How to maximize your enjoyment of RPGs

[Norfleet]

Obviously you aren't literally your character, you do not need to hold your breath if your character is swimming.

lol

I actually do this sometimes

I always do this, just to see if I can hold my breath longer than my character can. I usually win.

[Acrux]

you would also have to finish every quest in Oblivion

Incorrect. In fact, rusty included an image in his original post where the Elder Scrolls instruction manual specifically says not to try and do everything.

and then certain weapons would have weight, what they didnt have as long as they were a quest item

That's just flat-out cheating.

No you are incorrect, since you just took that out of context.

Then what did you mean? Because the context seemed to be that you were saying completing every quest would be necessary if you were intending to play as the developers intended (by the book).

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Rusty the type of guy who wants the game not only to erase your saves once you die but for you to grab a shotgun and off yourself to really have the full experience of permadeath.

[rusty_shackleford]

Rusty the type of guy who wants the game not only to erase your saves once you die but for you to grab a shotgun and off yourself to really have the full experience of permadeath.

Still seething hours later because you might consider playing a game without cheating

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Rusty the type of guy who wants the game not only to erase your saves once you die but for you to grab a shotgun and off yourself to really have the full experience of permadeath.

Still seething hours later because you might consider playing a game without cheating

What you call cheating I call it playing as a normal functional human being.

[Acrux]

The ones who protest loudest have never tried it.

[UltraFan123]

Regarding the "using custom mercenaries" point.

As someone who played both Pathfinder games from Owlcat, I now purposely avoid coming across roughly half of the companions in both games because they are just so insufferable, but since Owlcat made so many companions, half of them are still more than enough for a full party and have some in reserve, so I never felt any need to make mercenaries. kek

If you were to ask me, a "perfect CRPG" would have exactly five companions and they would all have interesting personalities, 0 wokeness, and decent builds that synergize with each other. That way you would be attached to them and would never think of kicking them nor skipping their recruitment like I do in the PF games now.

[Tinky Winky]

The ones who protest loudest have never tried it.

He probably only plays coomer bait games, so he needs to skip the gameplay for the part that actually matters.

[Tweed]

1.No
2.No
3.No
4.No
5.No
6.No
7.No
8.And no

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

The ones who protest loudest have never tried it.

He probably only plays coomer bait games, so he needs to skip the gameplay for the part that actually matters.

Your 180 degrees of being right but ok.

[Norfleet]

Rusty the type of guy who wants the game not only to erase your saves once you die but for you to grab a shotgun and off yourself to really have the full experience of permadeath.

He should play Canada, then. When you die in Canada, you die in real life!

[Vergil]

Yeah, I'm gonna take RPG advice from a guy who claims he loves the maze like wandering hell that is Daggerfall dungeon design. I'm certain he is sane and doesn't at all have an objectively dogshit opinion.

I suppose I should expand that while Daggerfall had many interesting ideas, its execution was terrible. Bethesda went back to handcrafted dungeons because it made sense. People want to play through something that had thought put into it, and not proc-gen trash that is a poor excuse to avoid putting in effort. I despise mazes in video games, and a lot of old school design had this bizarre obsession with mazes and useless or almost no maps to help.

[Bertram_Tung]

but proc-gen IS trash

[Oyster Sauce]

Morrowind dungeons are indistinguishable from procgen

[ThulsaDoomer]

Morrowind dungeons are indistinguishable from procgen

When people have to resort to "b-b-but Morrowind dungeons" you know it's weak bait. I wonder how many Daggerfall 'chads' actually played the game more than 5 hours. A lot of Morrowind dungeons, while regrettably small or simple, don't wear out the welcome mat unlike every single dungeon in Daggerfall. In an RPG, you want to pace things out, not every single cell needs to be a grand complex. It makes the unique and large dungeons more noteworthy, and people don't get fatigued by unique showcases over and over again. This has been discussed at length in modding projects, who often fall into the category of bloated mcguffins, forgetting that the mundane is just as valuable.

[Vergil]

I've had multiple 50+ hour long Daggerfall playthroughs. The dungeons are not that bad if you can handle basic maze solving tactics.

[TKVNC]

Morrowind dungeons are indistinguishable from procgen

When people have to resort to "b-b-but Morrowind dungeons" you know it's weak bait. I wonder how many Daggerfall 'chads' actually played the game more than 5 hours. A lot of Morrowind dungeons, while regrettably small or simple, don't wear out the welcome mat unlike every single dungeon in Daggerfall. In an RPG, you want to pace things out, not every single cell needs to be a grand complex. It makes the unique and large dungeons more noteworthy, and people don't get fatigued by unique showcases over and over again. This has been discussed at length in modding projects, who often fall into the category of bloated mcguffins, forgetting that the mundane is just as valuable.

Respect for simplicity is peak Aryan kino.

Only swarthoids want endless 'excitement'. It's why they hate the countryside.

[Lord of Riva]

I'm not going to stop savescumming unless developers figure out how to make rpg aspects actually correctly interpret my choices.

It's one thing to argue "You should be fine with outcomes you did not anticipate" and "the games reaction to what you did or said is opposite of what you intended", in every choice heavy game are instances where what you chose does not remotely reflect what the choices suggest it would.

[Lord of Riva]

Morrowind dungeons are indistinguishable from procgen

When people have to resort to "b-b-but Morrowind dungeons" you know it's weak bait. I wonder how many Daggerfall 'chads' actually played the game more than 5 hours. A lot of Morrowind dungeons, while regrettably small or simple, don't wear out the welcome mat unlike every single dungeon in Daggerfall. In an RPG, you want to pace things out, not every single cell needs to be a grand complex. It makes the unique and large dungeons more noteworthy, and people don't get fatigued by unique showcases over and over again. This has been discussed at length in modding projects, who often fall into the category of bloated mcguffins, forgetting that the mundane is just as valuable.

