|
|
|
enthusiast
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
|
Alternatively, it could be with over a million copies sold, and feedback coming from multiple sources, that they're busy analyzing what's going on in the game, and don't have time to respond to every thread posted in the forums. There was already a comment by one of them on one of the articles on the launcher, about the overwhelming amount of players they got from EA. I'd say that that's going to make one to one interactions nigh impossible. The fact that we can see hotfixes being done, and a patch rolled back means that they are, in fact, paying attention.
W-what? One to one interactions? My guy are you okay? This is the age of social media. One PR representative can release a statement in recognition of problems and post a straw poll and literally get immediate feedback. Why is there not someone employed at the company whose sole job is to do community outreach? Are you telling me that after full price EA they cannot afford to hire to comb through the forums and gather the already paramount feedback? That's just not good enough. There has been a wildfire of feedback and backlash already and they have had ample time, opportunity and financial commitment on the EA that they could have released a proper statement. They want to be taken as a serious AAA studio with a big sausage title under their belt then they need to commit and act the part. This is not some kind of pipe dream and until recently was common practice for developers even after beta testing.
Last edited by Argonaut; 19/10/20 06:01 PM.
I am here to discuss a video game. Please do not try to rope me into anything other than that. Thank you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
apprentice
|
|
apprentice
Joined: Oct 2020
|
...just like DivOS and DivOS2 it seems that this is the design mentality this time around as well. Add to that there is no kind of recognition of feedback about this issue and you would have thought that at least a writer would have said something. Guys, if I may chime in, we are in the second week of EA, the forums are overflowing with feedback of all kinds, and the first patches were mostly about crashes and similar stuff that take precedence for developers over story details. If you draw a line from DOS:1 to DOS:2 and BG:3, you will see that DOS:1 was a theme park of random fantasy cliche sandboxes swinging wildly between parody, homage, comedy and attempted (and failed) drama that was focused on gameplay only, DOS:2 was this with a little more effort put into story and worldbuilding, and BG:3 continues this trend towards a Bioware story that is meant to be serious and dark and invests heavily into world building, story and characters, without quite reaching the level of, say, DA:O (let's say approximatly two thirds there, from DOS:1 to DA:O ?). Given that, I think you underestimate the ambition of Larian regardig the narrative, how much they learned from DA:O and other Bioware games, and vastly overestimate their ability to fix bugs, react to feedback and reach the "developer thought of everything" level that ME is famous for.
Last edited by TimVanBeek; 19/10/20 06:18 PM.
|
|
|
|
|
|
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
|
The problem with snipping tidbits out of a post and responding to them, also known as cherry picking, is that you remove context
No, cherry picking has nothing to do with it. It gets very lengthy to quote everyone entirely. Your original post is readily available for all to see (assuming anyone but you or I are reading each other’s responses at this point, which is increasingly unlikely). you close out your comment here asking about which games are on par with books. I have not only already answered that question, but I gave several game series in support of what I said. You said “compelling.” That does not mean ‘equal.’ So, to be clear, the original BG story, or the ff7 story, is the equal of LotR? Story telling isn't stronger just because it's in a book. You can achieve all of the same elements that make a book good in any medium, if you're a good enough story teller. A book provides hundreds, if not thousands of more dialogue for a character than what is found in a video game. In a book, you readily see the world through the character’s eyes, and in a lot of cases, extensively know their thoughts. Video game characters are so much more limited in these ways, not just in the scope, but the depth as well. They are hopelessly shallow in comparison. ...and this is an example of exactly what I was talking about with cherry picking being bad. You didn't even respond to where I answered your question, again. You just glossed over it while rationalizing removing context from what I posted. I'm going to take this to mean that you have no actual argument.
