Community The Age of Incline: RPG Codex's 2012-2016 GOTY Results

[Vault Dweller]

You're in control because you can decide what and how you are going to say and do. You're not limited to three arbitrary options.

How many options do you have when asking for a raise, for example?

You're in control because you have enough information to make informed decisions. You don't have to guess blindly.

Before you go and ask for that raise you have no idea how your boss would respond, unless he talks about such things frequently which is rarely the case.

You're in control because you can read her non-verbal reactions and adjust your behavior accordingly, on the fly. You don't have to stick with your initial choice.

As a veteran of many negotiations, I'll give you a scenario that happened to me once. You ask for a raise, your boss nods, calmly asks for your reasons, you explain, but turns out it was a trap and he's really pissed with your insolence (asking for a raise instead of waiting to be randomly chosen for performance review which isn't an annual thing) and asked you for your reasons so that you can dig yourself deeper. Still in control? Now not only do you have that raise to worry about but your entire relationship with your boss. At this point you have 3 main options:

- aggressive (stay the course and keep pushing for that raise)
- neutral (attack the reaction, there's no harm or insult in asking for a raise)
- Olympic backpedaling (claim a misunderstanding)

In real life you have 3 seconds to decide which course of action to pursue while your red-faced boss is getting further worked up.

You're not in control only as much as the girl's own agency goes. She may well have made up her mind before you approach her - but no "right answers" will help you with that, and no "wrong answers" will harm you.

Sales 101: as long as a person is talking to you, you can close the deal. The problem is you're always guessing because you don't have the person's personality chart. People who are better at it are better at guessing.

 

[Darth Roxor]

At this point you have 3 main options:

- aggressive (stay the course and keep pushing for that raise)
- neutral (attack the reaction, there's no harm or insult in asking for a raise)
- Olympic backpedaling (claim a misunderstanding)

You forgot the Obsidian approach:

4. [Stoic] Say nothing.

 

[Lurker King]

No it isn't. If you have to guess, you're not in control. You have no agency. You might as well be reading a bad novel.

Are we having a discussion here or what? You said that everything is random and I pointed out to you that some things are predictable and others aren’t, presenting examples. You ignored the reply and said the same thing again. If you have to know everything in advance you wouldn’t be able to play any game, from a platformer to a P&P campaign. I quote Xi from another thread:

It is impossible to play a video game, any game for that matter, where you dont meta game. Meta gaming is the reason a game is fun. If you have nothing interesting to think about, then its probably not going to hold your interest for long.

But hey, since we are talking about AoD the laws of good gaming must be broken.

Moving around in the world. Items & inventory. Stats & leveling. Combat. Dialogue & narrative. All of these are typical RPG gameplay mechanics which can be tedious if done poorly or overused. It's possible to eliminate one or two and still call a game an RPG (-lite). But this runs the risk of over-using other mechanics. And if the developer's rationale boils down to laziness, expect poor workmanship throughout.

And just because the way you move around in a game world is unusual doesn’t make it poorly done. You are moving around the world in a text-adventure and you are playing when you make choices. Saying that you don’t like these things don’t make them bad.

The highest purpose of skill/stat checks is to alter the prewritten plotline to fit the player's abilities in a (more or less) open-world simulation.

I agree if you accept that failures in skill/stat checks could affect your survival, but that’s what we don’t see in the few cRPGs that use skill/stat checks.

Realism is overrated.

Games rarely get better by featuring more so-called 'realism'.

But what is realism? A cRPG is only challenging if it is consistent, i.e., realistic. A good story, quest, and NPCs are only interesting if they are believable, again, realism. People complaining about the role of realism in the decline in cRPGs. What realism? The realism of BG2? JA2 had a much more down to earth tone and was light years ahead of most contemporary cRPGs when realism is concerned. Please, don’t ruin our cRPGs with your complains about realism. You already have a world of cultural idiocy in animes and the entertainment industry at large. You don’t need to make cRPGs even worse them what they are because you have irrationalist prejudices.

 

[Jasede]

You're retarded if you think that's what I am getting at, sorry.
And no, I am not going to explain. I'm tired of explaining shit. You may refer to my posts in 2006 for a review of my point here.

 

[V_K]

How many options do you have when asking for a raise, for example?

Indefinitely many. Precise wording matters, as do tone, gesturing and a ton of other things. And that's not taking into account ways to work up to it in an indirect way.

as long as a person is talking to you, you can close the deal

Precisely. As long as. No guarantee they'd want to even start talking to you in the first place.
Moreover, don't you see a contradiction with your first point? How will you keep talking indefinitely if your options are limited?

