What's more important combat or storyline?

[Callaxes]

Do you think you can forgive all the shortcomings of a bad game (i.e. TOEE) if it has a hardcore tactical combat system?

What kind of gameplay in an CRPG is mor eimportant for you? Mind squizing tactical comat with xyz options and 80 different ways to master it OR storytelling details, good dialog and memorable characters? Chooices and Conscequences are an exception in this debate (you can have a game with C&C but also a bad story with lackluster NPCs)

Right now I find that both have it's strength and weaknesses, a game with good combat would have more replayability. However a game with a good storyline and dialog would be much mor ememorable.

 

[stargelman]

Do you think you can forgive all the shortcomings of a bad game (i.e. TOEE) if it has a hardcore tactical combat system?

No. Never. I never liked ToEE. If I just wanted a game with good combat I'd not look for an RPG but some FPS or strategy game. And I don't really agree with you on the C&C thing being possible if the dialog and stuff is bad. C&C need to be presented in a believable and plausible manner and they need to be embedded into the game in a meaningful way using the story, quests and other things.

 

[orc bait]

I buy an RPG just for the combat and PHAT L00T, fuck the story, and NPCS should just be there for me to kill.

Is fucktard land getting full so your all finding a new home, or is this just a troll thread

 

[JarlFrank]

Storyline. I love to be able to complete the game with diplomacy. I loved Arcanum. The combat sucks, but the dialogue and story was just mindblowing.

If I wanna play a combat RPG I play Diablolikes or Roguelikes, or any other Dungeon Crawler style RPG.

 

[OSK]

Rather than use the term combat, I'd use gameplay since I see playing with diplomacy and story as two distinctly separate things.

Give me great combat and tons of roleplaying opportunities. If I'm having a blast playing through the game, I don't care about the story.

If I wanted a great story, I'd read a damn book!

 

[Red Russian]

Really a problem for me to choose here. It really depends on how much combat that paticular RPG has. If it has loads of combat, I'd probably take it IF it has an excellent combat system. When doing alot of something that something better be good to keep me interested. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't finish it based simply on the fact that the story sucks. This is why I rarely finish RTSes. The gameplay for all of 'em is... meh, and because their stories suck ass, they don't get finished.

Last RPG I finished was KotoR for some odd reason. Mind you, I have never played a Star Wars game before, so I was kinda interested their for awhile because of the "new" playing field I was in.

If I want stories that is being told in an interesting way, I'd play FF games. They atleast put alot of effort into making it sound interesting.

 

[Texas Red]

Except there arent any RPGs around that focus on combat. And no, I dont mean those pointless Diablo clones. Wizardry 8 and ToEE... what else is there?

I would buy a D&D game with ToEE's engine where combat takes 95% of the game. I wouldnt buy Titan Quest.

 

[sqeecoo]

As long as one of them makes the game worth playing, and the other does not make the game unplayable, I don't care which is which. Well actually I prefer story, but I am happy with either.

For instance the story (and here I include character development+plot, I don't know if that's the OP's intention) in PST carries the whole game, while the combat tries hard to ruin it (but fails, in my opinion).

In Wiz8 or Diablo the story is sucks but the combat is nice, and makes the game quite good.

 

[Callaxes]

And I don't really agree with you on the C&C thing being possible if the dialog and stuff is bad. C&C need to be presented in a believable and plausible manner and they need to be embedded into the game in a meaningful way using the story, quests and other things.

Not realy, you can even add C&C in a game without a story, in fact I've seen a fair number of open-ended strategy games or economycal simulations that manages to throw in a chooice and a conscequence here and there without using craploads of storytelling detail or even a story. It can simply boil down to:

Oh, yay great savior of the city of Nova Karamal'Umir'fielder'prapax, for slaying thy evil monster of darkness by making it see it's own reflection (chooice, there could be other ways to kill him), I giveth to thee a stone of Angel blood. What woust thou do with thy stone thy lord?

1. Give it to #1 party member who will become better at crossbows
2. Give it to #2 party member who will become better at sculpture and arhitecture so that he will help you build a castle for the king
3. Give it to #3 party member so that her boobs will grow and she will fall madly in love with you
4. Use it yourself to increase one of your stats.

 

[Kraszu]

Interesting C&C require decent story/dialogue, while combat is independent.

 

[Crichton]

I define content as everything in the game where there's no wrong way to experience it (or shouldn't be). This includes-

Character Creation
Storyline
Altering stuff (being able to effect the gameworld)
Artwork
Music
Writing

Gameplay for me is everything where there are right and wrong ways to do things and the point is to figure out a right way. Examples-

Combat
Stealth
Puzzles
Racing
Minigames (fishing, card playing whatever)

If a game has content that interests me, I'll keep playing almost regardless of how bad the actual gameplay is (Arcanum, KotOR 1+2, Fallout 1+2).

Will I keep playing a game with lousy content but good gameplay? Yes (ToEE, Silent Storm, Tactics Ogre, FFT).

If game has ok content and no gameplay I may still play it once (morrowind) but that's really at the limit because I won't want to experience the content again.

If a game has ok gameplay and lousy content, I might finish it and I might not (finished oblivion, jury's still out on scarface).

If it looks like a game has lousy content and no gameplay (diablo, titan quest, silverfall, et al). I probably won't even pick it up, but every now and again I make a mistake (played all the way through NWN).

What really puzzles me is when developers don't put any thought into gameplay at all. Sometimes one has to make a choice between allowing the player to effect the story and having a compelling story, but there's never a conflict between either of these and gameplay. Gameplay is also much less time-consuming to create than content. And yet frequently gameplay just gets left by the wayside. After putting so much effort into the gameworld of Arcanum and Fallout, the gameplay is slapped together garbage and the gothic games aren't much better. The progression from NWN -> KotOR -> NWN2 shows that bioware/obsidian are trying to put some gameplay in, but they're still well short of the IE games. Sometimes I think that RPGs are the only games where the audience doesn't give a damn if there's any gameplay or not. MMOs and Diablo sell like hotcakes because all "hardcore RPG fans" want is treadmill porn.

