229 réponses à ce sujet

[Artona]

Older roleplays like Baldurs Gate and their "spiritual successors" like PoE were indeed fairly complicated and complex in matters of mechanics (I still don't know how THACo works, I only know that it's supposed to be as low as possible), but it had upper side - allowed to create very different characters, while in DA:I you're choosing between shield and two-handed weapons, and that's pretty much it.

[countofhell]

Never played and i don't like old West RPG's only played oldschool J-RPG's and j action rpg's.

[Chealec]

On thing I will say about games of the 90's era though, there seemed to be a lot more willingness to experiment than there was in the noughties ... it's changed back again now with things like Unity powering a resurgence in indy games.

 

I used to have an Amiga. It was awesome.

 

Legend had one of the most inventive spell systems I've ever encountered:

https://en.wikipedia...992_video_game)

 

Elf was just plain ... odd

http://hol.abime.net/2831

 

Moonstone, apart from being buggy as hell, had loads of nice little features - Ratmen getting stronger with the phase of the moon, ridiculous player gibbage when hammered by a giant monster and several ways to get killed/eaten by a dragon. And it was a competitive multiplayer game.

https://en.wikipedia...ard_Days_Knight

 

 

Lemmings, Sensible Soccer, Monkey Island, the Chaos Engine, Speedball and the original Sim City and Civilisation games all came out around that time.

 

... and in the last few years that sort of 90s "flair" has made a comeback; from Super Meat Boy to Her Story, Hotline Miami to Kerbal Space Program.

 

 

Modern games aren't overall worse but the market has matured. AAA titles can now have budgets bigger than blockbuster movies - it's not really surprising the big publishers are far more risk averse, more likely to push for additional monetisation (DLC etc) and tighter deadlines. The audience has changed too, it's less a "teenage boy" market now, sooooo many people now play games whether that's traditional console/PC-based games or King.com style casual games on phones or tablets... from my 5 year old nephew (Lego Marvel on Wii) to my 69 year old mum (Mass Effect on PC ... on about her 20th play-through of the trilogy now).

 

The industry is more commercially successful than ever - so some games must be doing something right, somewhere.

[Catastrophy]

What's with them? Don't they have still fixed sights? RPGs are not guided missiles, so they basically function all the same - no fancy innovations if I get that right.

I'm pretty sure old RPGs are still widely in service.

 

For a sci-fi shooter it's kind of a simplistic weapon, but I guess many people like them for their explosions.

[correctamundo]

Luckily Bioware are busy going forward instead of desperately clinging to the past.

[SNascimento]

I have no problems with people that want RPGs that are more like older ones, but I also think it should be clear to everybody that Mass Effect is, and never was, that. The original trilogy (indeed this is true for Dragon Age as well) were games that tried to push the RPG genre foward by introducing new mechanics and concepts and reimagining older ones. That is what Bioware will try to do with Andromeda. And I have a feeling it will be a very big leap that hopefully will land where they intend. 

So wanting Andromeda to be more like Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment and then blaiming someone for it not being that is in many ways plain unfair. No much different than ask it to be a FPS or RTS. There are other modern games that do that. But that's not for Mass Effect.

[Iakus]

I have no problems with people that want RPGs that are more like older ones, but I also think it should be clear to everybody that Mass Effect is, and never was, that. The original trilogy (indeed this is true for Dragon Age as well) were games that tried to push the RPG genre foward by introducing new mechanics and concepts and reimagining older ones. That is what Bioware will try to do with Andromeda. And I have a feeling it will be a very big leap that hopefully will land where they intend. 

So wanting Andromeda to be more like Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment and then blaiming someone for it not being that is in many ways plain unfair. No much different than ask it to be a FPS or RTS. There are other modern games that do that. But that's not for Mass Effect.

When people ask for RPGs to be more like the older types, I don't think they (or at leas, I) don't mean an isometric turn based or RTWP game with Vancian magic systems.  What I'm after is:

 

Huge story.

Side quests that are storyarcs unto themselves.  Not just a corridor to follow shooting everything in my path.

Frequent and varied dialogue options.

Lots of character customization, both in ability and appearance.

Multiple ways of dealing with quests (No, Shepard, a bullet to the head should not solve everything)

Rich backstories and lore.

