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Would you be interest in a new Top RPGs poll? (READ THE OP)

Would you want a "repoll" of the Codex' Top 95 RPGs?


  • Total voters
    84

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
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Feb 6, 2016
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There, I said it: Fallout is a great RPG, but Fallout: New Vegas is just a much more enjoyable game with more RPG opportunities.
Combat relies mostly on player's skills instead of character's skills, so nope.

Combat sucks in both games, but New Vegas' is faster. So I give it the upper hand. Not to mention all combat relies on the player's skills, whether mental or physical.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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As I see it, the problem lies in having two conflicting goals. One, to make a top 25 rpg list of a certain time period, according to what the community as a whole thinks. Two, to use an approach that rewards the 'good' games instead of the popular ones.
Uh, it's a poll on which are the best game of certain time periods. There's no contradiction.

I forgot to reply earlier, but my issue with the Bayesian average is that it is a bit random in how it works: it isn't an exact representation of reality, just like it wouldn't be an accurate representation to say "this game has a higher average, thus it's better". The Rance case is very, very specific: it's a hentai game mixed up with a strategy game, so you can't expect a good amount of people to have played it. It's so niche that the only people who have played it agree it is awesome, in the same way only coprofags would eat shit and then vote it 5/5.

I'm just saying. I'd rather stick with the hard facts, rank all games by the average points, and leave it up to viewer's discretion to consider whether a game like Rance VI is actually that good, or whether it requires a very specific mindset to like it.
As long as you're aware that you're just choosing a different way to distort the poll, do what you wish.

BTW, I made the 2012-2016 poll results sortable, so you could get that just by accessing the files. Sorted by Average, these were the Top 10:
  1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
  2. Rance VI: The Collapse of Zeth
  3. Age of Decadence
  4. Underrail
  5. Fallout 1.5: Resurrection
  6. Megadimension Neptunia VII
  7. Divinity: Original Sin
  8. Dark Souls
  9. Voidspire Tactics
  10. Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut
I think that's a demonstrably "more inaccurate" result, but whatever.
 

Black Angel

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Combat sucks in both games, but New Vegas' is faster. So I give it the upper hand. Not to mention all combat relies on the player's skills, whether mental or physical.
That doesn't mean it has 'more RPG opportunities', because combat relying on player's skills means it's more of an action game instead of an RPG.
 

Alkarl

Learned
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Oct 9, 2016
Messages
472
No?

I mean, I know I don't get out much, but has something changed in the last week?

What powerful celestial event did I miss that we must now redraw our star charts?

Did Grimoire release?

:troll:
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Combat sucks in both games, but New Vegas' is faster. So I give it the upper hand. Not to mention all combat relies on the player's skills, whether mental or physical.
That doesn't mean it has 'more RPG opportunities', because combat relying on player's skills means it's more of an action game instead of an RPG.

Combat isn't exactly what I would call a "roleplaying opportunity". Blast them away with fists, guns or explosives, it makes no difference to me. At the end of the day it is still "kill the others". By roleplaying I mean through conversations, skill checks, questst that offer a nice variety of solutions.
 
Joined
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I think that a very simple way to accurately represent the consensus would be to give the option to put from +1 to +5 points in each game, and then rank the games by adding up the total points. No negative votes and no averages.

combat relying on player's skills means it's more of an action game instead of an RPG.

Being good at turn based tactics is still player's skill.
 
Joined
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3,524
What's the point? People just want the group opinion to reflect their own personal opinion. Does it achieve anything? No.

Top RPG voting was bad idea from the start, let it go
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,759
No.

We did the other one too late as it was.

All future lists will be worse, not better.
This is why it's crucial for any future Top RPGs poll to record the year in which each participant played his first CRPG. That way, with the full dataset, we can create our own results using the information on year of first CRPG to weed out the newbies who embrace decline like Baldur's Gate Dragon Age or Oblivion.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
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Feb 6, 2016
Messages
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This is why it's crucial for any future Top RPGs poll to record the year in which each participant played his first CRPG. That way, with the full dataset, we can create our own results using the information on year of first CRPG to weed out the newbies who embrace decline like Baldur's Gate Dragon Age or Oblivion.

I think it would be better to restrict votes to "should have played at least 10% of the games on this list", which totals to 9. Then again, both your idea and mine are pointless: people can and WILL lie. "My first RPG experience was in college, back with the PLATO mainframe."
 

Black Angel

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How exactly can the combat "rely" on character's skill? Your build gives you a certain variety of combat options, but the result of an encounter shouldn't be decided from the player's skill?