|
|
|
|
|
|
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
|
I'll try to address everyone so look for your name  Argonaut - I agree, but based on my experience with Larian (more on that below) I think they got gameplay covered. will it satisfy everyone? no, but that's impossible. Still, I'm sure most people will find it fun. Godforsaken - Totally with you man. You could say Kotor and Neverwinter nights are very similar to Bg gameplay-wise, but BioWare's age of glory went on long after them. I'm really doubtful that Mass Effect players were not in part bg players. robertthebard - We haven't heard much from them and what we did hear didn't really give me comfort. more on that below: My expectations from Larion and what I expect to happen I mentioned in my original post several things I base my predictions and opinions on, but I failed to mention several more: 1. A Reddit Article that goes over the changes between DOS2 early access and the full game 2. the comments Larian made ever since the EA was released. based on everything I said in my initial comment plus these two, I assume that Larian's focus is first and foremost the gameplay. Perhaps all of our fears are unfounded. I certainly hope so. but there is no indication for that at least for now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
|
I'll try to address everyone so look for your name Argonaut - I agree, but based on my experience with Larian (more on that below) I think they got gameplay covered. will it satisfy everyone? no, but that's impossible. Still, I'm sure most people will find it fun. Godforsaken - Totally with you man. You could say Kotor and Neverwinter nights are very similar to Bg gameplay-wise, but BioWare's age of glory went on long after them. I'm really doubtful that Mass Effect players were not in part bg players. robertthebard - We haven't heard much from them and what we did hear didn't really give me comfort. more on that below: My expectations from Larion and what I expect to happen I mentioned in my original post several things I base my predictions and opinions on, but I failed to mention several more: 1. A Reddit Article that goes over the changes between DOS2 early access and the full game 2. the comments Larian made ever since the EA was released. based on everything I said in my initial comment plus these two, I assume that Larian's focus is first and foremost the gameplay. Perhaps all of our fears are unfounded. I certainly hope so. but there is no indication for that at least for now. Indeed, but as I said, it may simply be that they are extremely busy going over feedback from the gameplay, the feedback button on the launcher, the Steam forums, these forums, and Stadia forums, if they have any forums over there. With over a million copies sold, it's not surprising they may be overwhelmed, but actions speak louder than forum posts, and there have been hot fixes and a complete rollback of a patch. This is encouraging.
|
|
|
|
|
|
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
|
It's been a while since my last dos2 playthrough, but it happened toe more than once that the choices I made were not reflected by the narrative. People who are supposed to be dead are talked about as if they are alive, things I did talked about as if I didn't do them and vice versa. At the time, I thought that this issues are probably related to the fact that Larian is a small studio that created a system with a lot of choice, and that it is really hard to account for all of them. All of this is true. The problem is that these issues plague the Baldur's Gate 3 EA as well. And not only in the cases of me trying deliberately to break the game.
Two examples - the first one might be a bug but it fits the MO- during my fourth or fifth playthrough (I love the character creator sue me) I failed (again) in the persuasion check when trying to convince Khaga not to kill the tiefling girl. This time I decided in a kind of psychotic fit to kill Khaga on the spot. As I expected, all the druids in the room turned hostile, and I killed them all. But surprisingly, everyone else wasn't hostile. Not only. The rest of the camp and the druids outside were not hostile, even Nettie who was in a nearby room talked to me as if nothing wrong. Same is true for everyone at camp. I had to look very hard for someone to acknowledge what I did and in the end I talked to Zavlor and found out that if you push him hard enough ( be aggressive in your dialogue choices) he will ask you to kill Khaga. Of course the problem was that she was already dead.
Example two, which is much worse - this time I didn't want to take shadowheart with me through the whole game, so shortly after recruiting Layzel I asked shadowheart to go back to camp. She was still a bit pissed I recruited Layzel and threatened me she won't wait in camp. To my surprise, when I went to camp she was indeed missing. I later encountered her in the druid grove. The problem is that during our conversation in the grove, half of the time she acted like she is still mad at me and in the other half she acted like we never met. This example is worse because there is nothing game breaking I did here, but still the game didn't acknowledged my choices even though it offered them to me. If I never played dos2 I would think this is simply a bug or unrefined dialogue, but now it's seems to like Larian just doesn't care for these things..