Varied outcomes, both good and bad, rather than multicolored "bittersweet" railroading.

[AlanC9]

Of course, plenty of BG2 sidequests are just "go here and kill everything" too. Others are "go here and kill everything" with a puzzle or two to break up the killing. BG1 is even worse. And games of that era didn't average more dialogue choices than the modern ones.

And varied outcomes? BG1 and BG2 had just one. Only ToB had more. And moving on, NWN OCand HotU had single endings. KotOR had two, but both were triumphant.

And so on. I'm not saying that was a bad set of criteria. But if those are the criteria then Bio was never any good. This is exactly the RPGCodex case against Bio.

[RoboticWater]

When people ask for RPGs to be more like the older types, I don't think they (or at leas, I) don't mean an isometric turn based or RTWP game with Vancian magic systems.  What I'm after is:

 

Huge story.

Side quests that are storyarcs unto themselves.  Not just a corridor to follow shooting everything in my path.

Frequent and varied dialogue options.

Lots of character customization, both in ability and appearance.

Multiple ways of dealing with quests (No, Shepard, a bullet to the head should not solve everything)

Rich backstories and lore.

Varied outcomes, both good and bad, rather than multicolored "bittersweet" railroading.

Then it's probably best not to frame the argument as a flat "the 90s did it better," because that's an absurd over-simplification. Obviously, kicking this argument off with a lazily compiled meme wasn't the best way to go about this.

 

I'm more than willing to accept that older RPGs did some things better than their modern counterparts, but there seems to be this implication that they accomplished those things without sacrificing any other elements and that modern RPGs are just willfully "dumbing themselves down," for no benefit. I've already made my case about presentation value earlier, so I'm not going to reiterate the whole thing; however, bigger, more exciting set pieces are going to come at the cost of length and more engaging VO will come at the cost of dialog variety. Longer story arcs might be eschewed for quicker pacing, and linear level design is necessary for good shooter design. Appearance customization variety is reduced so each individual item can have a more unique and higher fidelity appearance (I wasn't kidding when I said that every 3d modeled character in Pillars looked silly), and a similar thing could be said for abilities. 

 

You don't have to like any of this stuff, but that doesn't make modern conventions objectively inferior to older ones. There are trade-offs that need to happen.

[Artona]

 

Of course, plenty of BG2 sidequests are just "go here and kill everything" too. Others are "go here and kill everything" with a puzzle or two to break up the killing.

 

In BG2 you had a quest where you could blackmail some noblewoman. As a bard, you were to direct a play. Almost entire chapter you spent in disguise as a drow. Sure, BG2 (and BG1 as well) were mostly about killing stuff, but not entirely.

[Iakus]

Then it's probably best not to frame the argument as a flat "the 90s did it better," because that's an absurd over-simplification. Obviously, kicking this argument off with a lazily compiled meme wasn't the best way to go about this.

 

I'm more than willing to accept that older RPGs did some things better than their modern counterparts, but there seems to be this implication that they accomplished those things without sacrificing any other elements and that modern RPGs are just willfully "dumbing themselves down," for no benefit. I've already made my case about presentation value earlier, so I'm not going to reiterate the whole thing; however, bigger, more exciting set pieces are going to come at the cost of length and more engaging VO will come at the cost of dialog variety. Longer story arcs might be eschewed for quicker pacing, and linear level design is necessary for good shooter design. Appearance customization variety is reduced so each individual item can have a more unique and higher fidelity appearance (I wasn't kidding when I said that every 3d modeled character in Pillars looked silly), and a similar thing could be said for abilities. 

 

You don't have to like any of this stuff, but that doesn't make modern conventions objectively inferior to older ones. There are trade-offs that need to happen.

I'm not so sure it's accurate to say that other elements were sacrificed for these "old school" qualities.  More like these qualities were sacrificed for newer features.  Voiced protagonists, faster pace, etc.

 

Now to a certain degree, this makes sense.  But at what point do you look at all that was given up and go "was it really worth it?"

[Iakus]

In BG2 you had a quest where you could blackmail some noblewoman. As a bard, you were to direct a play. Almost entire chapter you spent in disguise as a drow. Sure, BG2 (and BG1 as well) were mostly about killing stuff, but not entirely.

