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

[Onholyservicebound]

I'd rather have a more tighter focused Geralt type character in more stories with a flesh out personality and background that has a lot of choice in molding the situations presented to him. Not that Geralt is ideal, you're still allowed to make wildly different world view choices with him that can often make him come off as schizophrenic as he tries to justify and moralize his actions.

If you want a "non blank slate" predefined player role than go play Batman, or GTA, or CoD, or literally every other fucking AAA PoS outside of the RPG genre, and stop polluting this one with your shit-brained ideas.

Though I think more Geralt like PCs in games would be the worst thing that could happen to the genre, I do think you could do away with the blank slate, to an extent. Actually, I don't, I want even more of a blank slate, but a blank slate that the player can fill themselves in character creation as opposed to being defined beforehand. Arcanum for example, lets you choose backgrounds that affect your pc in some way, though it was pure mechanics there, so probably not what you're looking for, and it doesn't change throughout the game either.

What you describe near the end sounds a bit like Mass Effect or Dragon Age 2 to me, albeit to the extreme. Where the choices you make in game give your character a certain attitude that permeates throughout the game, the things your pc says is based around how you've shaped them to be in previous dialogue choices, and it also has special options that only someone with -insert personality type here- can say. Though it doesn't fully invest into it, it's probably the closest you can get.

 

[KK1001]

Not that this is entirely related, but I remember the rationale for being able to switch skill builds in Diablo 3 at any time being "We don't want people locked in! Freedom to mix and match is great!" What seemed appealing at first belied the truth underneath: the game wasn't interesting enough on its own to play through multiple times, and the available builds did not differ radically enough to justify even creating multiple characters in the first place.

Character design falls into two broad categories:
1) MMO-style, where you make choices that amount to very small changes that don't impact the way you play or reinforce roleplaying; they just make you more effective by increasing DPS/Healing/Tankability or whatever.
2) ARPG/FPS-style, where everything is available and it is just a matter of unlocking it and switching it out at your convenience. Encountering difficult situations just amounts to switching your gun or power or whatever.

 

[Beastro]

Role-playing (in video games) is now synonymous with unrestricted "choice" and "freedom." It's a gross interpretation of what we do in pen and paper games, interpreted by those that have never actually played pen and paper games. In all the PnP games I played, you are constantly reminded that limitations shape your character and their actions as much as allowances. The video game audience don't want to commit to this though. Their idea of role-playing is making whatever decisions seem most interesting at the time, not what the character would do given their attributes, skills, background, personality, etc. These people want to be able to play what I call Evil Paladin. The role of Paladin requires that you perform nobly, and I mean perform in the sense that the player, like an actor, portray the character according to who the character is, not the whims of the player. The Evil Paladin player acts in a wildly inconsistent manner, violating the nature of the character they are representing, or never establishing or acting according to a nature at all.

I almost have more respect for the LARPers who play according to self imposed rules that the game does not recognize. These people are detrimental to game design in their own ways, but at least they are trying to act in the spirit of the thing. The others, they don't want simulation beyond NPCs walking around and squirrels chasing each other. They want a game where every character they make can swim equally, read maps equally, traverse terrain equally, kill equally, survive in the wilderness equally, etc. They bring an arcade mindset to (what should be) a non-arcade genre.

I did request more options, but only to enhance the logic of the game world, the simulation. I wanted more skills to choose from but not more slots to stick skills in, because specialization and time-cost are factors in the real world and one's place in it. People like me were drowned out by those that wanted more skills AND more slots for them, to enhance their power fantasy and dominion over the game world. I wanted visit into another reality, they wanted to escape theirs.

The problem isn't just the players, the game and its designers have to get the player into the mood of doing so and, if in a game like PoE, being of an aristocratic background or being stoic or benevolent means nothing beyond some flavour text here and there, then the players interest in role playing will quickly die and they'll focus on getting as much enjoyment as they can out of the game, usually resulting in min-maxing.

In my previous post I started first as that Noble, Barb Elf because I went into PoE wanting to RP, then once I realized it couldn't be done my next play was just to min-max my stats as the slave background and godlike race gave me better options to make the game more enjoyable while originally I chose an elf from the snow wastelend place knowing it wasn't the best, but because that background appealed to me.