I think that this is a really important thing - and I would put it a different way. To some extent any DM (computer or live) will construct a series of options; choose left or right, kill or ally. The problem with BG3 is there are so many times when an NPC will comment on something they clearly think I know - (druid grove people talking about "the ritual" I'm looking at you) - that is not good gaming. It looks to me like the Larian Dev's had a preconceived idea of the path that any given adventurer would take, and then set up conversational options based on that. I'm no great shakes as a programmer, but even in my youthful playing around with DOS to create a "sort of" adventure, I was able to conceive that someone might take a different path to things, and even in that primitive programming I could set up things such as "if they did X then Y" which would mean that I could set up things where one early action would have ramifications. I love a lot about BG3; but the storyline choices (and ramifications/consequences) are handled very poorly, and it wouldn't be a hard fix. To the examples above: IF Archdruid is killed by Party THEN NPCs of the category "druid" have their hostility +100 (and this would obviously include Nettie, but might not [probably not] include the Teiflings); for that matter Annabelle's parents might then be VERY pleased. IF Shadowheart has X amount of negativity towards player than a certain amount of her conversational responses might be disabled (or enabled).
|
|
|
|
|
|
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
|
It's been a while since my last dos2 playthrough, but it happened toe more than once that the choices I made were not reflected by the narrative. People who are supposed to be dead are talked about as if they are alive, things I did talked about as if I didn't do them and vice versa. At the time, I thought that this issues are probably related to the fact that Larian is a small studio that created a system with a lot of choice, and that it is really hard to account for all of them. All of this is true. The problem is that these issues plague the Baldur's Gate 3 EA as well. And not only in the cases of me trying deliberately to break the game.
Two examples - the first one might be a bug but it fits the MO- during my fourth or fifth playthrough (I love the character creator sue me) I failed (again) in the persuasion check when trying to convince Khaga not to kill the tiefling girl. This time I decided in a kind of psychotic fit to kill Khaga on the spot. As I expected, all the druids in the room turned hostile, and I killed them all. But surprisingly, everyone else wasn't hostile. Not only. The rest of the camp and the druids outside were not hostile, even Nettie who was in a nearby room talked to me as if nothing wrong. Same is true for everyone at camp. I had to look very hard for someone to acknowledge what I did and in the end I talked to Zavlor and found out that if you push him hard enough ( be aggressive in your dialogue choices) he will ask you to kill Khaga. Of course the problem was that she was already dead.
Example two, which is much worse - this time I didn't want to take shadowheart with me through the whole game, so shortly after recruiting Layzel I asked shadowheart to go back to camp. She was still a bit pissed I recruited Layzel and threatened me she won't wait in camp. To my surprise, when I went to camp she was indeed missing. I later encountered her in the druid grove. The problem is that during our conversation in the grove, half of the time she acted like she is still mad at me and in the other half she acted like we never met. This example is worse because there is nothing game breaking I did here, but still the game didn't acknowledged my choices even though it offered them to me. If I never played dos2 I would think this is simply a bug or unrefined dialogue, but now it's seems to like Larian just doesn't care for these things..
I think that this is a really important thing - and I would put it a different way. To some extent any DM (computer or live) will construct a series of options; choose left or right, kill or ally. The problem with BG3 is there are so many times when an NPC will comment on something they clearly think I know - (druid grove people talking about "the ritual" I'm looking at you) - that is not good gaming. It looks to me like the Larian Dev's had a preconceived idea of the path that any given adventurer would take, and then set up conversational options based on that. I'm no great shakes as a programmer, but even in my youthful playing around with DOS to create a "sort of" adventure, I was able to conceive that someone might take a different path to things, and even in that primitive programming I could set up things such as "if they did X then Y" which would mean that I could set up things where one early action would have ramifications. I love a lot about BG3; but the storyline choices (and ramifications/consequences) are handled very poorly, and it wouldn't be a hard fix. To the examples above: IF Archdruid is killed by Party THEN NPCs of the category "druid" have their hostility +100 (and this would obviously include Nettie, but might not [probably not] include the Teiflings); for that matter Annabelle's parents might then be VERY pleased. IF Shadowheart has X amount of negativity towards player than a certain amount of her conversational responses might be disabled (or enabled). I just want to touch on your druid grove example with the ritual. The first time through, the ritual was brought up in dialog by Zevlor, but I failed the dialog choice to prevent the scuffle at the gate. The second time, where I succeeded that check, I didn't get the information then, but in a later dialog with Zevlor, after the fact. The ritual is foremost on the tiefling's minds, because it's going to force them out of the shelter and relative safety of the grove, and so of course they'll talk about it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
|
It's been a while since my last dos2 playthrough, but it happened toe more than once that the choices I made were not reflected by the narrative. People who are supposed to be dead are talked about as if they are alive, things I did talked about as if I didn't do them and vice versa. At the time, I thought that this issues are probably related to the fact that Larian is a small studio that created a system with a lot of choice, and that it is really hard to account for all of them. All of this is true. The problem is that these issues plague the Baldur's Gate 3 EA as well. And not only in the cases of me trying deliberately to break the game.