There were several methods to get into Spellhold.  Not all of them violent

[AlanC9]

In BG2 you had a quest where you could blackmail some noblewoman. As a bard, you were to direct a play. Almost entire chapter you spent in disguise as a drow. Sure, BG2 (and BG1 as well) were mostly about killing stuff, but not entirely.

That's why I said "plenty" rather than "all," of course.

[Quarian Master Race]

What's with them? Don't they have still fixed sights? RPGs are not guided missiles, so they basically function all the same - no fancy innovations if I get that right.

I'm pretty sure old RPGs are still widely in service.

 

For a sci-fi shooter it's kind of a simplistic weapon, but I guess many people like them for their explosions.

this. This is what I thought an RPG was before visiting this forum.

count me as part of the crowd that picked ME2 up (ME1 wasn't available until 2012) because it's sci-fi pew pew. I and likely millions of others would never have touched these games if they were some isometric inventory management borefest  (ME1 had plenty enough of the latter, thanks), which is why this suggestion has no chance of being implemented. 

The first description of the gameplay we've gotten from anyone is "I got to shoot some badguys in the face". This bodes well. I could only stomach a single playthrough of one other Biower game (Origins, fun characters as usual but the gameplay was tedium), and I wouldn't want them to make this series DA in space, at all.

 

[Laughing_Man]

...and I wouldn't want them to make this series DA in space, at all.

 

What about XCOM in space?

[capn233]

 One of my main complaints with DA:O (which i love) was that the tactics system SUCKED. It was so detailed that if you had half a brain you could start combat go make a cup of coffee and return to collect loot.

 

That's a little hyperbolic.  Vanilla game tactics have various problems, although certainly they are lightyears ahead of DAI's half assed tactics.  In either case most of what allows the game to play itself is leveling the character and getting decent gear.  Regardless, dumbing down control in an attempt to make a game harder is a poor decision.

[Quarian Master Race]

What about XCOM in space?

I'm sure it's good at what it does, but I've absolutely no interest in turn based combat, and I'd reckon neither do most of the millions of casual (i.e. not Bioware loyalist) buyers of the series. Even ME1 is designed closer to Gears with some powers and C&C added than space DA or BG, nevermind the later two installments. ME3 even had an action mode that allowed you to skip narrative choices and leveling entirely, but the corresponding Narrative mode didn't skip the TPS combat (it just made it really easy).

These games are AAA blockbusters because they're action RPG/TPS hybrids. There's no chance of them being made in a genre swapping manner that would appeal to a few hundred thousand to single million or so RPG purists, and we certainly know ME:A isn't that, so it's kind of an odd thing to request.

[Iakus]

That's a little hyperbolic.  Vanilla game tactics have various problems, although certainly they are lightyears ahead of DAI's half assed tactics.  In either case most of what allows the game to play itself is leveling the character and getting decent gear.  Regardless, dumbing down control in an attempt to make a game harder is a poor decision.

It's a lot hyperbolic.

 

The tactics system, if you really work on it, can account for most of the more common situations likely to come up in combat.  But you still have to keep an eye out for the unusual.  You can't account for every situation.

 

DAI's tactics were very much dumbed down.  It was in fact reduced to "use this ability.  Don't use this ability.  or Use this ability A LOT!"

[SNascimento]

Huge story. 

Side quests that are storyarcs unto themselves.  Not just a corridor to follow shooting everything in my path.

Frequent and varied dialogue options.

Lots of character customization, both in ability and appearance.

Multiple ways of dealing with quests (No, Shepard, a bullet to the head should not solve everything)

Rich backstories and lore.

Varied outcomes, both good and bad, rather than multicolored "bittersweet" railroading.

Huge story: The Mass Effect trilogy has that. They might be shorter than some other RPGs but not by that much. One can say ME2 was more of many small stories than one huge one, but looking at the trilogy as a whole, saying it didn't have one huge epic story would be false as I see it. People may not have liked it or parts it, but it was there.