Had they given me more to do with that background, and all backgrounds, I'd love to play weaker race/stat combinations like the Elf, but you can only do so much without going into LARPing and often min-maxing is just to make the most of a game but wiping the floor with it before you move onto something else.

 

[Neanderthal]

As Onholyservicebound said, Arcanum does this fucking well, your background is recognised mechanically and recognised ingame if it warrants it, your race, stats, choices etc, they are all recognised and reacted to. It gives you the choices but also the consequences, rather than the empty choices that Telengard is on about, and then gives you tools based on your character progression. I think this is a better way to do a blank slate, certainly better than Poe or many others. I think there's a place for predefined characters like the Witcher, because fuck I mean sometimes that bastard had more choices than blank slate protagonists from the usual suspects, the Fiery Whore of Bioware and others, but i'd prefer the Arcanum or Torment way personally.

As for choices in game i'd prefer that they not be quite so scripted, and more reactive to what we do, give us tools, give us information all with prices and appropriate ways of acquiring them and then simply react to how we do something. Rather than steering us down the usual path that most quests take, think Ultima did this well, you were given a task and then left to do it no questions asked.

 

[Machocruz]

as long as it's fun."

This kind of attitude has always bothered me. On the surface it's a logical thing to say, that a game should be fun, and if its fun then it's working in some respect. But it's also vague, nebulous, weak. Such pat simplicity doesn't satisfy the curious and lively mind. It doesn't acknowledge that things are fun for different reasons, or why they are fun at all. Take it to the extreme: It's ok if this roller coaster speed gets reduced to 5mph, as long as it's fun. It's ok if the pizza is served colder every time I go, as long as it's tasty. It's only obvious this attitude will lead to lower expectations. And since the video game industry seems to be in a constant state of sales desperation and designers can't design according to their own judgment, they cater to these lowered expectations.

The problem isn't just the players..

Yeah, and I can't think of any CRPGs that enforce character personas to my liking. But at least they used to do it with skills. Want to swim in MM4 or Wiz 7, better have it as part of a character's skillset. I thought games would go on and refine the crude implementation of those earlier games, but they just arcade-ified instead. The mainstream audience and committed role-playing are irreconcilable.

Anyway, were I a game designer with carte blanche and the resources to do so, I would go far in enforcing character fidelity. You'd select a personality "package" at character creation, and decisions that were antithetical to this package would either be blocked or punished with some karmic order system. You'd be allowed a scale of options, from those that fit your character precisely to a couple deviations off (e.g. a "high" moral character could make decisions that entered into morally light grey territory but not over into evil territory). Failing that I would go with the simpler option of not even bothering with the whole saint<--->stalin Bioware/Black Isle shit and design the whole campaign around either heroism or villainy, not both.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying all CRPGs should be this anal. Everyone being able to swim in Morrowind is still fine.

 

[Beastro]

If you want a "non blank slate" predefined player role than go play Batman, or GTA, or CoD, or literally every other fucking AAA PoS outside of the RPG genre, and stop polluting this one with your shit-brained ideas.

Though I think more Geralt like PCs in games would be the worst thing that could happen to the genre, I do think you could do away with the blank slate, to an extent. Actually, I don't, I want even more of a blank slate, but a blank slate that the player can fill themselves in character creation as opposed to being defined beforehand. Arcanum for example, lets you choose backgrounds that affect your pc in some way, though it was pure mechanics there, so probably not what you're looking for, and it doesn't change throughout the game either.

What you describe near the end sounds a bit like Mass Effect or Dragon Age 2 to me, albeit to the extreme. Where the choices you make in game give your character a certain attitude that permeates throughout the game, the things your pc says is based around how you've shaped them to be in previous dialogue choices, and it also has special options that only someone with -insert personality type here- can say. Though it doesn't fully invest into it, it's probably the closest you can get.

It's telling the choices you picked for game character: One of the blandest super heroes whose main appeal is the villains he faces, a sandbox game where PC player personality is one dimensional and given only cursory thought and a FPS where you play any random American solider. These aren't characters, the only "character" in those games is what passes for plot and maybe what enemies you face.

