consoles are cheaper to buy and easier to manage
Completely not truth. PC's are far less expensive, hence the domination of his use on "developing world", people who say that consoles are less expensive generally don't count the fee to play online, and expensive games. BTW, Steam has regional pricing. and for a guy in Ukraine or Argentina, purchasing paying in local currency is far less expensive than paying any console game.
Other detail about PC is that on PCs, i can run anything, from 80s games to games made this year. So i have the old school game to comparate with modern games far easier. I can play Divine divinity(best Larian game IMO) but a console player, can't.
"Dumbed down" for consoles doesn't hold water, because there are great console games. Dark Souls are best RPGs made in years.
Even Dark Souls would be better if was made with PC's in mind. Seriously. Imagine being able to put items and spells into hotkeys and have manual skill focused aiming for ranged weaponry. DS would probably be great like Gothic 1/2/3.
backlash to every change Deadfire had,
Deadfire changes over PoE1 was good. Over BG2, was bad. Simple.
Actually, consoles in Poland seem to be getting more and more popular. But yeah, those devs (like myself) mostly grew up in console-less enviroment. Not as easy to pirate games on console, eh? (good, old times with little to no copyright laws).
Actually, TW3 sold far more on PC. The notion that piracy is rampant on PC holds no truth. In fact, piracy was extremely common during PS2 era...
Also, didn't Witchers get "dumbed down" for consoles anyway? Didn't quite get into Metro series though. Modern military shooter style was never my thing, even if Metros are more interesting then your usual MMS. Didn't play M3 yet.
You can say that TW3/2 is far more dumbed down than TW1 BUT there are a huge difference between TW becoming more action focused than games becoming more action focsued AND losing all spell and weapon variety. Look to BioWare games. BG2 with over 300 spells. DA:O with over 90 and inquisition with about 20. TW3 has a far more simplistic combat system, but still maintained the depth on dialogs, alchemy and etc.
But one thing is actually far worse than consoles, which is the excessive focus on balance and accessibility. When i mean accessibility, i don't mean allowing disabled people to play your game. I mean appealing to the lowest common denominator. And the excessive focus on balance kinda makes the RPG less about being immersed in a living breathing world and more about just a game. Balance is completely opposite to variety, depth and immersion in most cases.
Complex, yes. Depth, not so much. Depth is doing a lot with little. Complex is doing little with a lot.
Why? Having a lot of options to chose from is bad? If instead of choosing between Skull trap or fireball, you had only fireball, it would make BG2 better? How?