Two examples - the first one might be a bug but it fits the MO- during my fourth or fifth playthrough (I love the character creator sue me) I failed (again) in the persuasion check when trying to convince Khaga not to kill the tiefling girl. This time I decided in a kind of psychotic fit to kill Khaga on the spot. As I expected, all the druids in the room turned hostile, and I killed them all. But surprisingly, everyone else wasn't hostile. Not only. The rest of the camp and the druids outside were not hostile, even Nettie who was in a nearby room talked to me as if nothing wrong. Same is true for everyone at camp. I had to look very hard for someone to acknowledge what I did and in the end I talked to Zavlor and found out that if you push him hard enough ( be aggressive in your dialogue choices) he will ask you to kill Khaga. Of course the problem was that she was already dead.
Example two, which is much worse - this time I didn't want to take shadowheart with me through the whole game, so shortly after recruiting Layzel I asked shadowheart to go back to camp. She was still a bit pissed I recruited Layzel and threatened me she won't wait in camp. To my surprise, when I went to camp she was indeed missing. I later encountered her in the druid grove. The problem is that during our conversation in the grove, half of the time she acted like she is still mad at me and in the other half she acted like we never met. This example is worse because there is nothing game breaking I did here, but still the game didn't acknowledged my choices even though it offered them to me. If I never played dos2 I would think this is simply a bug or unrefined dialogue, but now it's seems to like Larian just doesn't care for these things..
I think that this is a really important thing - and I would put it a different way. To some extent any DM (computer or live) will construct a series of options; choose left or right, kill or ally. The problem with BG3 is there are so many times when an NPC will comment on something they clearly think I know - (druid grove people talking about "the ritual" I'm looking at you) - that is not good gaming. It looks to me like the Larian Dev's had a preconceived idea of the path that any given adventurer would take, and then set up conversational options based on that. I'm no great shakes as a programmer, but even in my youthful playing around with DOS to create a "sort of" adventure, I was able to conceive that someone might take a different path to things, and even in that primitive programming I could set up things such as "if they did X then Y" which would mean that I could set up things where one early action would have ramifications. I love a lot about BG3; but the storyline choices (and ramifications/consequences) are handled very poorly, and it wouldn't be a hard fix. To the examples above: IF Archdruid is killed by Party THEN NPCs of the category "druid" have their hostility +100 (and this would obviously include Nettie, but might not [probably not] include the Teiflings); for that matter Annabelle's parents might then be VERY pleased. IF Shadowheart has X amount of negativity towards player than a certain amount of her conversational responses might be disabled (or enabled). exactly. I feel like it is supposedly a simple flagging issue, but since it is such a big game, it needs to account for other things like additional dialogue that reflects different choices for instance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
|
@Abits I backed DivOS and DivOS2 and my concern and pessimism stems from my experiences with the studio in both instances.