The problem is so fucking much of a game is sacrificed for the blank slate. It's like the game equivalent of the superhero origin story being the first part of a movie series - regardless of how many movies may be made you know one, and usually 1/3 of the movies to be made, will be tied up with going through the motions of what everyone knows before we can get to what we all want and that's to get beyond that into meatier territory. Games aren't like PnP where you have all the time and freedom to fill in your blank slate and make it unique and stand out and it also doesn't have the room for you to full flesh a character out not to mention it usually revolving around stupid tropes like amnesia and shit that have long since been worn tired.

I long for the predefined character if only for the fact that it would save time wasted on trying to make a game too broad in appeal, as in making it a game where you can feasible RP anything your average player wants that winds up weakening the story and the consequences of your actions as a result. In the end this is all a part of the gaming design angle being used too much, like the sand box, I long for something different and I can't wait to laugh when the day comes when the linear story and character development of games past from the 80s and 90s comes back and is looked on as hip and fresh because it's antithesis was overused and used too poorly.

There are compromises though, but it requires creativity on the game designers part. KOTOR2 stands out where you weren't an amnesiac not did you come off as someone magically planted into another world, you were a with a past that had relationships with other characters in the game that recognized you as a part of that world before the game, you talked and touched on memories shared, but you were vague enough of a character to allow the player to mold them as you went along. The NPC before KOTRO2 and you the PC were one, opposed to KOTOR1 where there was a clear defining line between you the PC and the Revan who came before necessitated by the need to fit in a pre-existing Jedi that didn't require decades of training since childhood, that could feasibly progress and improve during the games length while also allowing room for that blank slate to allow the player to anyone they wanted to be.

 

[Infinitron]

Telengard must be frustrated by how you're taking this thread from a combatfag to a dialogfag direction.

Re: "Blank slate compromise", I think what Shadowrun: Hong Kong does, pairing you up right from the beginning with a guy who used to know you (and has rather, uh, strong feelings about it) is a good way of doing that. I suppose that's what KOTOR2 does as well but it's nowhere near as emphasized. Lots of people who didn't pay attention probably thought you play an amnesiac in KOTOR2.

 

[Machocruz]

Telengard must be frustrated by how you're taking this thread from a combatfag to a dialogfag direction.

Apologies to Telengard. My point was that A.) a lot of people not only don't want limitations, they believe the opposite defines the genre. B.) They see all video games through arcade eyes. C.) Entering into a virtual reality (values rigor) vs. escaping from real reality (values power fantasy). Applies to combat as well as social elements.

Btw, the problem with Geralt as a non-blank slate is that the game Geralt is beholden to the book Geralt. Unless you really dig two sword style and alchemy...

 

[Neanderthal]

Kind of raises question though, for those who think genre is defined by choices, do those choices have to be recognised mechanically? I mean you get all these folk playing dress up in character creators and doing lets pretend in Skyrim, that's all larping isn't it, none of it's recognised in game. One of few instances i've seen where this is recognised is Arcanum when you wear Barb armour and Alpha Protocol when Omen Deng ambushes you at the train station, choices actually recognised.

 

[Azrael the cat]

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

For me, the 'awesome button' and challenge are two separate problems. You can have a challenging game with an 'awesome button'. E.g. I suck at rhythm games like guitar hero, and there are games that use the 'awesome button' in that manner - e.g. Farenheit.

It still sucked, and being challenging (for me - if you find rhythm games easy, then it would be a breeze) made it even worse. It would have been better as a straight walking simulator. Heck, throw in some proper puzzles (wouldn't even need to be hard - a clue/detective system would fit perfectly into that game, and could have elevated it from subpar to genuine greatness; still let folk play as a pure walking simulator, but give decent 'acknowledgement/plot-rewards/revelations that explain things that otherwise seem like loose ends' to players who figure out the mysteries without needing to be led through by the nose) and it would have been a genuinely good game.

Similarly, you can have easy-and-boring-as-dishwashing turn-based combat.

The problem with the 'awesome button' is that it takes control away from the player. It isn't awesome for my character to do a brilliantly timed tripple somersault to stab the lear jet in the cockpit while it's taking off, while dodging the heat-seeking lazer sharks and impregnating the supermodel taken hostage, if I have absolutely no choice over how it's done, not even the choice to fuck it up. Yahtzee is 100% right on this - I want as much control as possible, with the game being a means of transcending my flimsy mortal body, and the ideal control scheme would be a neural net activated by thought. More reasonably, at least give a fucking jump button, a roll button, let me choose between different attacks, and that way I CAN feel 'awesome' doing it, because it's a series of moves that I've chosen and pulled off.