People who are better at it are better at guessing.

Guessing and intuiting are two very differnt things.

In real life you have 3 seconds to decide which course of action to pursue while your red-faced boss is getting further worked up.

So why did you opt for turn-based combat exactly?

 

[Lurker King]

In real life you have 3 seconds to decide which course of action to pursue while your red-faced boss is getting further worked up.

Does that makes the dialogue system of Alpha Protocol the more realistic?

 

[Lurker King]

You're retarded if you think that's what I am getting at, sorry.
And no, I am not going to explain. I'm tired of explaining shit. You may refer to my posts in 2006 for a review of my point here.

What I’m getting at is that you are always using bad games to push your irrationalist agenda and making game design about yourself. Let’s take the way you guys talk about PoE for a minute. Do you think the problem with PoE was balance? That is strange, because balance in Sawyer’s design philosophy means character-building handholding for retards. The fact is that balance is necessary to maintain any game challenging. You throw balance out of the window and the game is broken. Do you think the writing in PoE is mostly bad because it aims to be realistic? That is incorrect. The writing is bad because it is bland, verbose and dissociated from gameplay. Realism have nothing to do with it. But go on. Keep saying that you belong to the cool guys group who get it what real fun is.

 

[Jazz_]

But what is realism? A cRPG is only challenging if it is consistent, i.e., realistic. A good story, quest, and NPCs are only interesting if they are believable, again, realism.

By that (ridiculous) criterion AoD is a bad game, what's realistic about AoD plot? you wake up a fucking predator-looking ''God'' after centuries of artificial hibernation, a God that can seemingly manipulate the minds of others into doing things for him, I honestly couldn't bear how wacky and ridiculous the plot got toward the end, you can't enjoy AoD without a considerable dose of suspension of disbelief.

 

[Lurker King]

By that (ridiculous) criterion AoD is a bad game, what's realistic about AoD plot? you wake up a fucking predator-looking ''God'' after centuries of artificial hibernation, a God that can seemingly manipulate the minds of others into doing things for him, I honestly couldn't bear how wacky and ridiculous the plot got toward the end, you can't enjoy AoD without a considerable dose of suspension of disbelief.

But a fictional world with different laws (e.g., a world with magic, mythical creatures, etc.) can be realistic if you handle these facts in a believable manner. Good fiction is realistic to the bone. Bad fiction doesn’t work because the characters are not believable; the plot is filled with holes, etc. It’s not a surprise that the main defense of crappy fiction is, “your criticisms are irrelevant, because it is fiction, duh”. That reveals a lack of understanding of what makes good fiction in the first place.

 

[sstacks]

Given how great Fallout 4 did in the voting results, I'm posting this article basically to be a jackass and stir the pot

Fallout 4 Surpasses Skyrim To Become Bethesda's Most Successful Game Ever
"Fallout 4 has gotta be the most successful game we've ever launched in our company's history."

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-surpasses-skyrim-to-become-bethesdas-mos/1100-6447621/

 

[Lhynn]

This thread and what its turned into.

 

[Vault Dweller]

How many options do you have when asking for a raise, for example?

Indefinitely many. Precise wording matters, as do tone, gesturing and a ton of other things. And that's not taking into account ways to work up to it in an indirect way.

If we consider precise wording as well as tone and gesturing then the options are truly limitless but that's an illusion. First you select your direction (your main argument explaining why you deserve that raise). The number of such arguments is very limited as you have very few cards you can play in this situation. No more than 3 in a best case scenario, I'd say. Sure, how you deliver your argument makes a huge difference but that's where your speech skills come in. Either you can make an argument or you can't, even if you memorized someone else's line. The exact way is not that important. Maybe you make a passionate, emotional appeal. Maybe you play it cool like you don't give a fuck and ready to walk away. Either way it's your skill that determines your success.

as long as a person is talking to you, you can close the deal

Precisely. As long as. No guarantee they'd want to even start talking to you in the first place.
Moreover, don't you see a contradiction with your first point? How will you keep talking indefinitely if your options are limited?

You're confusing options at each conversation "node" with the length of a conversation.

In real life you have 3 seconds to decide which course of action to pursue while your red-faced boss is getting further worked up.

So why did you opt for turn-based combat exactly?

I thought we were talking about non-combat gameplay here?

