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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1734 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 1, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I’m playing Dragon Age and enjoying it. I don’t really disagree with the criticisms of the game from some reviewers. There is indeed a lot of peak millennial YA woke cringe dialogue…but the same was true of Baldur’s Gate 3 and both God of War reboot games, and many people enjoyed those; this doesn’t seem any worse.

I appreciate that this is an RPG with the filler removed, much needed after both Inquisition and Andromeda were ruined in large part by barren open zones that were unnecessarily created to try to attach the studio to some kind of perceived open world trend.

I quite like the new gameplay. Good RTwP will always be my preferred system, but Inquisition already ruined Dragon Age 2’s sublime and hugely underrated RTwP-action-hybrid combat, and this is definitely better than what we got in 2014.

People complain about facial animations, but they’re much less distracting than in Mass Effect Andromeda or Star Wars Outlaws / AC Valhalla (for non-facial-capture scenes, obviously). You can’t do much better than this without either hand-tuning facial animations like CDPR or capturing them directly like Larian, and it’s clear Bioware didn’t have the budget for that.

Choice and consequence is pretty good so far, better than some recent RPGs. I like the world and level design. The game has a nice, breezy pace. I will keep playing for now. I am more concerned about Obsidian’s Avowed, which looks like it might turn out like the Outer Worlds, which was passable but very dull.

Thinking back on it, I retract my judgment from RTwP. Neverwinter and Dragon Age 1/2 were perfectly playable. The thing that turned me off was the Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment engine, which had low-level casters with few spells per rest and concurrently made resting a pain in the ass. Thus casters were a liability 80%+ of the time. Never finished BG1 because of this (Torment was good enough to suck it up for the duration) and haven’t tried BG2.

I think that's particularly an issue early in BG1, to the point where I would actually recommend just using console commands to start BG1 at level four or so. Level one play in AD&D is extremely limited and dangerous and BG1 doesn't handle it well.

AD&D has a common issue in most of D&D, which is that casters start out fragile, weak, and extremely limited in what they can do, but become overpowered in the late game. The result is that there's a kind of 'sweet spot' of AD&D combat where fighters and casters are competitive, and there's excellent gameplay at that point, but both very low level and very high level gameplay are broken and boring. I suspect that part of BG2's sterling reputation comes from the fact that you start BG2 around the beginning of the sweet spot, and end it just when you're starting to exit it. Around levels eight through fourteen or so is 'the good bit' of AD&D, where characters have enough options to be interesting, casters are powerful but still have meaningful weaknesses, and fighters are still essential.

BG1 and Throne of Bhaal are noticeably weaker than Shadows of Amn just because the system is unbalanced. It sucks, but there are ways to work around it. XP is on a weird scale in AD&D, so if you just start BG1 with a few extra levels, you don't actually end up that overpowered by endgame - you just remove a lot of the early pain. And once you hit epic levels in ToB, wizards are overpowered, but they're not as overpowered as in the tabletop game due to the limitations of the Infinity Engine (the game can't handle, to pick a very simple exploit, constantly flying; and it certainly can't handle most of the degenerate combos AD&D allows on paper), and because using a wizard effectively requires a lot of tedious spell management, you can and perhaps should manage by still letting extremely-well-equipped fighters do a lot of the work. ToB is not that difficult a game, so you don't need to abuse the extremes of power that much.

Yeah that isn't RTWP, that's D&D caster design. They start out weak and become godlike at high levels. It's a shame you didn't play BG2, because at the levels in that game (especially the expansion) your casters carry the party. You have a ton of spells per day, and also high level spells are absolutely nuts in terms of their effects.

If you never played BG2, then you may play BG3 and find it okay.

It is a retarded, drooling cousin of the older games. The first Dragon Age was already huge step down compared to BG2 in the terms of combat. I can't even imagine how dumb this game is now. BG3 had some okay writing and the tactial gameplay was fun, but it's overall a huge let down.

At times I've been morbidly curious about BG3, but as a huge BG2 fan I just fear it's going to ruin what I remember playing through so many times. I worry that it looks like a product of the post-5e D&D culture, which I don't care for at all. Would you say that these concerns are justified?

The people who criticize it as more of a Larian game than a BG game are probably right - but there's also some of what you call post-5e culture. (I think- I avoided that like the plague). Marvel-speak and such is mostly related to certain companions, but the overall writing isn't that good.

Don't think it'll ruin it - the games really do feel a lot different, but you're going to be regularly disappointed in the writing. It's really a shame that people let to write something that expensive are just.. meh. Same as with Fallout 3 & 4.

Personally, I'm not going to even consider anything AAA ever again. I also probably only played BG3 bc a friend bought it for me. Maybe the new Cyberpunk - at least the main game had good writing. There's 'Atom RPG', a not so new Soviet Fallout-inspired game. I'll get into that once I learn cyrillic.