And that's true even if it's utterly unchallenging - not that challenge doesn't matter, but it's a different problem. Deus Ex 1 is very easy, but terrific in terms of control. You can do pretty much all the things expected from an 'awesome button', but you're choosing each movement directly and the game controls well enough for you to string that awesome shit together with ease. An 'awesome button' is a copout. It says 'we couldn't make a control system that was intuitive enough for you to do anything that felt awesome, so we're just automating that instead'.

My tolerance differs depending on the game. The Batman 'Arkham' games have a combat system that's basically a slightly more complex 'awesome button', but I forgive it because it's Batman, so it isn't about building up skill/expertise and learning to pull it off, and the predator maps, at least, do give you a fair bit of freedom to 'make your own awesome'.

Actually, that's it in one short phrase.

Let me make my own awesome.

 

[Machocruz]

Kind of raises question though, for those who think genre is defined by choices, do those choices have to be recognised mechanically? I mean you get all these folk playing dress up in character creators and doing lets pretend in Skyrim, that's all larping isn't it, none of it's recognised in game. One of few instances i've seen where this is recognised is Arcanum when you wear Barb armour and Alpha Protocol when Omen Deng ambushes you at the train station, choices actually recognised.

Well, they take it further than that. If I complained about all characters in Skyrim being able to swim by default/no skill needed, they'd suggest to just pretend and keep character out of the water, pretend to drown, play Argonian, etc. Why not just have swimming as a skill then? Because they want their freedom/choices cake and eat it too. The game recognizes your dress for the purposes of defense, but some weirdos will go so far as to pretend that commoners are admiring their wealthy attire as they stroll the streets of Solitude.

It's satisfying to have the game recognize or react to what you are doing, like a GM would, like the people in your party would, like reality often does. I guess my problem is people dick sucking praising the game for "allowing" such majestic roleplaying when it's all in their head and they could do it with any video game, basically. They can use this to justify any dumbing down, and the Bethestards and their ilk do.

 

[Neanderthal]

Yeah i'd say there's not enough mechanical reinforcement, too much look what you can imagine shit.

 

[Beastro]

If you want a "non blank slate" predefined player role than go play Batman, or GTA, or CoD, or literally every other fucking AAA PoS outside of the RPG genre, and stop polluting this one with your shit-brained ideas.

Though I think more Geralt like PCs in games would be the worst thing that could happen to the genre, I do think you could do away with the blank slate, to an extent. Actually, I don't, I want even more of a blank slate, but a blank slate that the player can fill themselves in character creation as opposed to being defined beforehand. Arcanum for example, lets you choose backgrounds that affect your pc in some way, though it was pure mechanics there, so probably not what you're looking for, and it doesn't change throughout the game either.

What you describe near the end sounds a bit like Mass Effect or Dragon Age 2 to me, albeit to the extreme. Where the choices you make in game give your character a certain attitude that permeates throughout the game, the things your pc says is based around how you've shaped them to be in previous dialogue choices, and it also has special options that only someone with -insert personality type here- can say. Though it doesn't fully invest into it, it's probably the closest you can get.

Damn site ate my post about this.

It's the antithesis of Bioware where you have all the choice of character but get railroaded into stereotypical "choices".

A good contrast is KOTOR 1 and 2. In 2 you're character has a background and people who know him for things your character did. You have a past, you're not an amnesiac nor someone oddly interested into a world you know nothing of, but it's kept vague enough so you have some leeway in molding him. Then there's KOTOR1 where you have amnesia, but regardless, there's a clear line in "character" between you the PC that starts the game and Revan and his previous actions. The two never feel organic because the requirements were for someone to realistically become a Jedi without the game being all about them being a Padiwan, while at the same time being whatever the player wants them to be with the latter trampling character development and roleplaying for the sake of being that blank slate.

 

[Telengard]

For me, the 'awesome button' and challenge are two separate problems. You can have a challenging game with an 'awesome button'. E.g. I suck at rhythm games like guitar hero, and there are games that use the 'awesome button' in that manner - e.g. Farenheit.