But what is realism? A cRPG is only challenging if it is consistent, i.e., realistic. A good story, quest, and NPCs are only interesting if they are believable, again, realism.

By that (ridiculous) criterion AoD is a bad game, what's realistic about AoD plot? you wake up a fucking predator-looking ''God'' after centuries of artificial hibernation, a God that can seemingly manipulate the minds of others into doing things for him, I honestly couldn't bear how wacky and ridiculous the plot got toward the end, you can't enjoy AoD without a considerable dose of suspension of disbelief.

Look up 'realism in fantasy'.

 

[gaussgunner]

Before you go and ask for that raise you have no idea how your boss would respond, unless he talks about such things frequently which is rarely the case.

But it has nothing to do with what you say, unless you say something stupid. Your boss has already made up his mind, fairly or not, based on your past performance. Your "can I have a raise" dialogue is mostly just feedback on your non-dialogue actions.

Let’s take the way you guys talk about PoE for a minute.

Not me, bro. PoE sucks.

The highest purpose of skill/stat checks is to alter the prewritten plotline to fit the player's abilities in a (more or less) open-world simulation.

I agree if you accept that failures in skill/stat checks could affect your survival, but that’s what we don’t see in the few cRPGs that use skill/stat checks.

Sure. I have no problems with a failed skill checks leading indirectly to death. I mean, "Sorry, wrong answer, you die" isn't very rpg-like. You should have a chance to work around your mistake or fight your way out. Or it could be more subtle, i.e. losing a non-essential but helpful item.

 

[V_K]

The number of such arguments is very limited as you have very few cards you can play in this situation. No more than 3 in a best case scenario, I'd say.

You can't know that. The fact that you couldn't come up with more scenarious doesn't mean your players can't. And when that's the case, the lack of agency becomes apparent. Even here, you're assuming that when you want your boss to give you a pay raise, the only way to go about it is to ask straight - while in practice there are a ton of ways to manipulate him into offering it.
And before you mention it - yes, actions that the designer didn't think about is the scourge of Adventure games. But Adventures at least give you the option to try an unsupported action, which goes a long way towards making the player feel in control.

First you select your direction (your main argument explaining why you deserve that raise).

But you're not offering players general direction, you offer specific lines.

Sure, how you deliver your argument makes a huge difference but that's where your speech skills come in. Either you can make an argument or you can't, even if you memorized someone else's line. The exact way is not that important.

But the exact way is precisely where gameplay lies. You're literally putting the cart before the horse. In combat, you a given an objective but are free in choosing a way to reach it. In a dialog you pick an objective, but the way to reach it abstracted in a skillcheck. While on the surface it may seem like giving player agency over how the story unfolds, in practice it take it away. Because when you're actually presented with a dialog choice, you have no choice at all - you made it back when you were distributing the skillpoints, and you have no means to affect the result.

I thought we were talking about non-combat gameplay here?

And why should it follow different rules?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Before you go and ask for that raise you have no idea how your boss would respond, unless he talks about such things frequently which is rarely the case.

But it has nothing to do with what you say, unless you say something stupid. Your boss has already made up his mind, fairly or not, based on your past performance. Your "can I have a raise" dialogue is mostly just feedback on your non-dialogue actions.

In my experience it's not that simple at all. Sure, if you're a shitty employee, you have no chance in most cases, but being a good or even a great employee doesn't guarantee a favorable response.

First, the goal is always to pay less and get more, so paying less has nothing to do with your performance but with staying within the department's budget. Your boss has his own boss who has his own boss, etc. If your boss gives raises to anyone who asks, even if the performance is stellar, he will have some 'splaining to do in no time. This some requests will be shot down simply because your boss decided that a safe number of raises is 3 a year, for example. If your boss is insecure and worries about being seen as weak or wasteful, it's even worse. He may absolutely love you and need you (which is even better) but loving you is one thing and fighting for you is another. If your boss is under pressure to reduce the budget, then approving a raise will get him in deep shit faster than he can blink. There are tons of factors there.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The number of such arguments is very limited as you have very few cards you can play in this situation. No more than 3 in a best case scenario, I'd say.

You can't know that.

When it comes to asking for a raise? I do know that. If we're talking about any conflict, sure, there can be a lot more.

The fact that you couldn't come up with more scenarious doesn't mean your players can't. And when that's the case, the lack of agency becomes apparent. Even here, you're assuming that when you want your boss to give you a pay raise, the only way to go about it is to ask straight - while in practice there are a ton of ways to manipulate him into offering it.

Manipulate him into offering a raise? Maybe in the movies but not in real life.

Anyway, there's always some lack of agency in everything you do in games, including combat. Why can't I attack that guy? Because. Why do I have to jump through the plot's hoops? Because. Why do I have one attack with my sword? Because. Why do I have to fight my way out of Grout's mansion even though I'm a talker? Etc. We praise games with dialogue trees like Fallout, Arcanum, and Bloodlines not because they give us absolute freedom but because they give us more freedom than many other games.

AoD gives you more options than way to many games but it doesn't give you every conceivable option. We hope to do better with the CSG but it won't give you every conceivable option either.

First you select your direction (your main argument explaining why you deserve that raise).

But you're not offering players general direction, you offer specific lines.

In most cases these lines correspond to different general directions.

I thought we were talking about non-combat gameplay here?

And why should it follow different rules?

Because combat is an active aspect (a game within the game with its own rules) and dialogues are a passive aspect.

Sure, how you deliver your argument makes a huge difference but that's where your speech skills come in. Either you can make an argument or you can't, even if you memorized someone else's line. The exact way is not that important.

But the exact way is precisely where gameplay lies. You're literally putting the cart before the horse. In combat, you a given an objective but are free in choosing a way to reach it. In a dialog you pick an objective, but the way to reach it abstracted in a skillcheck. While on the surface it may seem like giving player agency over how the story unfolds, in practice it take it away. Because when you're actually presented with a dialog choice, you have no choice at all - you made it back when you were distributing the skillpoints, and you have no means to affect the result.

See above.

I had an idea for an active dialogue system that would resemble actual negotiations, weakening defenses, manipulating, etc but it's quite a project and switching to a new engine is a massive project as it is. Anyway, saying that you have no means to affect the result because your only real choice is to distribute you points is like saying that you can't affect the outcome in combat because it too comes to how you distribute points. A talker, for example, has as many non-combat options as a fighter in combat and can choose any direction because he has enough skills.

Now if you have any suggestions on how to improve dialogue trees for pure talkers, I'd be curious to read them.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

Just go ahead and admit you havent played Lone Wolf adventure books you retard.

I'm starting to wonder if he's ever played any game besides AoD

He's probably just a Vinney alt anyway. Who else aside from Vault Dweller would shill so much for AoD?

 

[FeelTheRads]

You see a girl you like and approach her. Are you in control or are you "guessing answers"? You apply for a job and get an interview. Are you in control or are you guessing answers? You got the job but now you want a raise. You talk to your boss about it. Some lines will get you the raise, others will get you thrown out of his office. Do you know which ones in advance?

So is real life nothing but acting a part from a particularly bad novel?

Bwahahaha.

Comparing scripted conversations with real-life.
Jesus Christ, the amount of flip-flopping and made up bullshit to defend the design of AoD is amazing. Seriously at some point you should just let it go. Not everyone is going to buy your bulllshit, no matter how much of an amazing veteran salesman with deep negotiation experience you are.
My favorite is still the one about how you did dialogue scripted actions because you couldn't do animations, just so you know.

But well, at least you finally admit that instead of playing AoD it is AoD that is playing you.

Edit:

No, no, my favorite is the one where you just give the options to the players instead of letting them figure it out because they're obvious anyway, so why should the player do anything besides clicking on options anyway?

 

[V_K]

Manipulate him into offering a raise? Maybe in the movies but not in real life.

That's a rather idealistic view. Corporate intrigue is a thing.
But even supposing you're right - no one is under any obligation to act moral or smart. Not allowing the player to be stupid is a limitation of agency.

Anyway, saying that you have no means to affect the result because your only real choice is to distribute you points is like saying that you can't affect the outcome in combat because it too comes to how you distribute points.

Not true. There is a balance between player skill and character skill in combat: the better you are at tactics (or reflexes if we're talking real-time), the more suboptimal choices in your build you can afford, and vice versa - you can use character's abilities to make up for your tactical deficiencies.

Because combat is an active aspect (a game within the game with its own rules) and dialogues are a passive aspect.

You say "passive aspect", I say "not gameplay". Tom[eɪ]to-tom[ɑː.]to.
Anyway, having whole playthroughs consisting entirely of "passive aspect" doesn't sound like a good idea, does it?
Moreover, non-combat gameplay doesn't equal dialogs and only dialogs (see QfG and DX examples above), and even dialogs don't have to be passive. Early Ultima's keyword-based dialogs were far from passive.