I can't really judge BG3 fairly, but I have a sneaking suspicion that, in hindsight, Neverwinter Nights is the real Baldur's Gate III - it still has that late-90s D&D culture, BioWare's writing style is still pretty close to what it was in the originals, and it evokes the Forgotten Realms setting as it existed at the time. NWN vanilla doesn't impress me that much, but once it hits its stride in Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark, I'd argue you do get something that's visibly kin to BG2.

From what I've heard, if one is interested in something more authentically in the style of Baldur's Gate, the Owlcat Pathfinder games are much closer, both in mechanics and in terms of writing?

To change subject somewhat...

I count myself a Dragon Age fan, but I'm definitely put off by everything I see in Veilguard. As it is, I loved Origins and Awakening, though 2 had a handful of interesting ideas but ultimately was an unsuccessful game and laid the groundwork for the series' pivot away from Origins' style, and then Inquisition had its share of good moments, but was definitely a game at war with its own design. I can imagine rescuing 2, and I can imagine splitting Inquisition into two different games, both of which might be good on their own merits but which do not successfully fuse, but neither of them ultimately work as a whole. More concerningly, I'd say that Inquisition, despite some superficial similiarities, is a different genre to Origins, and then Veilguard seems to have reinvented itself yet again. I find it a bit hard to talk about Dragon Age as a series - I'd argue that Origins/Awakening essentially take place in their own little continuity, and they work best as a stand-alone game like Jade Empire. Inquisition refers to things from Origins sometimes, but it's clear that it's not the same world.

To me, Veilguard looks like a passable action-adventure, plus some cringeworthy woke scenes that everyone is fixated on, but one that has nothing to do with any previous Dragon Age game beyond a couple of proper nouns. So I'm inclined to give it a miss. I doubt it has much to offer a Dragon Age fan.

I played NWN.. back around when it came out, but I do remember being disappointed. Not sure why.

BG2, on the other hand..

I feel one can get used to almost any kind of graphics as long as it's not 320x240. Young people have no idea what they're missing if they haven't played modded BG2+ToB. With the anti-cheese patches and stratagems(I think) it was an amazing game.

I still consider it the best Western RPG ever made, and if you have Pocket Plane and Gibberlings Three to upgrade it even further, it's very hard to match. There are some other competitors, but it's definitely up there in the top few. It's right in the middle of Shamus Young's Golden Age of PC Gaming (though I'd expand it to all gaming) - there was a sweet spot there, around 1998-2002 or so, which reminds me of Alan Jacobs talking about moments in time that bring particular arts to a height. There was the right balance between enablement and resistance for digital creativity to flourish.

Is this just nostalgia for when I was a teen? Perhaps. You can certainly point to a lot of excellent games outside of the 1998-2002 period, or perhaps 1997-2004, or however widely we cast the net. But I feel like there's something to it, because that period did birth a number of masterpieces, many of which have had sequels or revisits that try to capture the magic, and fail. Final Fantasy VII in 1997, Starcraft in 1998, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 1998, Age of Empires II in 1999, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in 1999, Baldur's Gate II in 2000, Deus Ex in 2000, Diablo II in 2000, Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001, and so on. I could easily go on! I choose these titles because they've all had modern sequels - FFVII remake, Starcraft II, all the Zelda sequels, Age of Empires IV, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Diablo III and IV, GTA IV and V, the entire Halo series up to now, and so on, and while the new generation is definitely much more technologically advanced, it's hard to look at what we have now and see the same kind of inspiration. Several of these games have had a lot of spiritual successors. Dragon Age: Origins was a spiritual sequel to Baldur's Gate, and of course Baldur's Gate III now exists, but while they may be good in their own right (DA:O was great, no comment on BG3), I think it's safe to say that none of them are BG2 levels of good.

Am I being unfair or just cherry-picking the best games of that period, or was it a real creative peak?

No, you're not cherrypicking.

It was the golden period when game devs were still making games for people like them-not insulting the intelligence of players, but they had much bigger budgets because gaming was expanding towards the dimmer types.

It is as simple as that. Excellent games still do get made - e.g. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri has an almost worthy successors - but they never get a lot of attention because AAA is kinda dumb now. Word of mouth only. I recommend watching Sseth's videos - he reviews a lot of such.

I still consider it the best Western RPG ever made,

By Hordes of the Underdark it got to the level I'd consider "good", before that it was at most tolerable. There are mods that BTFO anything released by the studio.

Sorry, to be clear, I consider BG2 the best RPG.

NWN is a fantastic toolbox, and SoU and especially HotU are good, but I don't think the official NWN reaches the high levels of BG2. (BG1 is... interesting. I think vanilla BG1 doesn't measure up, but modded BG1 does become almost a match for its sequel. If you have Tutu and a number of the NPC mods, I think BG1 becomes a very respectable companion piece to its sequel.)