I am here to discuss a video game. Please do not try to rope me into anything other than that. Thank you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
|
@Abits I backed DivOS and DivOS2 and my concern and pessimism stems from my experiences with the studio in both instances.
joy of joys.... damn now I feel worse 
|
|
|
|
|
|
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2019
|
The problem with snipping tidbits out of a post and responding to them, also known as cherry picking, is that you remove context
No, cherry picking has nothing to do with it. It gets very lengthy to quote everyone entirely. Your original post is readily available for all to see (assuming anyone but you or I are reading each other’s responses at this point, which is increasingly unlikely). you close out your comment here asking about which games are on par with books. I have not only already answered that question, but I gave several game series in support of what I said. You said “compelling.” That does not mean ‘equal.’ So, to be clear, the original BG story, or the ff7 story, is the equal of LotR? Story telling isn't stronger just because it's in a book. You can achieve all of the same elements that make a book good in any medium, if you're a good enough story teller. A book provides hundreds, if not thousands of more dialogue for a character than what is found in a video game. In a book, you readily see the world through the character’s eyes, and in a lot of cases, extensively know their thoughts. Video game characters are so much more limited in these ways, not just in the scope, but the depth as well. They are hopelessly shallow in comparison. ...and this is an example of exactly what I was talking about with cherry picking being bad. You didn't even respond to where I answered your question, again. You just glossed over it while rationalizing removing context from what I posted. I'm going to take this to mean that you have no actual argument. I will repeat: cherry picking has nothing to do with it. It gets very lengthy to quote everyone entirely. Your original post is readily available for all to see (assuming anyone but you or I are reading each other’s responses at this point, which is increasingly unlikely). Which vital point did I gloss over?
|
|
|
|
|
|
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
|
The problem with snipping tidbits out of a post and responding to them, also known as cherry picking, is that you remove context
No, cherry picking has nothing to do with it. It gets very lengthy to quote everyone entirely. Your original post is readily available for all to see (assuming anyone but you or I are reading each other’s responses at this point, which is increasingly unlikely). you close out your comment here asking about which games are on par with books. I have not only already answered that question, but I gave several game series in support of what I said. You said “compelling.” That does not mean ‘equal.’ So, to be clear, the original BG story, or the ff7 story, is the equal of LotR? Story telling isn't stronger just because it's in a book. You can achieve all of the same elements that make a book good in any medium, if you're a good enough story teller. A book provides hundreds, if not thousands of more dialogue for a character than what is found in a video game. In a book, you readily see the world through the character’s eyes, and in a lot of cases, extensively know their thoughts. Video game characters are so much more limited in these ways, not just in the scope, but the depth as well. They are hopelessly shallow in comparison. ...and this is an example of exactly what I was talking about with cherry picking being bad. You didn't even respond to where I answered your question, again. You just glossed over it while rationalizing removing context from what I posted. I'm going to take this to mean that you have no actual argument. I will repeat: cherry picking has nothing to do with it. It gets very lengthy to quote everyone entirely. Your original post is readily available for all to see (assuming anyone but you or I are reading each other’s responses at this point, which is increasingly unlikely). Which vital point did I gloss over? If you'd read the post, I wouldn't have to answer that. As you say, it's there to be read. I've lost interest in repeating myself just to have the answers snipped out of the post.
|
|
|
|
|
|
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: May 2019
|
I'm glad you brought this up because I think people are obsessing too much over one or the other when it is RPG. The mechanics should complement the story and aesthetic just as how the music is matched to the pace of the gameplay. These features should work with one another to create something greater than the sum of their parts. The way forward is to focus on the simulation rather than stay attached to archaic ideas that technology is fast out pacing.
All true. But also not exactly what this topic is about. Perhaps I wasn't as clear about it as I should be. I didn't claim Larian shouldn't care about gameplay, I said they should care about the story as much as they care about the gameplay. And perhaps there are those who completely don't care about the story, but I doubt they are the majority or even 40% of fans. But that's not my problem either. My problem is that right now Larian treats the story like it's some silly chore they have to do in order to get into the fun combat. It doesn't even matter whether they have good writers if they keep sabotaging their work A thousand times 'YES' to all of what you say here, @Abits! I couldn't say any of it any better. This has been my gripe with cRPGs for a few years now, that they are becoming tactical combat games first with just some role-playing elements mixed in, versus what they used to be which is role-playing games first (with strong story, characters, character development, and lore) and also some tactical combat mixed in. I would ask all of you D:OS2 fans this question (and hope for an honest answer): Did you play and love that game for its story and characters, or for its combat? For me this is a rhetorical question, because I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of D:OS2 fans (with exceptions, obviously) love that game for the combat, and its story and characters they can take or leave.
