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Has anyone been able to find the one listed as "_____rogue the space"? I can't find it anywhere, including Rogue Basin.
Sure, but we'll never have a cRPG about real roleplaying if no one strives to get there. Bioware does and that's game design innovation in my book, even if akeley dismisses it because it's not in the area of tactical combat. That's the whole point.
Ok but they're still way behind Deus Ex and Star Control 2, games that came out in 2000 and 1992 respectively. You shouldn't settle for less with Bioware.
If only. What you "got" was a convoluted hybrid with a terrible flow and neither rhyme nor reason. In theory it could work - there are games with workable pause system - only it didn`t, unless you enjoy pressing Space hundred times a minute to skip mundane pauses, and then you`d miss some important action anyway. In the end it didn`t really matter that much because you`d be too busy trying to limit chaos caused by terrible pathfinding. Add to this lack of a grid and collision detection between actors, which eliminates any sort of insight into whats going on and renders area spells tactically useless (this by the way was even more farcical in in DA, where often you could marvel at your character bizarrely half-melted with the dog and some monster in the same space, all covered in flames)
If by "playing" from these RPG letters you consider watching cutscenes and participating in black-and-white dialogues that have no impact on real gameplay - while spending large chunk of the game either running down corridors and/or partaking in pretend-combat - then sure, Bioware are quite good at it*. But it`s your overuse of the world "innovation" - combined with that "since 1998" - that sort of gives the game away (pun not intended).
While I still maintain that combat is the most important thing in role-playing games - and yes, that`s what the characters you play roles of do the most after all - it`s possible to mix it all together million times better than the good Doctors ever did (before they jetted off to their private islands). That`s what was going on well before 1998 - Krondor, Goldbox, Ultimas, Darklands, Fallouts run circles around any Bioware game. There was plenty of role playing, story telling, and yes, excellently tactical combat - participating in which made me care about my companions infinitely more than some basic "choices" in a dialogue tree (there`s nothing wrong with this mechanic pers se, but not when it`s the only one in your RPG. As been said above, I`d rather play a tabletop session, choose-your-adventure book or a Telltale "game"). Dismissing this with "number adding" trope is rather a desperate measure.
Clearly, you`re a big fan of their "work", something I respect and understand, though completely disagree as for the merits. Obviously there`s no way we`re going to see eye to eye on this, plus I find this particular chapter of gaming history immensely depressing - hence, this is my last post on the Bioware angle.
Like, most games don't really pay close attention to what you do or give you any choices. Bioware games don't really pay attention to what you do either. They give you choices, ignore whatever you decided, and do what they were going to do in the first place. That isn't a big improvement.
Yeah, no. Combat is the most important thing in action or tactical games. RPGs are theoretically about roleplaying, even though the rest of the videogaming world missed the point and slaps those three letters whenever their games give you adding up numbers.
There are only a handful of video games in the world that respond to roleplaying. It's best to accept that, in the context of video games, RPG means "game where your numbers go up.
If you want a role playing game about actual roleplaying, you're better off playing a tabletop game with your friends.
Bioware is doing plenty of amazing game design innovation in their games
PffftYep, we won`t be agreeing on this one. While I did enjoy some of their games, these were never about "innovation" but mostly about prettifying and streamlining (not always bad qualities, well, not up till recent days at least, when it all went too far). They`re sort of Apple of RPG world in that respect.
In fact, original BG was a nail in the coffin for the turn-based games, it was so popular that everybody just up and forgot about them. But the game itself, while fun at parts, had comedy combat - it was at worst a godawful mess or, at best, easily exploitable by couple of kindergarten-grade "tactics". The reason was the switch to neither-fish-nor-fowl "pause" system - real-time was the new Messiah back then and everybody jumped on the bandwagon - BG itself was actually meant to be a real time strategy at its first draft.
And combat is the most important thing in any RPG, there`s no way around it. Apart from few things like charming NPCs, most of RPG systems revolve around it. IN ME2 this was dumbed down to the extent that when I abandoned chasing the uber-simplistic "upgrades" somewhere before even mid-game, I still won the game with dying maybe twice - and that was due to wonky camera. And I was playing on second-hardest difficulty. Pathetic. Then add the removal of planetary exploration - hell, there was no need to even explore any planets at all - and its curtains.
