'attack' and 'defence', hp bloat and so on. In short, Modern BioWare is beyond the spectrum as you portray it. If anything, adding character options and powers without a care in the world portrays a Monty Haul kind of BG2 experience way better than what Modern BioWare does.

The only problem is that in your world view adding such options necessarily does way with challenge, which is demonstrably not true for RPGs in general and Icewind Dale EE in particular. Challenge in Icewind Dale is derived from party composition. Which in turn is derived from how far you are willing to go with rolling for attributes, which combinations of melee, ranged and magical power you decide for, whether you run with 6 characters or less, whether you multiclass and so on.

At which point you might say "but now you can be a Kensai/Mage dual class and everyone knows that's the most broken thing ever!". To which the answer is: lol. Conceivably, I could wander around with a Fighter/Mage multiclass with perfect 18/00 in STR, 19 DEX and 18 CON. That same multiclass comes with shorty saving throw bonuses and extra spells per day as a Gnome. Nobody who isn't humorless ever cared for the Cheese and in face of such things you can't possibly convince me that running with kits is such a capital sin.

TL;DR Magran is a whore.

 

[Lhynn]

Lhynn is right in this case

Thanks a lot for your support.

 

[SwiftCrack]

WL2 has story branches that end in failure and you get a game over screen describing what will happen next. Some are just punishment for doing obviously dumb stuff like setting off the nuke in the Ranger Citadel, others are genuine branches like betraying the Rangers and joining CotC.

In PS:T there were ways to make TNO die permanently before reaching the Transendent One.

In Morrowind you could accidentally or intentionally kill a story NPC. It didn't lead to game over but the main quest could become unsolvable and the game would tell you about that.

Bottomline? Every good CRPG should have branches that count as failure (or semi-failure) beyond banal party wipe.

Or suffer the wrath of Biff the Understudy.

 

[Neanderthal]

WL2 has story branches that end in failure and you get a game over screen describing what will happen next. Some are just punishment for doing obviously dumb stuff like setting off the nuke in the Ranger Citadel, others are genuine branches like betraying the Rangers and joining CotC.

In PS:T there were ways to make TNO die permanently before reaching the Transendent One.

In Morrowind you could accidentally or intentionally kill a story NPC. It didn't lead to game over but the main quest could become unsolvable and the game would tell you about that.

Bottomline? Every good CRPG should have branches that count as failure (or semi-failure) beyond banal party wipe.

Absolutely agree. Too much "BUT THOU MUST" makes me feel that i'm not even really playing the game, i'm just watching the devs playthrough.

 

[Telengard]

Icewind Dale EE is excellent. Only an idiot would claim otherwise; not only do you get the higher rezo + better UI from BGII, you also get all the Kits and new spells from BGII.

And that actually makes it shit, because none of that stuff has any place in Icewind Dale.

IWDEE also made playing HOF from level 1 much more enjoyable, the power added by the new kits (and dual wielding) smooths out the road to Kuldahar, so you have to cheese that part quite a bit less. Once you get to the Vale and beyond the difficulty feels on point.
Highly recommended if you haven't tried it.

They probably utterly ruined "normal" balance though.

What challenge?*

* Implying that removing challenge from a low-challenge game has no meaning.

These are the statements that have echoed down through the last decade. And the Biowhore heard you when you made them. They heard you when you said you had fun modding out your characters with more power, even when doing so let you plow through challenges. They heard you when you said you loved when they told you "Oh, you're such a big man. You fill me up so much! Oh, oh, oh, you're so Awesome!" They heard you when you demanded that every class have options, just like the mage. They heard you when you demanded that there be secret powerful classes to find. They heard you when you demanded that the powers from every class be awesome.

And they gave all of that to you. The gave you exactly what you demanded of them. The fact that every class now has a long list of leveling options, and those options should all be awesome, that was by your command. The fact that every option taken on the character sheet has to be visible in the game, whether armor, hair, or POWERS, that was by your command.

Now, whenever you click a power, it offers visual feedback of the choices you made on your character sheet, and since all of your options are Awesome, the display is of course Awesome. 1+1 = 2. Awesome character options that must all be visible in the game = Awesome Button.

That is why those comments above are what gave shape to the Awesome Button. Developers listened to you when you told them that was fun.They started making games based on your feedback. There are a decade's worth of quotes all over the forums that are direct copies of those above.

The fact that the Biowhore kept on skanking itself down below what you wanted on down to the mouth-breathers? Well, that's the nature of a people-pleasing whore.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a 2E vs 3E argument by proxy.