|
|
|
|
|
|
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
|
IMO Good gameplay w/ bad story can work. Good story w/ bad gameplay can't. With BG1&2 you got both which is what made it great. I think BG3 is decent gameplay and good story. The decent wil be improved. That said, I am dumbfounded that no one chimed in with a different experience at the grove. I got pissed and killed Kaga? Karga? too, but my experience was VASTLY different and things changed DRAMATICALLY. Nettie joined in the fight against me. When I left the grove the tieflings had slaughtered all the druids. Wyll died even though he was in camp. When I later tried to free Haslan, he had escaped. After killing the goblin bosses, Haslan understood why I killed the druids and said it was his fault and that he shouldnt have left.
|
|
|
|
|
|
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2020
|
It really comes down to simple mathematics. Think about the influence of every single meaningful choice on the permutations of possible paths the player can take. Limit the amount of choices or limit the impact the choices have on the world. The game tends to present lots of options when it comes to things with limited effects on the overall story but it does not even allow you to get along with the goblins if you help them (probably because siding with them would change most of act 2). Not having illusion of choice when it comes to decisions that could change the entire story requires lots of resources.
I really enjoyed the depth of dialogue in Planescape. Many players would find it boring. Trying to please the "adventure with complex story and lots of choices" and the "giant world with lots of interesting combat" crowds never worked perfectly.
I sometimes use thought experiments. I don't necessarily believe in every idea I post for discussion on this forum
|
|
|
|
|
|
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2020
|
Totally agree with all the points you made Abits, even though I haven't yet played the Witcher series. I have all the games, just, me being Polish and having actually read the books and seen the movies/tv series (back in the early 2000 there was a whole craze about the Witcher books adaptations in Poland), I'm a slacker, mkay? Will get to playing the Witcher games one day.  Anyhow, I did give both DOS games proper tries and... I never finished them both. I play for the main story, for the characters and just like yourself, I noticed that there were so many weird ways the stories of Divinities could fall apart. In DOS2 the farthest I got was act 3 and then I got bored (I still have that save frozen in time, could go back to it anytime and finish the game, but eh). What I noticed was that, Larian is pretty damn good at writing compelling characters, but their world building could use some work. Again, it's my subjective opinion of DOS1 and DOS2, and I know a lot of people would hate my opinion of their number one game. Now I've noticed that BG3 suffers from the same problems both DOS games did. Somewhat great characters, not so great world building and storytelling. Now I thought, Larian having to work with WoTC would mean that they could get an extra kick when it comes to world building. Being set in the FR, on the Sword Coast to be more precise, they don't have to build the entire world from scratch, just make sure that it feels like Faerun (they are somewhat successful at that, but not on the level of BG1)... but errr, it seems like most of their resources went into the combat systems and creating origin characters? Meanwhile BG1 was all about world building (and storytelling: the entire drama with Sarevok as you uncovered your shared past and parentage), the combat was secondary, hell, even tertiary. And BG1 had a lot of flaws, but world building was not one of them, Bioware captured the feeling of dread as the iron shortage swept the nation perfectly, then came the BG2, in my book, that game is the holder of spot number one together with Planescape Torment of the greatest games ever made, great story, great writing, great world building. And I make it a point to replay BG1+BG2 at least once every 2-3years. As of now, I enjoy BG3 quite a lot but it could really use some work, at least tonally it's not as lighthearted as both DOS games were. Old Bioware found the perfect balance between seriousness and lightheartedness. Their timing when it came to jokes or some other funny moments was perfect. Minsc and Boo were used mostly for comedic relief, and I worry, if/when we get to see Minsc in BG3, all these jokes will be extra hamster-fisted into his very being. 'Go for the eyes Boo' ha ha so funny. Now hear that 20k times.