Side quests that are storyarcs unto themselves. Not just a corridor to follow shooting everything in my path: Mass Effect had that too. ME1 and ME2 especially. There were multiple missions in those games that involved several missions to complete and told a stand alone narrative, sometimes one that was a off shoot from the primary story. They almost exclusively involved shooting people though, although there was room for choice in some of them. Andromeda could make missions with more choice enbeded in them, but it's important not to think every game before ME1 was like that.. I think this is more about the type of game than the time they were released.

Frequent and varied dialogue options: Mass Effect absolutely have that, although I think Mass Effect 3 was a step back in that department. I dare say this is a request based on a distorted view of the past. A lot of dialogue dialogues from older, non voiced RPGs had less than three options for answers, and many of them had the very same outcome (although this was also present in ME1, ME2 and maybe even ME3). You could take a picture from a dialogue choice in a older RPG that has 10 options, but you could also find many that had only one. I don't think we must pick every single line the protagonist say, but if you think older RPGs did it better, that's your prerogative. But I dare say this is much more a matter of taste than better or worse.

Lots of character customization, both in ability and appearance: Again, Mass Effect have that. I won't dive too much into this because I had many times before and this post will be long enough. But I say sometimes 2 skills offer more diversity than 5. I do give a point that some people might miss costomizing their squadmates, but I say Bioware made the right decisions in giving them more identity instead of just letting the play put any random armor into them. DAI tried to do both, let's see how Andromeda handles it.

Multiple ways of dealing with quests (No, Shepard, a bullet to the head should not solve everything): Same point as before. As I said, Andromeda giving mroe freedom and ways to complete quests would be the opposite of a bad thing, but I say these things have more to do with the type of game than the time they were released.

Rich backstories and lore: Mass Effect definitely have that. As a personal remark, I hope Andromeda finds more elegant ways to explain its universe than simple giving you a lot of texts to read.

Varied outcomes, both good and bad, rather than multicolored "bittersweet" railroading: I believe Mass Effect could have more of that, but this feel just an opportunity to remark about the endings that a valid criticism. Tuchanka and Rannoch are excellent examples of what I believe you're asking here.


 

[Il Divo]

^Regarding Bioware's own old school games, Baldur's Gate 1 and Neverwinter Nights actually fail most of these tests. 

[Drakoriz]

It's a lot hyperbolic.

 

The tactics system, if you really work on it, can account for most of the more common situations likely to come up in combat.  But you still have to keep an eye out for the unusual.  You can't account for every situation.

 

DAI's tactics were very much dumbed down.  It was in fact reduced to "use this ability.  Don't use this ability.  or Use this ability A LOT!"

 

well true, but Dai tactics work really well for the combat system they implement on the game, like i said on another post, Isometric combat cant come close to 3 person combat, is hard to add tactics to 3 person combat. That is why ME and DA I use this simpler systems.

 

Still they work really well.

 

I know ppl tent to said Origin was better, and i do agree to a point. But for me the combat feeling i get on Inquisition or ME is alot better, alot more real.

[Drakoriz]

 

 

hell i cant agree more with u.

[Vortex13]

I'm sure it's good at what it does, but I've absolutely no interest in turn based combat, and I'd reckon neither do most of the millions of casual (i.e. not Bioware loyalist) buyers of the series. Even ME1 is designed closer to Gears with some powers and C&C added than space DA or BG, nevermind the later two installments. ME3 even had an action mode that allowed you to skip narrative choices and leveling entirely, but the corresponding Narrative mode didn't skip the TPS combat (it just made it really easy).

These games are AAA blockbusters because they're action RPG/TPS hybrids. There's no chance of them being made in a genre swapping manner that would appeal to a few hundred thousand to single million or so RPG purists, and we certainly know ME:A isn't that, so it's kind of an odd thing to request.

 

 

 

I guess I'll just have to wait for someone to mod a Mass Effect Total Conversion for XCOM 2 then. 

[capn233]

The tactics system, if you really work on it, can account for most of the more common situations likely to come up in combat.  But you still have to keep an eye out for the unusual.  You can't account for every situation.

 

True enough, tactics were best for mundane encounters and automating common tasks like health pots.  Advanced Tactics mod pushes it further, but it is of course a mod.

 

I don't entirely disagree that in DAO the game could eventually play itself depending on gear and composition, but my quibble was mainly about Tactics as the reason.  It was mostly just standard RPG regressive difficulty.