I agree entirely that NWN has some amazing modules and adventures that beat out anything the studio published.

Do you really prefer RTwP over turn-based? I’ll grant that it works well in Faster Than Light (and is preferable to the singularly shitty turn-based implementation in Fallout Tactics, which runs both options), but for the most part, the good games that have it are good in spite of it.

I'm a firm supporter of RTwP over pure turn-based, at least in isometric RPGs like this. RTwP allows me to set the pace of combat as appropriate to the challenge - minor threats can be bowled over without even pausing, more serious threats require a bit of pause and tactical decision-making, and serious threats might become effectively turn-based. It's a gearshift for tactical combat, so to speak? Going from RTwP to purely turn-based, to me, feels like being stuck in first gear for the entire game, even when I want to go faster.

I prefer RTwP over TB, simply because TB is too slow. Trash fights aren't bad by themselves, but with TB they become a slog. The designers that get rid of trash fights are often tempted to create massive fights instead, and I get tired of having only massive fights, even if they are actually low-stakes.

I prefer RTwP over TB, simply because TB is too slow.

I've never been able to play RTWP as quickly as a well-designed turn based game.

I tried Pillars of Eternity, and the disconnect between my (intended) commands and the characters' (attempted) actions drove me up the wall1. I had to constantly monitor my characters to make sure that they didn't interpret "approach that enemy, then attack it" as "try to approach that enemy, notice that the direct path to the enemy has become blocked, circle around the entire battlefield, then attack it if you survived the detour".

If I wanted to change tactics, I had to review each character to see what their current WIP action is (if it's even possible), recall which commands have been carried out vs. queued vs. failed, determine the bearing, speed, and timing of all units if I'm planning on an AoE, then set the new command.

Contrast that to Divinity Original Sin, where if I commanded something, it happened, monitoring events is baked in, changing tactics is literally free (continuing them costs something instead), and actions are almost as fast as I can hit the skill hotkeys and aim them.

(1) confusion and opportunity attacks are perfectly decent ways to break the link between my commands and their actions. Bad UI and AI isn't.

Turn based is always slower in Larian games than RtwP is in Dragon Age/Pillars/etc because even if you have StarCraft level APM, everything mapped to the keyboard, a full rotation for every character memorized and can therefore avoid spending five minutes a round looking at tooltips, you still have to wait an age for the enemy turns. Plus it just looks goofy; all RPG combat is an abstraction but it’s immersion breaking when my side stops attacking for a few minutes and stands there while we get walloped, then the same happens in reverse. It’s necessary in chess (and on the tabletop in general), but not in games.

I often prefer it, the reasons being that i find iterative turn based too slow and simple.

I've watched some video reviews, and the dialogue doesn't seem great but it could be cherry picking. Still, from what I've seen there is nothing like Dragon Age 2's Friendship/Rivalry system which was something I was hoping for. In fact it doesn't seem like you can have disagreements with companions up to the point of them leaving the party/etc. Again I haven't played but it looks like the Dragon Age subreddit is turning on the game now that people have had time to play. Lack of continuity seems to be the biggest strike against it. Inquisition and Trespasser especially provided a pretty epic setup for this game and even with 10 years to deliver it doesn't seem like Bioware really managed it. I doubt I'll play this one (or at least wait for a very deep discount) in spite of really loving the rest of the series. I'm finishing up Wrath of the Righteous at the moment and a second playthrough sounds more appealing than Veilguard.

Is there a recent AAA game you didn't enjoy?

Didn’t like the Ubisoft Avatar, didn’t like GOW Ragnarok, didn’t like Spider-Man (1 or 2). Didn’t really like BG3. Hated Zelda TOTK.

God of War reboot games

What "woke" dialogue was in God of War?

What "woke" dialogue was in God of War?

Probably referring to the 2022 game. There are a few token black characters and some humiliation rituals where female self-inserts are presented as badasses at the expense of Kratos.

and some humiliation rituals where female self-inserts are presented as badasses at the expense of Kratos.

Valkyries stomping on his face were mostly in the 2018 game.

Other than that Kratos interacts with like 8 women over the course of the whole game, not counting the wife flashbacks. 3 of them are the norns and 3 more are the valkyrie bosses. The dwarf is 'miring at him, Freya can only beat him when he's fighting with his left pinky, the norns are apparently a humiliation ritual because he doesn't kill them? The valkyries are the valkyrie bosses, they're only as humiliating as the player's skill lets them.

I don’t know about ‘woke’ (although various aspects of the culture, language, attitude towards vice, sin, sex, therapy, relationships and so on of people in this Norse mythology are seemingly identical to those of progressive game writers in 2010s and 2020s California). But certainly the affect, style, tone, seriousness, language and so on was pure Marvel Whedon CW-show quippiness.

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