What is the argument?

Daggerfall is great because it does not pretend to be anything else than a Sandbox.
Starting with Morrowind the complexity of what the player is capable of doing is regressing and continues to do so in oblivion and Skyrim.

I tried liking morrowind so many times but it and it's successors are simply not engaging for long as the games are way to samey while pretending to have a gameplay direction.

The series could have been so much greater if they had expanded on daggerfalls procgen and enhanced it with bells and whistles and logical coherency.

It's not about "chads" I played Daggerfall like 4 years ago for the first time, it is absolutely better than it's successors in nearly every way.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm not going to stop savescumming unless developers figure out how to make rpg aspects actually correctly interpret my choices.

It's one thing to argue "You should be fine with outcomes you did not anticipate" and "the games reaction to what you did or said is opposite of what you intended", in every choice heavy game are instances where what you chose does not remotely reflect what the choices suggest it would.

I consider it to be a fair reload if a choice does something completely different than you expected it to do, fwiw.

[ThulsaDoomer]

Morrowind dungeons are indistinguishable from procgen

When people have to resort to "b-b-but Morrowind dungeons" you know it's weak bait. I wonder how many Daggerfall 'chads' actually played the game more than 5 hours. A lot of Morrowind dungeons, while regrettably small or simple, don't wear out the welcome mat unlike every single dungeon in Daggerfall. In an RPG, you want to pace things out, not every single cell needs to be a grand complex. It makes the unique and large dungeons more noteworthy, and people don't get fatigued by unique showcases over and over again. This has been discussed at length in modding projects, who often fall into the category of bloated mcguffins, forgetting that the mundane is just as valuable.

What is the argument?

How would you feel if you did not have breakfast this morning?

Alas, we're fundamentally opposed. I have no desire to see gaming through the eyes of Daggerfall enjoyers.

[asf]

daggerfall is terrible

[Xenich]

I have to agree here. Every time I have specifically gone against many of the recommendations Rusty is giving, it always degraded the game for me and in some cases, caused me to not even play it because I obsessed too much over "da perfect build". Going blind, going with the flow, etc... has always produced the most enjoyment in a game for me.

[Trickster]

Found in a CRPG book. It says save-cumming is based.

[rusty_shackleford]

Found in a CRPG book. It says save-cumming is based.

there's members on this very forum whom wrote part of that book

[Eyestabber]

Very 4/10 OP, rusto. Here, let me help:

• Do some research. Your goal is to design the perfect murder machine and to that end you must know how all the stat works and how to scale your build properly.
• Don't look up builds. If you just copy someone else's homework then you are depriving yourself of the challenge. Your very first build should be adequate. If your character is bad then you should feel bad. Due to your superior understanding of RPG systems in general you should be capable of coming up with a strong build. Otherwise, what were you doing with "all those years of experience"?
• Roleplay. The ideal RPG character is the loot-driven murderhobo. Forget your personal morality while playing, moralfaggotry has no place in RPGs. Instead you should adapt to loot based morality. Do you save all the children on the orphanage or sell them into slavery? If your answer is anything other than "which one gives better loot and XP?" then maybe RPGs aren't your thing. Remember: you are a walking XP converting and loot collecting machine. If killing gives XP then the only reason why anyone would walk away alive from an encounter with you is because they might offer you another quest and thus more rewards in the future. If picking locks give XP then every single door, chest and locker in town will be picked open. And never EVER talk your way out of a fight unless that's the path to an even bigger reward.
• Use story companions for their loot and then replace them with mercs. Most story companions have special rewards that are usually unlocked by hearing their whining for a bit, assuming you can resist the urge to kill them. Once the ****** dev's pets no longer provide anything useful you can freely replace them with your additional murder machines. Always check the story companion for unique items that can be helpful to yourself and your mercs.
• Always check NPCs for whether or not you can kill them. Good RPGs always allow you to take whatever you gave the NPC back from his corpse after killing him. If an NPC isn't tied to any future quests and his usefulness is expired you should always kill him for extra XP. A good recent example is Pencil's crew in Trudograd. If you share the money you are playing the game wrong.
• Don't let the game rob you of your fun. If something ******** happens like the game forcing you to play a party member you previously ignored (and has no gear now) or a party member leaving for some gay *** reason, reload. Never accept a "gotcha, chud" from the developers. Remember: you are the Lord and master of your RPG party and their only way out is through death. WHEN you permit them to die.
• You don't need to see all the content. But you do need to do all the fights. If you beat a game and later find out there was an important fight that you completely missed you should either restart or reload and do the fight. You can't claim to have beaten a game if you left someone alive due to laziness.
• You should NOT struggle with the Final Boss. if you played your cards right through the game the final encounter should be easy or at least doable. Your murder machine should obliterate and humiliate the final boss and if that's not the case then you should feel bad for doing a crappy build. Restart the game and do better.
• Don't be afraid to sacrifice late game potential for early game comfort. 99% of RPGs are **** easy once you're past the mid-game. Don't obsess over late game potential, early game is usually the only game in town. So go ahead and recruit that companion who "falls off late game", pick the weapon that isn't the best later on etc. You should dominate RPGs at every stage.

There, that's how I enjoy RPGs.

[asf]

just kill all npcs

[rusty_shackleford]

So true, Mr. Timmy Cain, so true.

[Acrux]

I wish he would have added accepting the outcome of rolls and not reloading a save if it doesn't go your way.

[J1M]

Rusty's actual secret: play a human fighter.