 

But as that applies to Mass Effect, I am not advocating for a robust player modifiable script system to put the squadmates on autopilot though.  Improved ability to command the squad would be welcomed though.  We are about at the limit of the usefulness of the quickslot bars.  The ability to tune the generic attack command slightly for the situation might be nice, especially if squadmates have many powers.

[Iakus]

Huge story: The Mass Effect trilogy has that. They might be shorter than some other RPGs but not by that much. One can say ME2 was more of many small stories than one huge one, but looking at the trilogy as a whole, saying it didn't have one huge epic story would be false as I see it. People may not have liked it or parts it, but it was there.

Side quests that are storyarcs unto themselves. Not just a corridor to follow shooting everything in my path: Mass Effect had that too. ME1 and ME2 especially. There were multiple missions in those games that involved several missions to complete and told a stand alone narrative, sometimes one that was a off shoot from the primary story. They almost exclusively involved shooting people though, although there was room for choice in some of them. Andromeda could make missions with more choice enbeded in them, but it's important not to think every game before ME1 was like that.. I think this is more about the type of game than the time they were released.

Frequent and varied dialogue options: Mass Effect absolutely have that, although I think Mass Effect 3 was a step back in that department. I dare say this is a request based on a distorted view of the past. A lot of dialogue dialogues from older, non voiced RPGs had less than three options for answers, and many of them had the very same outcome (although this was also present in ME1, ME2 and maybe even ME3). You could take a picture from a dialogue choice in a older RPG that has 10 options, but you could also find many that had only one. I don't think we must pick every single line the protagonist say, but if you think older RPGs did it better, that's your prerogative. But I dare say this is much more a matter of taste than better or worse.

Lots of character customization, both in ability and appearance: Again, Mass Effect have that. I won't dive too much into this because I had many times before and this post will be long enough. But I say sometimes 2 skills offer more diversity than 5. I do give a point that some people might miss costomizing their squadmates, but I say Bioware made the right decisions in giving them more identity instead of just letting the play put any random armor into them. DAI tried to do both, let's see how Andromeda handles it.

Multiple ways of dealing with quests (No, Shepard, a bullet to the head should not solve everything): Same point as before. As I said, Andromeda giving mroe freedom and ways to complete quests would be the opposite of a bad thing, but I say these things have more to do with the type of game than the time they were released.

Rich backstories and lore: Mass Effect definitely have that. As a personal remark, I hope Andromeda finds more elegant ways to explain its universe than simple giving you a lot of texts to read.

Varied outcomes, both good and bad, rather than multicolored "bittersweet" railroading: I believe Mass Effect could have more of that, but this feel just an opportunity to remark about the endings that a valid criticism. Tuchanka and Rannoch are excellent examples of what I believe you're asking here.


 

Yes, I will say that in the end Mass Effect had a huge story.  But the story was largely put on hold for ME2.  And the story lost a lot of coherence for ME3

 

ME1 did have side stories like that.  ME2 did not.  They were largely corridors where a lot of shooting went on, some covnersation was had, we go back to the Normandy, and that's the end of it.  I want side stories that make us visit several different locales, pursue leads, talk to lots of people. 

 

Things like the Skin Dancer quest in BG2.  Jolee's trial in KOTOR.  Heck even the Hades' Dogs quest in ME1

 

ME3 was a huge step back in dialogue options.  I acknowledge that a voiced protagonist makes giving a lot of options harder, but I'd have to say DAI did it a HELL of a lot better than ME3.

 

DAI did a good job in the outfit department.  Less so in facial customization.  But Mass Effect (all three really, but 2 especially) was pretty cr*ppy in both.  In ME2 the outfitsd were so brain-bleedingly bad I ended up taking Tali and Garrus everywhere not just because they were familiar faces, but because they at least looked properly armored.

 

Mass Effect has great lore.  I only wish the writers would familiarize themselves with it more.

 

Yes, that last bit was a shot at ME3's ending, but is still a valid criticism  .Tuchanka was probably the high point of ME3.  Rannoch less so, but at least allows choices in ME2 and ME3 to affect the outcome.  But the ending leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to this very day.