(Not talking about fallout here, the point is about RPGs in general)
To-Hit Chance. Tbh, being a cRPG newfag I'm not exactly sure how the older cRPGs works in this regard since they mostly tried to emulate P&P RPGs. More recent cRPGs like AoD had crystal clear THC formula shown when you hover your cursor over an enemy, basically your character's Attack Accuracy - Enemy's Defense, which then added or reduced further based on what type of attack you're going to use (Fast, Regular, Power, Aimed etc etc), and if you're attacking an enemy from their side or behind. And then there's Underrail which is pretty much the same but there's also some hidden factors like darkness, your weapon's capability (max/optimal range), ranged attacks versus evasion, melee vs dodge, etc etc.

Being good at turn based tactics is still player's skill.
Yeah, until suddenly your character missed a 95% THC, or the enemy somehow dodged/blocked it :smug:

Combat isn't exactly what I would call a "roleplaying opportunity". Blast them away with fists, guns or explosives, it makes no difference to me. At the end of the day it is still "kill the others". By roleplaying I mean through conversations, skill checks, questst that offer a nice variety of solutions.
Fair enough, but even in combat there is still some form of "roleplaying opportunity". In Fallout, having Jinxed, for example. This is more of a nitpick from my part, but New Vegas's traits still doesn't mean much because at the end of the day, combat's still dictated by your skills instead of character's skills.
 
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Being good at turn based tactics is still player's skill.

Yeah, until suddenly your character missed a 95% THC, or the enemy somehow dodged/blocked it :smug:

For a combat system to actually be good it must rely primarily on player's skill. If the rolls are more important than the actual tactics then the combat is not a test of your tactical skills, but a matter of reloading the last save until you get the right rolls. A little randomness is good to spice things up but it shouldn't override the importance of player input.
 

Black Angel

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For a combat system to actually be good it must rely primarily on player's skill. If the rolls are more important than the actual tactics then the combat is not a test of your tactical skills, but a matter of reloading the last save until you get the right rolls. A little randomness is good to spice things up but it shouldn't override the importance of player input.
:hahano:

Look at this. Look at this fucking shit. Basically, to you, the guy has to reload when that first bola got blocked. I get what you want to say, because the guy calmly continue on by using the tools he had at his hands (consuming AP and damage drugs so he can have extra AP to throw that second bola and move and have +dmg for the next turn). But what you just said there (a matter of reloading until getting the right rolls) reeks of popamolism and just being a blatant casual who can never accept proper cRPG combat gameplay mechanics.

So please keep away action game's combat from my RPGs, thanks.
 
Joined
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You don't seem to understand the argument.

The point is that if the rolls are more important than the player's input, that would inevitably lead to being unable to procede if you got bad rolls. If you can accommodate for bad rolls by using certain tactics, that means that the tactics are more important than the rolls. It's a simple concept, really.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Proper RPGs would remove % chances from the screen. That way, it is more about roleplaying and less about "I should stick to this tactic better, because the percentage says so".
 

Black Angel

Arcane
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You don't seem to understand the argument.

The point is that if the rolls are more important than the player's input, that would inevitably lead to being unable to procede if you got bad rolls. If you can accommodate for bad rolls by using certain tactics, that means that the tactics are more important than the rolls. It's a simple concept, really.
I do understand, but you also made unfair comparison to emphasize that, "for a combat system to actually be good it must rely primarily on player's skill". In that case, it shouldn't be that combat rely 'primarily' on player's skills, because when combat DO primarily rely on player's skills, it would be an action game. There should be certain :balance: between player's skills and character's skills when designing RPG combat mechanics then, especially with the emergence of a new 'school of thought' who argued that cRPG should no longer tried to emulate P&P RPGs (combat relies primarily on rolls), and instead try to design their own combat mechanic. AoD certainly have this new system, by allowing players to utilize different tools instead of trying to solely relies on dice rolls.

And it all comes back to my initial argument, that NV doesn't offer much more RPG opportunities than the classical Fallout, because of combat mechanics now relies mostly on player's skills, instead of character's skills. Like I said, we can no longer have situations like Jinxed characters in New Vegas (and it's not a matter of Jinxed trait doesn't exist in the first place. How would you make a character with Jinxed trait or something similar when you're in 1st/3rd person perspective? Maybe there's a way, but there doesn't seem to be any by the time New Vegas was developed).
 
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I do understand, but you also made unfair comparison to emphasize that, "for a combat system to actually be good it must rely primarily on player's skill". In that case, it shouldn't be that combat rely 'primarily' on player's skills, because when combat DO primarily rely on player's skills, it would be an action game.

I said "primarily" not exclusively. The combat must rely primarily on player's skill and secondarily on the rolls, otherwise luck is more important than the player's input.

Also chess is 100% dependant on player's skill. According to your logic, that makes it an action game.
 

