evilthecat said:
Basically, I don't get the hate and I certainly don't get the idea that there's been some kind of decline. Change, sure, but we can't all live in the same nostalgia bubble full of shittily balanced isometric RPGs forever.
Yeah, but I've probably sunk more hours into Bloodborne or a game like M&B: Warband than I have in total or singularly a Bioware game since before Mass Effect. And I actually like the original Mass Effect. I totally get the argument there has been a 'decline'.
I get it, big studios need Oscar bait high profile movies in combination with more arthouse, more creative efforts. But when videogaming is dominated by Oscar bait by
all the studios that regularly pump out material it inevitably
looks the same, and takes no chances giving players actual complexity, there's a problem. I don't like D&D as much as other rolelaying games like O/WoD/CofD stuff ... but I still like pulling out a catfolk glasscannon melee bard 3.x stuff at least.
3.5 is the epitome of
shittily """balanced""" but that's part of the charm of catering to
choice. And that catfolk glasscannon melee bard is hardly OP compared to what you
can do with the system.
There is a reason why we'll never get another attempt at delivering the RTT greats like another MechCommander, or some
purely awesome Jagged Alliance-likes.
Instead we get
Back in Action for a reason...something no one ever wanted to see. Something no one ever wanted to play. That barred dual wielding for the sake of 'game balance', forced bullshit like arbitrary weapon timings and forced melee weapon switching in hand to hand because of that fucking timer ... and took away all the memorised questionnaire answers in order to create you own custom mercenary you want to play. In fact, in order to make sure the player character's custom avatar (that could permanently die, no continues) not stand out so much in comparison to the other mercs and all the bullshit graphical tweaks and animated garbage
they merely removed that, the coolest thing, from their "remake" of the original JA:2...
The whole idea that in JA:2 you created (what is hinted to be) a CIA mercenary contact to be your custom avatar to build together teams of mercenaries to perform violent regime change is a stroke of genius. A character that can die like any mercenary, but doesn't have a salary and something largely designed to your speifications.
Genius. It creates investment in what is largely a Turn-based tactical-rpg hybrid system with mini quests, territory control, and resource mnagement systems.
The mercs have personalities and histories (some of which you don't know about as a player) which means some mercs work better with other mercs. Their morale plummets or soarsas they work with these other mercenaries. They all have a twisted sense of humour because they
kill for a pay cheque and that tends to breed pretty sick puppies. When performing mini quests you actually have to read/listen to charaters. You have to organise weapons shipments, delivery, having
enough bullets but not
too many and forcing your characters to cart them around and carry not much else. You'll do things like organise
weapons caches you can access without having to truck them, etc.
You have to plot out mercenary movements, train militia, when and where to engage hostiles, set up traps, find ways to bust into guarded facilities, use reconnaissance, equip the right gear for night and day operations, as well as the specific environments, you have to assign medics and patients and set time for it, your mercenaries have varying standards of endurance meaning they need diffrent amounts of sleep as they suffer fatigue, even organise
funeral arrangements and life insurance policies for your mercenaries if they cark it.
All with 80s level action schlock big bad and humour.
And we'll
never get something like it again from the studios that have the money to produce a game worthy of that GTX1080 precisely because of examples like Bioware.
It's also the principle reason why Pillars of Eternity is
fucking garbage (pinning your game on four stats? Really? Amateurs... Obsidian should
know better which makes it all the more unforgivable) and why Divinity: OS is actually
good (well
decent compared to old school games like the aforementioned JA:2).
These """game""" developers need to look at what boardgaming firms are making. Study the
fucking basics of
game design first. Actually look at
basic mechanics. In order to qualify for whatever fucking stupid and ridiculous
made up degrees they have that would produce such
fundamentally illiterate non-professionals they seem to employ before they can
even pretend to make a videogame.
It's a joke whatever Betheda or Bioware pretend to call an """rpg""".
I shouldn't need to remind you that it is
fucking atrocious that I'm simply happy going into a modern rpg with
actual complexity of character dev and customization. Or go into a RPG and be happy just to see
no compass markers and actually relies on decent writing that the player has to
actually fucking read in order to figure out what to do or where to go.
You could turn off subtitles and audio, read nothing but your inventory/spells list, and you can
complete Skyrim with just the compass pointers.
10/10!! Bioware is no better than Bethesda.
It's funny how JA:2, with its cheesy dialogues, its threadbare story (being merely a platform for its
theme), cliched characters and 80s-bad villain
is a smarter game and requires more of your problem solving than any """epic videogame""" from any major developer of the
last two decades.
How it's a
better roleplaying game even though that is not the central conceit of its premise.
Even the
music and sound direction of the 90s classics who ran on budgets that was effectively a month of paying Sydney rents was better.
That's
style. Just oozes
Miami Vice mixed with South American CIA shadow war
vibes. Cool, crisp, with accents of bass guitar thumbing, mixed with synth-pop undertones. It's like
80s noir ... if reality allowed us
audible background themes whenever we entered a scene, I want
whoever designed and put together that track to do mine.
To put it bluntly,
it just sounds cool.
Whatever airy-fairy certificates "videogame developers" run around with now, it ain't worth the toilet paper it's printed on. Evidently it's a
dead art form.
Artistic mediums are
meant to improve as time goes on.
This is not my idea of fun and I'll take isometric RPGs over it anyday if it means actual complexity of interaction...
Pretty much. I'm still sore over what they did to Dragon Age.Arnoxthe1 said:
