Order these games by how bad their writing is

[fantadomat]

From shit to less shit:

Divinity: Original sin 2
Age of Decadence
Pillars of Eternity
Icewind Dale
ELEX - Best game,but not because of its writing.
Kingdom Come
Witcher

 

[Eyestabber]

gr8 writing

Imma gonna stop ya right thar, bucko.

EDIT: I have literally changed the writing in this post about 5 times now.

Doesn't change the fact that D:OS 2 and PoE are turds and ELEX is a fucking masterpiece in comparison. Anyway, I played all games in the list, here is my take:

• Age of Decadence (best)
  
• Witcher 3
• ELEX
  
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
  
• Pillars of Eternity
• Divinity: Original Sin 2 (yeah, worse than PoE. At least PoE was surprisingly free of faggotry while D:OS2 has one of its villains execute a carpet muncher, just do drive the point home. Because being a "homophobe" makes you a villain in 2017)

I don't remember IWD, it's been way too long. There was something about a dead god, right?

 

[DeepOcean]

• Divinity: Original Sin 2
• Pillars of Eternity
• Elex
• Icewind Dale
• Age of Decadence
• Witcher 3
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Worst to best.

 

[Pequod]

Witcha - realistic and competent in its quest episodes
Icewind Dale - cute and solid fantasy
Age of Decadence - try hard and uninteresting
Pillars - of shit

 

[unfairlight]

I've only played 3 of these.
Best to worst
Kingdom Comrade > Elex > DOS 2 > PoE.
I haven't played PoE but it's sawyershit so it earns a spot regardless.

 

[Pequod]

DOS2 - i dont remember, true story, quirky and retarded infantilism?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I haven't played PoE but it's sawyershit so it earns a spot regardless.

"hello NPC, I would like to know about X."
"Oh yes, here is an entire book of dialogue about Y that happened before the game started and has only tangential impact on the world and nearly nothing to do with X."

 

[fantadomat]

I've only played 3 of these.
Best to worst
Kingdom Comrade > Elex > DOS 2 > PoE.
I haven't played PoE but it's sawyershit so it earns a spot regardless.

Nah mate, PoE i by far better than DOS 2,by very very far.

 

[agris]

I am intentionally not asking "Which of these has the best writing". Order the following games, but no further additions:

• Divinity: Original Sin 2
• Witcher 3
• Age of Decadence
• Pillars of Eternity
• Icewind Dale
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Elex

Wow, I'm sure some developers would not be happy with the company that their games keep in this list. Haven't played them all, but from best to worst:

• Age of Decadence. Yes, it is mostly serious, but it avoids the trap that PoE falls into by coming across as juvenile or try-hard. Short when needed, descriptive when appropriate, evocative and effective.
  
• KCD. Is direct and serviceable, with flourishes that stick with you for good (jesus christ be praised) or bad (Henry's come to see us!). I do not get the feeling that the writers fart inside a prius, roll the windows up and enjoy the smell of their own making.
  
• IWD. IWD has unremarkable writing in my opinion, which relegates it to the 'meh' category.
• POE. I get what they were going for, but for every dialogue that struck a chord and seemed well written, there was 3 backer NPCs and exposition diarrhea ready to rip you out of the world. This is why it is worse than IWD - while the highs were higher, they lows were more frequent and much lower. I get the distinct impression that some of the writers fart inside a prius, roll the windows up and enjoy the smell of their own making.

context

 

[KateMicucci]

I judge writing by whether it's it entertains me or whether it would make me fall asleep if I didn't skip it.

Consistently entertaining:
Witcher. There weren't any cutscenes or anything that ever made me want to hit the skip button. The quality of the voice acting, graphics and animations certainly helped prop up the writing though.
DOS2. The cringey sexual moments and the grimdarkness were out of place against the bright cartoon graphics, but the writing never felt long-winded or boring.

Sleep aid:
Pillows.
KCD. The writing could be much better if there was just less of it. Cutscenes take too long because the same information is rehashed multiple times.

 

[AwesomeButton]

D:OS2 is what happens when you assign ten writers to a game in order to raise the B-movie-for-kids writing quality of the previous game, but forget to tell them to actually write good. Or maybe that's just how good they can be when they try? Multiply 2xtalentless and you get D:OS. Multiply 9xtalentless (not counting MCA) and you get D:OS2.