 

[stargelman]

And I don't really agree with you on the C&C thing being possible if the dialog and stuff is bad. C&C need to be presented in a believable and plausible manner and they need to be embedded into the game in a meaningful way using the story, quests and other things.

Not realy, you can even add C&C in a game without a story, in fact I've seen a fair number of open-ended strategy games or economycal simulations that manages to throw in a chooice and a conscequence here and there without using craploads of storytelling detail or even a story. It can simply boil down to:

Oh, yay great savior of the city of Nova Karamal'Umir'fielder'prapax, for slaying thy evil monster of darkness by making it see it's own reflection (chooice, there could be other ways to kill him), I giveth to thee a stone of Angel blood. What woust thou do with thy stone thy lord?

1. Give it to #1 party member who will become better at crossbows
2. Give it to #2 party member who will become better at sculpture and arhitecture so that he will help you build a castle for the king
3. Give it to #3 party member so that her boobs will grow and she will fall madly in love with you
4. Use it yourself to increase one of your stats.

*sigh*

You must have skipped over the part where I used the words "meaningful" and "plausible".

 

[Callaxes]

If the conscequences and chooices are related to the character or the story in a "meaningfull" way, then that's a plus. But that doesn't mean you can't add a chooice that's seems to be right out of the blue, sureit won't seem as interesting or plausible, but it doesn't matter from a gameplay poit of view, because you're just choosing different ways to advance to the next dungeon crawl.

 

[Shagnak]

If I was honest I would have to admit that gameplay elements such as combat have the edge over story for me; especially since my favourite games have shit stories and good combat (e.g. Wizardry 8). Or do not have a tight story line as such (e.g. the mid Ultimas).

I'd always take a game that had amazing combat and crap story over a game with an amazing story but I couldn't play due to the awesome suckage of combat.

And quite frankly most of the writing in RPGs is utter arse. If you really value things like story above things like combat, what games are you talking about? The pool is rather small. When I think of good writing I usually think about some of the books in my humungous collection, not computer RPGs.

The examples that I can think of that do have genuinely good writing don't suck enough in combat to tip the balance for me. I think Arcanum came close. But it can't have sucked that much because it is on my "definitely must finish one day" list.

 

[Kraszu]

If the conscequences and chooices are related to the character or the story in a "meaningfull" way, then that's a plus. But that doesn't mean you can't add a chooice that's seems to be right out of the blue, sureit won't seem as interesting or plausible, but it doesn't matter from a gameplay poit of view, because you're just choosing different ways to advance to the next dungeon crawl.

But when you ask people what they care more about in game then it is connected whit quality of it. Just like you would ask if people want combat in crpg if it will suck game could be better without it, if it is good I want it. Same argument can be used for combat it suck or not it advance you.

As for me C&C connected whit good story/writing then combat. If the game just have good story but linear or good combat, then good combat.

 

[made]

All the great classic RPG's had crappy combat: Arcanum, PS:T, Fallout (supposedly), Ultima's. It's easy to ignore when everything else is done right. The other way around, not so much.

 

[Shagnak]

All the great classic RPGs had crappy storylines: Wizardries, Gold Box games, EoB, most of the Ultimas. It's easy to ignore when...they just fucking rocked anyway!

 

[made]

i c wut u did thar

 

[Shagnak]

We should like team up or something and be the awesome dudes-with-horns twins.

Except I'm the original, so that makes you my minion.

 

[Kraszu]

Story don't have to be masterpiece of literature just make interesting c&c and not being 100% generic crup, and it should be presented right you should not have to much information at start (gothic 2 mistake). Possibilities that story creates for player, atmosphere are more important then the core story.

 

[Zomg]

If by story, you're including roleplaying and other "meaty" elements to the bones of combat and other very gameish gameplay, I'll take story.

All I ask is that the game bits not be fucking terrible, a standard RPGs keep failing in the most obscene ways.

 

[stargelman]

I'm confused... Which of you is the evil twin?

 

[Chork]

Combat or story? Hard choice. I can enjoy games that do either of those great even if the rest is less than stellar.

What I dislike are games that have mediocre story AND gameplay (NWN and Oblivion for example).

 

[MisterStone]

Do you think you can forgive all the shortcomings of a bad game (i.e. TOEE) if it has a hardcore tactical combat system?

What kind of gameplay in an CRPG is mor eimportant for you? Mind squizing tactical comat with xyz options and 80 different ways to master it OR storytelling details, good dialog and memorable characters? Chooices and Conscequences are an exception in this debate (you can have a game with C&C but also a bad story with lackluster NPCs)

Right now I find that both have it's strength and weaknesses, a game with good combat would have more replayability. However a game with a good storyline and dialog would be much mor ememorable.

If someone were to make an XCom tactical squad-like turn based game in a that was really really fun, I'd play it. But then it wouldn't be a RPG, would it? Actually I guess we've already got Jagged Alliance and ToEE for that, right?

 

[Section8]

Do you think you can forgive all the shortcomings of a bad game (i.e. TOEE) if it has a hardcore tactical combat system?

Bad game? Huh? It's a great tactical dungeon crawler. It's not supposed to be a deep RPG.

I don't quite get the argument of this thread. Good gameplay should beget player-authored narrative, preferable expounded within the game itself. But, I still trade "war stories" with my mates about stuff that happened to us in games like Dead Rising.

As for immutable story that exists regardless of gameplay, I'd rather read a fucking book.