As for the plot - which I do actually appreciate - what "innovations" were there? It was just very well written, that`s all. And even that collapsed in the sequel - they had opportunity to make things interesting by giving you the option to go against the Shadow Broker, but as per usual, we ended up with illusion of choice, since it was all linear. And all other "choices" royally black and white too, plus rather meaningless - since they didn`t affect anything apart from the "paragon" bar. One character might die? Yeah but why would I care, since they`re all the same - in terms of gameplay affecting perks and abilities? Sorry, forgot that these don`t matter either because combat ^^
It`s not even about lack of "innovation" - I consider this concept quite nebulous, and don`t require some earth shattering new concepts to constantly appear - but the thing is, in the last decade we`re actually seeing the reversal taking place. They call it "streamlining", I call it "dumbing down", speaking bluntly. It should be obvious for anybody following major genres/franchises - would you really put Dragon`s Age next to Baldur`s Gate (and I don`t even consider BG a be-all-end-all of the RPG world, like most folk). Mass Effect is my favourite example - the original was no Starflight, for sure, but it was a truly open-world game with plenty of real "gaming" things to do - the sequel surgically removed the best bits leaving just cutscenes, across-the-room quests and combat that plays itself out (even on hardest setting).
This is quite interesting notion, and goes along with my old theory that we, as gamers, are often responsible for stagnation in videogaming genres/trends because of acceptance of some standards that are "okay".
It's really strange that gamers are hostile to the idea of games becoming better than they currently are. For some reason it's "entitled" to prefer great things over good things.
Quick, brutal fights are inherently more interesting than long drawn out ones anyway.
Well, maybe the sentiments aren't that opposite and the relationship between minmaxing and roleplaying is more complex. What about "In a not-so-good (cRPG) game roleplaying and minmaxing conflict, in a good game they don't interfere with each other and in a great game they are one and the same"? Sounds good?
The best way to achieve this is to include as little traditional, linear narrative in your game as possible. In games divided between gameplay segments and cutscenes, the two never quite match up. On the other hand, in strategy games the story matches up with your actions perfectly, because the story is your actions. I've been using Chess and Go as examples of "pure" mechanical games, but really even in those a narrative arises from each player's decisions. Ideally you'll want to set your game in a "victory at all costs" scenario. If the player character doesn't have that mindset, but the player controlling them does, their actions will stop making sense.
zasvid, how about this: if you can recommend me some of the books on game design that you are talking about, I am open to checking them out.
Calling it "denseness" is just insulting.zasvid, it sounds like you are taking what I said too seriously. I was essentially saying: I don't see how any player could be worse at the game than I am. I was making fun of my own abilities, not belittling other people.
I certainly don't think that you or anyone else who grinds is less intelligent than me, okay? I promise I didn't think you would have taken it that way or I wouldn't have said it. I'm sorry.
I am quite happy to see this is a message board that thinks it is in bad taste to say mean things about other people, though.
Well, of course, if a game lets you learn magic at no cost save time and risk-free effort, you'll learn magic unless you're the kind of player that values playing to a concept purely more than making sure you'll win (this is weakened somewhat in risk-free games like a lot of mainstream titles, because you can put it off until you encounter problems).
I don't know zasvid, I just don't see it. I mean, I hear what you are saying, I just have a hard time believing most people think that way. Do players other than you really feel like they absolutely have to use features just because they are there?
Why yes, yes it does. You can't tell how, because you're not prone to grinding. However, I have extensive personal experience with the topic at hand, having grinded in every way possible in ADOM (in fact, I quite possibly pioneered one way of grinding) and for nearly every goal I could set for myself there was a way to make it easier by grinding. Herb farming by itself was so insanely profitable that it remained a mainstay since the early days of "I can't win ADOM" to the days of being a successful speedrunner. Perceived necessity of Infinite Dungeon stairscumming to take a crack at spellcaster speedruns was one of the few reasons I've quit ADOM. Another one was "going through early dungeons when they are not longer challenging to have more shots at some good loot is boring but efficient use of time", so in a way also grinding-related. Ultra-endings requiring random drops, which could only be obtained by grinding if not provided by luck earlier were annoying, to say the least.