BTW I'm surprised so many people are underestimating IWD. It contains some of the most inspiring and atmospheric descriptions that I know of in the chapters' introductions and dialogue with important NPCs. It doesn't have one million words, but what it has is very strong. Chris Avellone is credited under "Design" and "Technical design". I guess he is at least partly responsible for the game's style and class.

 

[Kruno]

• Witcher 3
• Icewind Dale
• Divinity: Original Sin 2
  
• Pillars of Eternity
• Elex

Best to worst.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

From worst to best:

• Pillars of Eternity
• Divinity: Original Sin 2
• Icewind Dale
• Elex
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Age of Decadence
• Witcher 3

 

[ilitarist]

Only those I've played:

Age of Decadence
Pillars of Eternity
Kingdom Come
Witcher 3 = Divinity: Original sin 2

Originally you wrote Witcher and that I'd put as the shittiest as the first was amateur and inconsistent. DOS2 is saved by its Terry Pratchett style: it doesn't take itself seriously so it's easy to forgive all misgivings. Also there's plenty of reactivity and dialogues feel very natural; the way they don't put words in your mouth but allow you to imagine what exactly your character says is great. Age of Decadence and Pillars of Eternity (which is probably my favourite game on the list) put you to sleep with a lot of text; AoD also uses wall of text as a substitute of action and the style is inconsistent. It also takes itself very seriously and the text is the main part of the game so the standard is way higher. Of course there are many games with writing worse than AoD, but we're talking about the recent RPGs known for their good writing, aren't we? I'd also slipped Tyranny on the same level as Kingdom Come.

 

[moon knight]

The problem of Divinity and Pillars is that their world is boring and feels uninspired. PoE expecially lost a great opportunity by relegating writing memorials to backers, instead of expanding the mechanic and fleshin out the lore of the world.

Except for this

 

[Zer0wing]

Obviously from bottom to top
-Pillars of Fedoras - m'lady + verbose grey paragraphs of nothing valuable + some cases of writers pushing their agenda is a yuge turnover. Hard-earned place right next to close-stool
-Divinity: OS 2 - says it all. Sissyfags, "girls inside" and other LGBTQOMGWTFBBQ ranks confirmed responsible for RPG decline. The gameplay is still dope, tho.
-Icewind Dale - it's not really a game focused on writing, but next to no writing is better than verbose shitty writing, still.
-Age of Decadence - a huge jump in quality from this point, cracks a few wise jokes and has cool twists, but didn't really click on me personally, plus it still suffers from oververbosity during loredump exposition.
-ELEX - It's not exactly an award winning, but I had alot of fun reading it and listening to NPCs.
-The Witcher 3 - the last act shits on otherwise excellent story, plus a reliance on books was a turnover for me because I'm not a huge fan of Ciri saga
-Kingdom Come: Deliverance - I honestly can't say anything bad about it. Feels spot on overall. But also feels like a part of something bigger yet to come, so we'll see how it goes.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Let me get this straight - Witcher 3, а game with 5-10 minutes long mini-movies of cutscenes is ok, but AoD suffers from oververbosity? IWD is also "verbose"?

 

[moon knight]

Let me get this straight - Witcher 3, а game with 5-10 minutes long mini-movies of cutscenes is ok, but AoD suffers from oververbosity? IWD is also "verbose"?

I don't know about AoD, but generally "oververbosity" is bad when the dialogue is filler. when you are just stuffing words to give the impression that the dialogues (or books, letters or bits of lore) are well written while giving next to no relevant informations to the player. Like the books, letters and "codex" bits in Dragon Age Inquisition. They are a fucking waste of time.

Did Witcher 3 feel to you it had dialogues or cutscenes that wasted your time while not giving informations regarding the quest plot or the characters involved?

 

[Zer0wing]

Let me get this straight - Witcher 3, а game with 5-10 minutes long mini-movies of cutscenes is ok, but AoD suffers from oververbosity? IWD is also "verbose"?

