Copy two posts in here that are part of a discussion I have with Vendetta in another thread, it belongs more in here:
Abraxas*:
@Vendetta: Much to say to all these things but, indeed, not the right rail. I read quite everything that's posted on this forum, so I'll take your thoughts and opinions into account. But I won't make the game more 'accessible', if you hope so. Larian have introduced more hints, information and even a type of questmarker with EE - also made changes to skills and things like loremaster (which now tells you the most valuable information (resistances) on value 1 which usually comes from gear, so there is absolutely no reason to invest ability points in loremaster any more) - to help players (and there are good guides out there). Opening the game to players who aren't familiar and willing or able to accept its approaches and descisions and to learn how this game wants to be played (I was quite impressed by your honesty and your will to give it a second try, by the way) is a difficult and quite dangerous task: at a certain point it leads to simplified game design, and there are enough such games out there. D:OS is not the high end of complexity (never meant to be) but is doesn't serve the well known patterns game industry has developed over time and validated as functional to sell their games to high amounts (and that means: higher and higher and higher amounts: it's a logic of expanding, not of improving and developing their games further in the first place - that quickly becomes a contradiction) - absolutely legitime but, well, this means they rather perpetuate their patterns (with slight variants or some new 'features' here and there or patterns from their competitors which seem to work fine for the great public) and just fill them with different content - than to try new things or improve their games on a vertical axis (what we call 'depth'). And aren't we hoping exactly for that when we buy and start a 'new' game?
Not to elaborate that too much: What could Bethesda's games be if they were willing to develop their games further? To capture your example (stolen items): to make the social system of a town react on player actions organically and more complex than just dividing the world in NPCs-that-buy-stolen-items and NPCs-that-don't-buy-stolen-items. And it doesn't help that the first group of NPCs offers quests the other group doesn't offer - the addition to the vertical axes is very small, it's more adding content and features. The whole distinction is absolutely artificial and implausible: there's a crime system, a trade system and a 'social' system but instead of combining these three systems here trading, social and crime system were separated (I'm not even sure if there is a social system in Skyrim - and is there a political system or just more groups of NPCs that have no relation to each other except in a few subordinate clauses?) - relations that, let's say, Gothic had, of course not very elaborated and not notable in every situation but they were there and affected gameplay, they were more than just 'background' and one of the reasons why Gothic is still a reference for rpgs in 2016 [good design priciples never get old, it's just a mechanism in discourse - intentionally forced by some big companies - that tries to exclude certain types of games and tries to signify itself as 'modern', 'new', 'innovative', '2016', 'zeitgeist' or what else, that leads so far that many principles rpgs once had, structures, systems appear to be 'new', but they aren't, they were just forgotten, never known, ignored or repressed]): so, the consequence is: you can't sell stolen items and therefore no one reacts on the player's attempts to sell stolen items - it's simply not there.
So my solution to stolen items would be a more 'organic' and plausible one. Fortunately D:OS is not a massive open world game, so it's much easier to connect things and get some 'depth'. Open world has an enormous high price also Witcher 3 pays.
But to come to an end (something brought me off the rails too): more hints, more information, more hands that take you from start to end, more obviousness, more making the world fit to the players expectations and habits would kill D:OS quite soon. An uncounted amount of players considers the first hours of the game boring. Walking through Cyseal, reading 'walls of text', somehow trying to solve a quest, and then this childish humour!: beside the fact that you can combine intown actions with some fights, if you explore, and that Larian's humour seems more mature than so many games that claim and try to be mature but consist of quite underdeveloped 'seriousness' and simple hero patterns (I can't take such things seriously the 'older' I get: that doesn't mean such games are 'bad' it just means that they aren't mature or more mature than Larian's ironic treatmeant of genre conventions is) - so, I absolutelly fell in love with D:OS when I played it the first time for NOT serving the patterns: Why not starting a game with talking, exploring, listenting and investigating a murder? Why souldn't that be possible? These reactions prove the existence of those patterns I talked about. The general rule is: give the player action and rewards, give him an appetizer right from the start so he does not lose interest.
I love Larian Studios for NOT doing this. I was absolutely surprised about this uncommon decision. Just a few encounters at the beginning and a tutorial dungeon to introduce some of the mechanics, that's all. And then the game expects you to interest yourself, by offering you a lot of possibilities to talk, to steal, to quest, to explore, to trade, to craft, to listen, and yes, to fight.
There aren't many games like this, especially over the last 10-15 years. And it also made you rethink your own expectations and, in the end, you seem to be happy about this experience. It made a difference, and that's what good games should do, even if they turn out to be 'uncomfortable' in some way.
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Velvet Vendetta:
Abraxas, first of all, english its not my first language, so forgive me if I missunderstood any of your points, I did my best tho reading it four times:
I think you mistook what I meant by accessible, or user-friedly game, seems that you think I meant easier? You pointed the loremaster change (I wasn't even aware of that, and I usualy use low cost ap spells to check for a mob resistance that I can't guess, I can guess most of them anyways). Questmarkers and Hints features are a more fit example of what I meant.
I never meant to say I would wish D:OS to be easier, as the hard (at first) battles are one of the main reasons I stayed and still enjoy the game (currently playing duo-lone wolf tactician)...
So, what I suggest its not making the game any easier, just less convoluted, if the game didn't had quest markers, hints and a proper journal I wouldn't play it... imagine how many other people would play it if only it had a bloddy map that we could "click and go there" or some other more user-friendly mechanic?, or the said "appetizer":
I do disagree with your opinion, (if I understood it correctly) when you say "give the player appetizer right from the start" as something bad and being glad it was avoided, it may be indeed mainstream that Devs uses some strategy (usualy the same, as they fear to fail) to hold player interest in the start, as the player will be facing the learning curve and might be unfamiliar with what the game offers... and might end giving up the game without ever learning what the game its about... I fell every gamer has at least one game that falls into this category, sometimes great games that will fail to hold interest because of a lack of some strategy to make good first impressions and/or make the players extra distracted while they learn "how it is supposed to be played". Anyways, I don't think just because something its done massively by all other big games it means its a thing that should be avoided, needless to say I don't want D:OS to "surrender" to the "just other rpg" formula either, but instead, seek a balace between the big learning curve and some strategy to hold interest for single player (I think it is already very attractive as a coop rpg the way it is)
Holding interest IS important for a game with such learning curve for a game to reach a bigger audience and I think that can be done without any meaningful sacrifice to "old schoolness", and that would be important for the second game, and I mean all that especialy for anyone who haven't taken part on the Beta/Dev parts of the game like you guys, or someone from out of the genre (or both).
Ok about the Depth stuff you said... well, I never thought of it that way I must admit, yeah a "only X characters buy Stolen items" it is indeed no deeper or more meaningfull than "steal the painting for the guy hands and sell to him right after", BUT, its more immersive on the skyrim (and a lot other games) way, I guess. It would be great to have a more meaningfull system, with proper reactions and development towards crime, punishemnt, etc; but this means a new system for everything social/crime/speech checks/etc... while a temporary mod-fix (prices not balanced around stealing, and stealing being hard and punishing, and probabily going renegade/low rep via steal) could help the game not being so "unimmersive" as it is right now in regard to stealing stuff.