It still sucked, and being challenging (for me - if you find rhythm games easy, then it would be a breeze) made it even worse. It would have been better as a straight walking simulator. Heck, throw in some proper puzzles (wouldn't even need to be hard - a clue/detective system would fit perfectly into that game, and could have elevated it from subpar to genuine greatness; still let folk play as a pure walking simulator, but give decent 'acknowledgement/plot-rewards/revelations that explain things that otherwise seem like loose ends' to players who figure out the mysteries without needing to be led through by the nose) and it would have been a genuinely good game.

Similarly, you can have easy-and-boring-as-dishwashing turn-based combat.

The problem with the 'awesome button' is that it takes control away from the player. It isn't awesome for my character to do a brilliantly timed tripple somersault to stab the lear jet in the cockpit while it's taking off, while dodging the heat-seeking lazer sharks and impregnating the supermodel taken hostage, if I have absolutely no choice over how it's done, not even the choice to fuck it up. Yahtzee is 100% right on this - I want as much control as possible, with the game being a means of transcending my flimsy mortal body, and the ideal control scheme would be a neural net activated by thought. More reasonably, at least give a fucking jump button, a roll button, let me choose between different attacks, and that way I CAN feel 'awesome' doing it, because it's a series of moves that I've chosen and pulled off.

And that's true even if it's utterly unchallenging - not that challenge doesn't matter, but it's a different problem. Deus Ex 1 is very easy, but terrific in terms of control. You can do pretty much all the things expected from an 'awesome button', but you're choosing each movement directly and the game controls well enough for you to string that awesome shit together with ease. An 'awesome button' is a copout. It says 'we couldn't make a control system that was intuitive enough for you to do anything that felt awesome, so we're just automating that instead'.

My tolerance differs depending on the game. The Batman 'Arkham' games have a combat system that's basically a slightly more complex 'awesome button', but I forgive it because it's Batman, so it isn't about building up skill/expertise and learning to pull it off, and the predator maps, at least, do give you a fair bit of freedom to 'make your own awesome'.

Actually, that's it in one short phrase.

Let me make my own awesome.

As an aside, I consider the Batman series that Azrael mentions here to be one of the seven wonders of the video game world. Not as a game, mind you, but in design.

Not sure everyone here realizes just how many attempts at Batman games there have been. There's been many dozens. Pretty much relegated to the trash heap of history. Not to mention, big picture, hundreds of failed superhero games.

The difficulty of translating the powers of superheroes into video games is crazy huge. And that is because of the usual dichotomy of the superhero in a video game. It's totally awesome in a comic book to watch a superhero beat up on five guys at once and never get hit. Express that in a video game, though, and it comes out as trash mobs from one of the game to the other, with an occasional emotional boss fight that also isn't that challenging. So, a many decades problem of design has always been: how does one make the player feel like a superhero, but still keep them engaged in the game?

And Rocksteady pulled it off. Which is just fucking crazy. They kept the challenge low, so you could feel like the Bat, but despite that, despite letting you win by pressing just one button by itself, they keep the game engaging from one end to the other. You've got to respect a company that pulls something like that off, even if you believe in different design principles, 'cause that is legend.

 

[Infinitron]

As an aside, I consider the Batman series that Azrael mentions here to be one of the seven wonders of the video game world. Not as a game, mind you, but in design.

Not sure everyone here realizes just how many attempts at Batman games there have been. There's been many dozens. Pretty much relegated to the trash heap of history. Not to mention, big picture, hundreds of failed superhero games.

The difficulty of translating the powers of superheroes into video games is crazy huge. And that is because of the usual dichotomy of the superhero in a video game. It's totally awesome in a comic book to watch a superhero beat up on five guys at once and never get hit. Express that in a video game, though, and it comes out as trash mobs from one of the game to the other, with an occasional emotional boss fight that also isn't that challenging. So, a many decades problem of design has always been: how does one make the player feel like a superhero, but still keep them engaged in the game?

And Rocksteady pulled it off. Which is just fucking crazy. They kept the challenge low, so you could feel like the Bat, but despite that, despite letting you win by pressing just one button by itself, they keep the game engaging from one end to the other. You've got to respect a company that pulls something like that off, even if you believe in different design principles, 'cause that is legend.

Weep as you realize how many unsuccessful copycats they will inspire.