I guess you also don't like reading and paying attention. Yes to both answers, shortly. First, I specifically noted that AoD has a huge quality jump over the bottom three. Verbosity to describe action scenes in CYOA mode is necessary but not otherwise, not when you ask bartender a simple question and have several pages long essay on world and past and whatnot. Not when it's stale and not really fun to read. Indifference is better than cringe though, that's one of the reasons why AoD is way higher than PoS and Div:OS2. IWD is the opposite of what you asking about, didn't I pointed it out?
The Twitcher 3 features both cutscenes and dialogues, all matters, what are you referring to, again?

 

[AwesomeButton]

In the AoD bartender dialogue you explicitly asked for the loredump, and you got the loredump. What are you whining about? I'm not saying Witcher 3's writing bored me, it didn't. But I've had more than one instance when I expected this is the end of the interactive movie segment, and it turned out there is *even more*, which has made me frustrated. Not that it's bad, but at times it felt like too much at once. I also had a problem with new characters being briefly introduced up to a degree that I had trouble keeping track of who was responsible for what, that's probably because I've never read the books.

Regarding IWD, I misread your post.

 

[Zlaja]

Witcher 3 made me *feel*

Made me feel too. Between my legs. Thanks Yen!

 

[Zer0wing]

In the AoD bartender dialogue you explicitly asked for the loredump, and you got the loredump. What are you whining about? I'm not saying Witcher 3's writing bored me, it didn't. But I've had more than one instance when I expected this is the end of the interactive movie segment, and it turned out there is *even more*, which has made me frustrated. Not that it's bad, but at times it felt like too much at once. I also had a problem with new characters being briefly introduced up to a degree that I had trouble keeping track of who was responsible for what, that's probably because I've never read the books.

Whine? Strong claim for just an example pointed out. People just don't talk like that. Maybe gods in made up world Vault Dweller created do but not people. Also, AoD tries to be just informative while Twitcher 3 now could and does actually convey emotions, however cliched it sounds, it's just what happens.

Regarding Twitcher 3, it's a problem of not being familiar with source material but not only. Characters briefly introduced and never really get useful as plot devices, like nilfgaardian sorceresses. The same act 3 shittiness.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Witcher 3 made me *feel*

Made me feel too. Between my legs. Thanks Yen!

Fun fact:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XdrnL

Face was originally intended to be based on 3D scan of Polish model Klaudia Wróbel, however after initial in game tests I decided to reshape the face looking for more colder and mean look.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

DOS2 is saved by its Terry Pratchett style: it doesn't take itself seriously so it's easy to forgive all misgivings

Are you insane? I defy you to find me two passages in either D:OS game with a Pratchett-esque style. Sir Terry’s writing didn’t take the world seriously, or even his characters, but it sure took itself seriously and thank god for that. You could probably compose a whole religion from the wit and wisdom of the Discworld series. Sir Terry would roll over in his grave, but I suspect he’d also appreciate the absurdity. The D:OS games don’t take anything seriously; that’s quite different. In terms of style, though, it’s not even a knockoff—Pratchett is simply not the vibe the writing is going for.

Are you just shitposting? I know Larian lifts characters and all sorts of ideas straight from Discworld (sourcery!), I know these games take place in an a highly absurd fantasy world, but stylistically, you really think any of this resembles Pratchett?

I’ll admit there is a skin-deep thematic resemblance, but the emphasis there is on skin-deep. And theme != style.

 

[AwesomeButton]

People just don't talk like that. Maybe gods in made up world Vault Dweller created do but not people. Regarding Twitcher 3, it's a problem of not being familiar with source material but not only. Characters briefly introduced and never really get useful as plot devices, like nilfgaardian sorceresses. The same act 3 shittiness.

You're being selectively exacting on AoD's writing. I think your criticism is applicable to all the other games. If dialogue in books/movies/games was written and spoken like we speak in everyday conversations it would have been much harder to understand and wouldn't capture the attention like it does. This, and I repeat again - the loredump you are pointing out, as well as a few other loredumps, are requested by the player, and are not critical to finishing a quest - i.e. no one will test your knowledge as a player, of what you read - like they test it in PST or KCD for a most recent example.

Regarding Witcher 3, so it's not just me having a problem with that, cool. I still like the way the story is presented, and the "acting" so to speak.

P.S. what's up with this forum filling up with "people who *take offence*" lately? Fuck you all