Black Angel

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Wonderland
I said "primarily" not exclusively. The combat must rely primarily on player's skill and secondarily on the rolls, otherwise luck is more important than the player's input.
Again, there should be certain balance instead of prioritizing either one or the other in cRPGs. Is there even a cRPG that rely on player's skills first, and the rolls second? It should be 50/50 instead, like AoD. You have all these tools at hands, you utilize them as a player, and then you rely on character's skills to carry out the execution of the combat to victory. See how in Eyestabber's Ironman playthrough of AoD, he utilized bolas to head-choke a strong opponent (player's skills), but the first attack he can perform on the target missed despite of 95% THC (rolls). It's not a perfect balance for a cRPG combat, but it's still a good one at that because you really wouldn't be tempted to reload unless you're a casual.

Also chess is 100% dependant on player's skill. According to your logic, that makes it an action game.
Except chess is much more comparable to Tactical-RPGs, where certain units are best suited to take on certain enemy units, etc etc. It's not comparable to single-player cRPGs (dunno what to say about party-based ones, since like I said I'm a newfag) where it's (mostly) you vs the world. That's not even considering that chess doesn't involve factors taken into account when talking about computer-RPGs.

Edit: I think you're kind of missed the mark of my initial arguments. Sigourn tried to pass off New Vegas as having 'more RPG opportunities than the classical Fallout(s)' despite of combat now relying mostly on player's skills and in New Vegas's case, it IS more of an action game than an RPG in that regard. Does New Vegas has rolls? Not at all, and that's why I reject the notion of New Vegas having more RPG opportunities.
 
Last edited:
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IncendiaryDevice

Self-Ejected
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What's the point? People just want the group opinion to reflect their own personal opinion. Does it achieve anything? No.

Top RPG voting was bad idea from the start, let it go

The main purpose of the lists IMO is to provide people with a shorthand of all the 'best' games the genre has to offer, so that if someone is looking for a new old game to play then they can use the list as a starting point rather than ask in a thread and get Realms of Arkania HD repeated at them indefinitely.

Also, it provides a barometer of who it is the site will will interest and what kind of games the site is interested in hearing about, discussing and all the other factors which enable a community to actually be a community. Seeking validation seems low T and crass from a flippant quip point of view, and it can be, but in instances like this it's more about reassuring people they're in the right place, that we're not just cogs waiting to be extinguished in the great shillfest of daily marketing. The list acts as a defender to warn people that the latest shitty AAA game doesn't necessarily hold much credence round here. or, conversely, whether the site is going to the dogs.

Finally, it's about establishing the facets that any modern developer should aspire to, our way of rewarding experimentation beyond simply copying whatever marketeers feel sells well that quarter. yes indie devs and modders, you might not have got worldwide fame and a million bucks, but you made a lot of people very happy and there are people who wish to mark these efforts for your ensured longevity.

I just think the way it's done is wrong and panders more to the issues you have than provide the stimulus the above would prefer.

I think a system of tighter rules, shorter lists and more time-period concentration are needed.
 
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The problem with the rolls being as important as the player's input is that it makes the combat to rely too much on randomness. The problem is not when a system tempts you to reload, the problem is when a system forces you to reload multiple times because luck doesn't smile you.

As for the second point, my intent was to show you that giving importance on player's skill has nothing to do with action games. Stuff like tactical games are also dependant on player's skill, as you just said. So I take it that we agree on that at least.
 
Self-Ejected

IncendiaryDevice

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The problem with the rolls being as important as the player's input is that it makes the combat to rely too much on randomness. The problem is not when a system tempts you to reload, the problem is when a system forces you to reload multiple times because luck doesn't smile you.

As for the second point, my intent was to show you that giving importance on player's skill has nothing to do with action games. Stuff like tactical games are also dependant on player's skill, as you just said. So I take it that we agree on that at least.

You're being too philosophical. The crux of the matter is in the intention of the design.

An action game doesn't necessarily have any character stats or character advancement, every aspect of how the character performs is down to player input, whether it be timing a jump over a ravine, timing a block and counter-stab, catching an enemy by surprise etc etc.

An RPG requires the character to in some way improve/develop over time via stats in order that the character can perform more complex actions or complete actions more efficiently. In this instance the skill of the player is in the management of these stats and the increased complexity rather than rely solely on such mechanics as mostly timing.

Ergo, an action game will usually require you learn the routine of an enemy and then you will defeat them via the same method each time, whereas with an RPG there isn't even a correct way to defeat an enemy, you cannot defeat the enemy simply by repeating the battle and learning movement patterns, you can only do it by managing your stats and skills - which all ties into the fundamental difference between PC master race games usually being management games and console pleb games being action games. The starkest example of the difference in formats being the difference between a football management game and an action football game where you play as the players. In ye olden days, if you wanted a good football manager you played a pc game and if you wanted to beat your mate at a game of virtual football you played a console game.
 

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