Spoiler

(but fewer than you might think, as apparently that kind of melee animation with lots of grappling and models interacting with each other and stuff is difficult to do - beyond shovelware developer capabilities)

 

[Telengard]

Thank god for the spoiler part. Otherwise, the horror...

 

[DeepOcean]

Role-playing (in video games) is now synonymous with unrestricted "choice" and "freedom." It's a gross interpretation of what we do in pen and paper games, interpreted by those that have never actually played pen and paper games. In all the PnP games I played, you are constantly reminded that limitations shape your character and their actions as much as allowances. The video game audience don't want to commit to this though. Their idea of role-playing is making whatever decisions seem most interesting at the time, not what the character would do given their attributes, skills, background, personality, etc. These people want to be able to play what I call Evil Paladin. The role of Paladin requires that you perform nobly, and I mean perform in the sense that the player, like an actor, portray the character according to who the character is, not the whims of the player. The Evil Paladin player acts in a wildly inconsistent manner, violating the nature of the character they are representing, or never establishing or acting according to a nature at all.

I almost have more respect for the LARPers who play according to self imposed rules that the game does not recognize. These people are detrimental to game design in their own ways, but at least they are trying to act in the spirit of the thing. The others, they don't want simulation beyond NPCs walking around and squirrels chasing each other. They want a game where every character they make can swim equally, read maps equally, traverse terrain equally, kill equally, survive in the wilderness equally, etc. They bring an arcade mindset to (what should be) a non-arcade genre.

I did request more options, but only to enhance the logic of the game world, the simulation. I wanted more skills to choose from but not more slots to stick skills in, because specialization and time-cost are factors in the real world and one's place in it. People like me were drowned out by those that wanted more skills AND more slots for them, to enhance their power fantasy and dominion over the game world. I wanted visit into another reality, they wanted to escape theirs.

Pretty much this, land whales and insecure hipsters will kill us all.

 

[Thonius]

Problem of OP PC comes from the fact that he/she is literally mass murderer, hobo maniac, charismatic marauder, war criminal who takes no POW.
While IRL people with power are usually high-mid level clerks/politics or commanders/generals. Who don't do shit themselves etc but use subordinates to achieve their targets.
So its time to make bureaucrat save the kingdom trough increasing iron ore production by 5% RPG or another AWESOME game!

 

[a Goat]

So its time to make bureaucrat save the kingdom trough increasing iron ore production by 5% RPG or another AWESOME game!

Sounds fun.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

So you are essentially complaining that games are more and more obviously designed and balanced for a wide (and largely retarded) audience in order to generate more $$$?

Didn't the Codex go through this debate like 4000 times already? :D

 

[Lord Azlan]

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.


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

I sort of disagree with your whole premise. I never asked for this crap.

I consider myself as 'Old School' and certainly did not demand any of those things you mention, such as more options for fighters or more interaction and writing.

Not going to go about when I was young I had to eat my shoes, but I had to load games off tape and you would wait a couple of hours and get to the end - and sometimes the crappy games still would not load. Talking BBC B and C64.

"Old School Games" - Bards Tale 1, Ultima IV, BT2, Alternative Reality The Dungeon, Dungeon Master, Faery Tale Adventure, Demons Winter, Pools of Radiance, blah blah

Part of me thinks a decline in RPG began with Pools of Radiance, but I recently bought the game again on GOG and will give it another try.

The definite decline came in with the Baldurs Gate crowd who came in more than TEN YEARS AFTER BT1 - who are somehow also called 'Old School' - or as I call them 'Old Fools'.

BG, From wiki "The game allows development of the player character through choice of companions, dialogue choice, exploration, and battle. Baldur's Gate uses a reputation system, and rewards the player depending on the choices made in the game."

Sounds awful.

When I first played BG so many years ago and some of my party started talking to themselves or worse - disagreeing with my actions - I did not think "Wow - cool" - I thought "Shut the fuck up".

As for your choices analogy, I certainly agree many choices in RPG are artificial and seem placed at that location just to meet a quota.

The choice to hit a wall (AND DIE) or go back and grind and level up seems like a decent one.

A Gamer or party should come up against something that is just too hard at that moment - go back or go around (think Lords of Xulima, Risen, Morrowind). The opportunity to deal with anything through a range of skills in your party just leads to linear gaming, corridoors and Bioware. It's a difficult balancing act and developers mostly can't pull it off. (Shadowrun DragonFall was a good attempt though).