I think some of these complaints relate to older versions of ADOM? Can we please keep this discussion limited to the most recent version of ADOM? The one that has adjusted balance to make exploitation more difficult and grinding less necessary? For instance, I think herb farming is a lot less exploitable now.
Also, I have never even come close to completing an ultra ending. So you may be 100 percent right about these concerns as they relate to that situation. I've never done a speed run either. I really was not thinking of either of those situations in any of my previous posts, I'm just imagining a run-of-the-mill playthrough. So I'd like to hear what you think about that case in particular.Yet, I have completed a few grind-free playthroughs and the one I remember the fondest was such. A coincidence? I think not.
If ADOM didn't have profitable grinding, I could've skipped straight to the better, grind-free playthroughs instead of relying on grinding crutches (I don't think it would've delayed my 1st victory too much further and frustrated me away from ADOM before it - many times I won quite overprepared). I also played it somewhat competitively at times and my experience was diminished, because some of the records were set using grindy tactics and I've had to either give up my ambition or suffer through the grind to compete.
Hopefully we'll see if it can get better without getting worse for others - ADOM 1.2.0 changelog and todo list looked very promising the last time I've looked and might be much closer to what I wish ADOM always was.
Again, I've been thinking of the newest version of ADOM this whole time, so when I as if you think you have to grind in ADOM, that's the one I'm talking about, and I'm assuming a normal playthrough. I can't really comment on situations other than that.
I think your last quote illustrates what the problem with this argument is for me. The urge to min-max that you are describing sounds almost like a compulsion. I don't mean that as a personal criticism, and I'm not trying to be mean, but it really does. You sound like you absolutely can't stop yourself from playing that way even though you had more fun when you didn't min-max.
This is an honest question: have you ever considered that maybe the problem really is the way that you play, rather than the game itself?
Well, your generalisation of my statement is a misguided extrapolation, as you could insert [grinding] as feature and declare that people who bypass it are unreasonable and then it would seem that all the playerbase is unreasonable and where's any worth in that analysis?
Well, we could technically insert anything in that statement, although I would tend to think that mechanics which allow a player to bypass a tedious activity are a much better contender for a "feature" than the tedious activity itself.
zasvid, I realize that people on the internet, and on message boards in particular can be terrible to each other, and I guess maybe the situation I described could be seen as a form of bullying...And, I don't even know what to say next. Mostly I'm just very impressed that you think people should treat each other so well, even on the internet. No joke, that is pretty cool.
No, it`s not at all "well defined". Rather, everybody is using their own version to defend/attack various angles. That`s regarding this thread...and there`s a similar trend in the outside gaming world, where it`s mostly used as a convenient weapon to bash assorted games/companies/genres without much regard for reality. Along the way it has acquired mostly negative connotation, though in ideal world it would be just a term. In fact, if you look at the first post of this thread there`s Jo using it, in what seems to me a "normal" way.
But even if we stick to one of the negative definitions - it still fails, because it`s usually taken out of context and applied to personal vision of what constitutes some sort of a Golden Rule when it comes to RL/RPG systems. And it double fails when you`re trying to tie it to the other "meaningless" term - the much maligned jRPGs. And what are those? Surely RPGs made in Japan...right?...no, wait...lol
Reason I said it`s getting surreal in here, was upon reading snippets like Vanguard`s "99% of the time you're committing mass murder for little to no reason" regarding roleplaying, or your own comparison of jRPG fans to Aztec sun worshippers. Sorry, couldn`t find a better term for these than "surreal".
I`m perfectly willing to discuss anything, it`s just there`s usually a moment in such discussion - I call it The Tumbleweed - when assorted parties start going around in circles and repeating themselves. Consensus is (very) seldom reached between two disagreeers, at best you can sort of part-in-peace. Which is what I thought happened earlier. I couldn`t resist another remark, because I`m of course flawed, as those various battle systems out there. Go on, shoot me (better yet, cast Silence)
This thread is getting more and more surreal, but... oh well,
Let me just say that the term "jRPGs" is about as meaningless these days as "grinding" itself (actually, there are similarities to what has become of the term "roguelike" itself)