|
|
|
|
|
|
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
|
@Abits. I usually avoid reviews this long but I've appreciated your comments on threads and gave it read. I'm 95 percent with you. [ let that sink in for a moment please ] Yes! It's not just a video game, it's an RPG, a choose your own adventure in video form. Where I deviate comes to your Witcher example (which I've not played). Yes, this level of freedom causes problems but the solution is not to restrict the freedom but to have text that acknowledges that you completed the quests out of order as in "oh, you killed Khaga. I can't condemn you for your actions for I harbored the same desires in my heart. You've done us a great service, please accept this a small token of our thanks". My point is that sometimes narrative can get in the way of replay value. There are many things that make BG2 the best video game ever -- one of them being the unparalleled replay value. PoE1 had an amazing story. Best story in the history of RPGs, full stop. But the game had little replay value. Am I going to go back to fight the exact same fight with the spectres so I can claim the keep? Sure, I did it three times -- which is something. But am I going to do what I did with BG2 and try every class and every stronghold? No a chance -- all of those different classes were wasted on me. I got to the end, said "great game" and was done. If Obsidian had sacrificed some story for an open world it might have been another story. Yes, this sometime requires applying 'patches', incorporating implausible dialogues but that has it's own charm. I prefer old neighborhoods to planned unit developments. In a PUD everything is new and orderly, everything works in a straightforward, asceptic manner -- in an old neighborhood houses have weird extensions, make do roof patches, mismatched fencing and questionable lawn art. But give me pink flamingos to suburban hell. TL;DR sometimes messier is better. This was always the flaw of J.E. Sawyer * his games always end up sacrificing replay value to the god of narrative. * which I say with great respect. I love his passion and I agree with him 70 percent. Even on weird things like tatoos and steel bikes -- I ride lugged steel and I vote!
|
|
|
|
|
|
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: Oct 2020
|
You guys are debating this like it’s a matter of creative priority... it’s not. It’s a reflection of game design. Modern BioWare games are built on rails and let you choose one of a few paths that converge back to the main storyline. The system looks like a series of bubbles. Witcher uses branching stories that hit defined endpoints and setup flags. I think they describe it as weed-grass shaped.
Larian ostensibly doesnt design their games like that. You can do just about anything. I haven’t found any attempt to gate or guide the player even though I think it should be there. Because then scripting would be a lot easier.
However, that’s not going to change. This giant rage convo is useless because everyone’s arguing about the results instead of accepting that the structure is just different from other games.
Can we just move the F on....
|
|
|
|
|
|
member
|
|
member
Joined: Oct 2020
|
Story and characters are secondary to gameplay and mechanics. It's a videogame, not a novel (or even a movie).
That being said, I don't think Larian are the best story tellers. This... I wouldn't want an RPG game in a DnD setting to have a very rigid story like that of Last of Us. That'd be amazingly bad. Gameplay and player choises should trump any story in a gmae like this.
|
|
|
|
|
|
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
|
Again guys, it's not about gameplay versus story, I have no issues with the gameplay. Another example I came across today. Pay attention that not the combat is the problem here, but the way the quest, dialogue, and flags works in it:
More on the druid grove another choice that seem to be something the game might expect you to do - as I entered the grove the guard tries to stop me. I ignore them and then choose the attack option. This creates a lot of cheos. Initially I thought I had to fight only several guards but then I noticed many of the NPC's are leaving the grove area towards the camp (among them, khaga, Nettie, the tiefling bard and others). After I finished off the guards I went to the tiefling camp to so what's going on. There was a big battle between the tieflings and the remaining druids, all the tieflings were at my side against the druids. For reasons unknown Rath the druid fought at my side against the others. After the battle was over I went to Zavlor to try to figure out what the hell happened. Now this is the important part - Zevlor wasn't very clear, only said it had to be done and steered the conversation to the goblin threat. I went back to the grove to try to understand why Rath, with which I never talked before fought with me in the battle. Rath was standing and blocking the entrance to the grove. He also didn't have any explanations but curiously he said "we won". How did you won if all the druids but you are dead? Wtf.
Then I came back to my camp and gale is complaining to me about something that happened with the druids.
Now what the hell happened here other than standard Larian's mess? I think at some stage, I don't if it happened when I chose attack in the dialogue or at later stage, the quest to kill Khaga triggered. But no context, no proper resolution, no nothing. And it all started from me choosing a dialogue line, so again, I didn't even try to break the game but it broke so easily.
|
|
|
|
|