(Seems like many things are these days)

 

[Telengard]

Certainly not. 3e did follow along the same trends that the Biowhore followed, so there are naturally many similarities. But then, so did everyone follow the same trends. Character empowerment has ruled the day everywhere. And not just in RPGs, either. This is also how the super-mega-spartan-marine was created. Or the sneaky/superhero of "stealth" games. Did you think that the devs weren't watching when you downloaded graphics and empower mods at a rate 10-20 times higher than any others? They saw you, and they learned what you wanted.

10 years ago, I and others argued that this was what would happen if we followed these trends. And the answer back then was: as long as it's fun, it doesn't matter if they dumb it down they make it easier. Well, here we are now. But do I even get to say I told you so? Oh no. It's all the mouth-breathers' fault, or the evil publishers', or uncreative devs'.

But no, it didn't start with them. They didn't wake up one day and say "Let's make games exclusively for mouth-breathers." No, we got here because they started listening to your feedback. Instead of making challenging games, you trained them to fulfill your power fantasies. And that's what they now do. Because now, go back, and instead of me saying the Biowhore, pretend I said Company X. Because it's all the same. The industry is all power fantasy and wish fulfillment now. And this is where it started.

 

[Delterius]

Thanks a lot for your support.

Latams gotta stick together.

10 years ago

Weren't you really late for the party, considering that 10 years ago BG2 was already released and the whole game is a rollercoaster of broken 'builds' and monty hauling?

Also, gaze upon the abyss and despair: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussi...gimme-gimme-would-pay-20-just-for-this-as-dlc

 

[Neanderthal]

Got to ask Telengard, cause I agree wi some o what your sayin, why is it that Dragon Age games have almost entirely done away wi weapon choice now? I mean you can only use what your class dictates now apparently, and everything else you can't use, how do you figure that in? Seems pretty backward to me considering a little kickstarted game like Poe has such a wide variety of weapons, but I hear no one complaining about it.

 

[Telengard]

Weren't you really late for the party, considering that 10 years ago BG2 was already released and the whole game is a rollercoaster of broken 'builds' and monty hauling?

Next year it will be 15 years since that time, and I was already late to the party even then. But that's the way it goes.

Also, gaze upon the abyss and despair: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussi...gimme-gimme-would-pay-20-just-for-this-as-dlc

I do despair. Endlessly and forever.

Got to ask Telengard, cause I agree wi some o what your sayin, why is it that Dragon Age games have almost entirely done away wi weapon choice now? I mean you can only use what your class dictates now apparently, and everything else you can't use, how do you figure that in? Seems pretty backward to me considering a little kickstarted game like Poe has such a wide variety of weapons, but I hear no one complaining about it.

Bioware is now a shell gutted by EA, so I couldn't say definitively what their design meetings are like. Though I can still speculate. And I will.

Normally, I would have said, yes, it's the remnant of the old class structure. But with the Biowhore, I doubt it. For them, image is everything. So my suspicions is: With their focus now on storybook adventure, they probably get an image of each hero archetype drawn up, and then assign weapons to each based on that archetype. Every aspect of the character is assigned to add to the feelz of the imagery. From equipment, right down to the long list of power options on the character sheet - every one of those powers is about giving the player control over improving and directing the archetype image on the screen.

For the old grognards and tacticians, this is, of course, pure ass. We're looking for tactical and strategic combat decisions, not character empowerment choices. But power gamers, this is their territory. Simple combat, awesome might.

While it is true that character choice empowerment can lie in how you mix and match equipment, equipment usually has give and take. Heavy armor is slow. Quick weapons don't do much damage. But more than that, equipment can never be character empowerment in its purest form, because equipment is separate from the character. The purest form is where all power comes from within (because you're so special). Watch RK47's Inquisition playthrough again, and you'll see aspects of this effect. There's lots of leveling character options, all of which make the character hideously, and finally grossly, overpowered. But all of those powers are custom tailored to the imagery of his class, and all of it comes from within. Choosing weapons and armor by situation, that's not a storybook hero decision. Drizzt always has his iconic scimitars, James Bond has his PPK. The Biowhore has been rooting your character imagery, but expanding the internal decisions based upon that root, all to make a more iconic visual feedback.

Choosing weapons and armor based on situation, that's for gritty adventure stories. Taking your favorite sword into a gunfight and slicing everyone down with your specially chosen special sword powers, that's Mega-Awesome.

 

[Neanderthal]

I think you're spot on there, and this is probably why they're limiting companion armour as well, so that everybody and everything conforms to a filmic archetype. If I were speculating i'd say they're trying to do what good advertisers do and make that iconic outline or silhouette, you can see Indiana Jones or Batman just from the outline, instantly recognisable. Films invading and poisoning games once again?

One of the high ups got design ambitions and wanted to stamp movie ideas on games, not caring for the downsides of trying this on an interactive medium?