The best choice I ever had in a RPG was in Fallout 1 when I chose not to pursue the Water Chip and the game promptly kicked me off the clucking game! That is amazing and daring - real damn choice and consequence.

Totally underwhelmed by the choice in WL2 to save A or B at the beginning.

 

[Telengard]

I sort of disagree with your whole premise. I never asked for this crap.

I consider myself as 'Old School' and certainly did not demand any of those things you mention, such as more options for fighters or more interaction and writing.

Not going to go about when I was young I had to eat my shoes, but I had to load games off tape and you would wait a couple of hours and get to the end - and sometimes the crappy games still would not load. Talking BBC B and C64.

"Old School Games" - Bards Tale 1, Ultima IV, BT2, Alternative Reality The Dungeon, Dungeon Master, Faery Tale Adventure, Demons Winter, Pools of Radiance, blah blah

Part of me thinks a decline in RPG began with Pools of Radiance, but I recently bought the game again on GOG and will give it another try.

The definite decline came in with the Baldurs Gate crowd who came in more than TEN YEARS AFTER BT1 - who are somehow also called 'Old School' - or as I call them 'Old Fools'.

BG, From wiki "The game allows development of the player character through choice of companions, dialogue choice, exploration, and battle. Baldur's Gate uses a reputation system, and rewards the player depending on the choices made in the game."

Sounds awful.

When I first played BG so many years ago and some of my party started talking to themselves or worse - disagreeing with my actions - I did not think "Wow - cool" - I thought "Shut the fuck up".

As for your choices analogy, I certainly agree many choices in RPG are artificial and seem placed at that location just to meet a quota.

The choice to hit a wall (AND DIE) or go back and grind and level up seems like a decent one.

A Gamer or party should come up against something that is just too hard at that moment - go back or go around (think Lords of Xulima, Risen, Morrowind). The opportunity to deal with anything through a range of skills in your party just leads to linear gaming, corridoors and Bioware. It's a difficult balancing act and developers mostly can't pull it off. (Shadowrun DragonFall was a good attempt though).

The best choice I ever had in a RPG was in Fallout 1 when I chose not to pursue the Water Chip and the game promptly kicked me off the clucking game! That is amazing and daring - real damn choice and consequence.

Totally underwhelmed by the choice in WL2 to save A or B at the beginning.

Yeah, the Old School thing is a hitch. But because the people who grew up on IE games are now considered Old School, I made up the term Alde Skule to describe people who (like myself) are from an even earlier time. Yes, it's difficult to think of people younger than you as the Old School crowd, but after awhile, you get used to it. Sort of.

 

[Prehistorik]

The choice to hit a wall (AND DIE)

Spoiler

PICK UP THE PHONE BOOTH AND DIE

 

[Thonius]

Sounds fun.

Well is sounds like that indy game Papers Please.
But my point is it would be cool to make down to earth rpg where your progress trough somewhat disposable henchmans/companions, gear, influence on faction and reputation, without all those paths to godhood where first locations is literally a kindergarten full of rats.
( Hitler was a high level dude in Germany back in a days and died from what? Single bullet and some puny poison?)

 

[Telengard]

So you are essentially complaining that games are more and more obviously designed and balanced for a wide (and largely retarded) audience in order to generate more $$$?

Didn't the Codex go through this debate like 4000 times already? :D

These was a thread split from the Beamdog mod thread, wherein people were talking about how awesome the EEs were, and a counter was put forth arguing that modding in extra stuff not intended to be there makes the game shit. Everyone called those people idiots. And I went to town illustrating why it is indeed shit, and why it was the beginning of turning games into shit. Not publishers, not devs, not mouth-breathers. No, the early players who would go onto the forums and demand more power. Who would download mods that jacked in power that the game had no answer for. And when asked why you would mess with the challenge of the game like that, you said, "It doesn't matter if the game gets easier, as long as it's fun." A number of Codexers were saying just that in the Beamdog thread. And that is, of course, a direct copy of what was said way back when, and what kept being said all throughout the NWN2 lookalike years.

So I pointed to that and said, it's your fault that games god dumb, because you told devs you were fine with it.