Now if you have any suggestions on how to improve dialogue trees for pure talkers, I'd be curious to read them.

Well, I already suggested the easy way out earlier in this thread - make them parser-based (not keyword-based, but a full-blown IF-like parser), and tie less obvious options to easier checks. You don't even have to change anything else that way, and you'll still end up with more player agency and better player skill/character skill balance.
A harder way out would be to develop a whole subsystem that would rival combat in complexity. For example, I had an idea for persuasion as an MtG-like strategy, where you'd have cards for personal traits, rhethorical tropes, reputations and knowledge bits. Developing such subsystems is costly, but if you're offering not one but several options for non-combat playthroughs, you kinda have to do it, don't you think?

 

[gaussgunner]

Are we having a discussion here or what? You said that everything is random and I pointed out to you that some things are predictable and others aren’t, presenting examples. You ignored the reply and said the same thing again.

This deserves a quick reply.
1. I was kinda busy with programming.
2. You didn't sway my opinion either time.
3. TL;DR more is less.

If you have to know everything in advance you wouldn’t be able to play any game, from a platformer to a P&P campaign

Not everything, just a frickin' clue so you're not guessing blindly.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

Vinney always talks like a used cars salesman, doesn't he?

 

[Sensuki]

What defines cRPGs are two things: the skills and the systematic reactivity.

Dunno about that actually. I think you can have an RPG without a skill system or RPG system reactivity.

I think an RPG is so hard to define because it basically takes another style of game - be it action, strategy/tactical xyz, cyoa storybook and puts another layer on top of it.

 

[Lurker King]

Dunno about that actually. I think you can have an RPG without a skill system or RPG system reactivity.

I think an RPG is so hard to define because it basically takes another style of game - be it action, strategy/tactical xyz, cyoa storybook and puts another layer on top of it.

Look, these abstract discussions are attempts to make a reflective equilibrium between our common beliefs about cRPGs and theoretical principles that originate from game design analysis. It’s a two way street. You initiate from a bunch of examples that are traditionally called cRPGs (e.g., Wizandry, Ultima, Fallout, etc.) and then start to wonder what is the nature of cRPGs, what do they have in common, whether all them are genuine cRPGs, etc. It seems impossible to achieve a definition if you are assuming that labelling a game a cRPG is enough to be a cRPG and the canon cannot be mistaken.

For me is less important what is the nature of cRPGs, and more important what are the features we should expect in a cRPG. You can say that a game that manages to implement one of the traditional features well (let’s say combat system, exploration, etc.) is a cRPG and I wouldn’t have no problems with that, even though it is not a genuine full-fledged cRPG. There is a continuum passing from robust character building, well thought combat system, dialogue trees, reactivity to pure hack and slash. The more engrossing the systems are, the more cRPGish it is. A clear picture of this is more important for players than endless discussions about the nature of cRPGs.

 

[Lurker King]

Ventilator of Doom has some interesting points that are similar to some of the stuff I have being saying in this thread

This means that once you started with some skills then you have to put points on those skills until the end of the game

Since you don't know what your talking about, you're just taking a hazardous guess here, in other words you pull this straight out of your ass. And you're wrong.

Your argument reeks with dishonesty: the multitude of the choices you are describing are actually close to ONE because they are based on your character stats which are the same for most part of the game.

One of my favorites. Complains that choices are tied to character stats. Lel. Yes, instead of giving your character the choice between 4 different options for success no matter your stats (a la BioWare) with each of those leading to, you guess it, success, you actually have to have the required stats to unlock the choices. For some characters that means only one option is available, for others none.

AoD teleports but it doesn't telegraph shit.

Yes it does. The hints are often subtle though, and you don't seem to be able to recognize a subtle hint if you get one.

Nope. There are only two ways to beat the skill-checks: (1) trial-and-error approach and (2) meta-gaming.

As opposed to all the other RPGs where beating a check didn't require trial and error or meta knowledge, right? The difference between the usual RPG and AoD is, 1) in AoD you can't go to a merchant and buy the potion of charisma or a hood of diplomacy +10 which let's you beat all checks no matter how many points you've invested and 2) failing a check might have actual dire consequences for your character because the default option - combat - might be too hard for that particular character in that situation. Of course some games are aimed at making sure you cannot fail no matter what, like PoE.

 

[Goral]

Guys, what about this thread? We've got over 800 votes and almost no one is willing to write a short opinion about their favourite games?
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ty-review-thread-get-in-here-and-help.113633/