Baldur's Gate 3

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MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

rusty_shackleford wrote: March 8th, 2023, 14:30
MadPreacher wrote: March 8th, 2023, 14:23
Yet, his name appears in the credits as a big fuck you to Lorraine. The rules are a revision that he started and gave to David back in 1985. I posted the actual PHB page. The same credits appear in all three printings of the AD&D 2E PHB by the way.

You can't hate David or his work because of what Lorraine did. Thus, the rules as appears in AD&D 2E are entirely a revision of AD&D 1E as evidenced by the Dragon Issue 103 article by Gary himself. Unless you're calling Gary a liar. Are you?
Snip
Except there's a flaw in your post. Monte Cook stated that he removed all of Gary's work when he made Generic Fantasy Superhero RPG the Third Shitting.
When we designed 3rd Edition D&D, people around Wizards of the Coast joked about the "lessons" we could learn from Magic: The Gathering, like making the rulebooks -- or the rules themselves -- collectible. ("Darn, I got another Cleave, I'm still looking for the ultra-rare Great Cleave.")

There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.
Link

Compare that to what David "Zeb" Cook wrote in the AD&D 2E PHB revised. All he did was clarify the existing rules, make it easier to find things, to fix the broken things, make it easier to understand, and take the best ideas from existing AD&D 1E expansions. He even said that he kept it familiar on purpose and to not deviate far from what Gary wrote originally for AD&D 1E.

Image

I rest my case. By the way, you can't argue any of this since you lack the proper feat to do so. It's not on your character sheet, but since I'm using the AD&D 2E rules I am using my Debate NWP that uses my Intelligence.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

The problem is everyone is waiting for the game to release so there's not much to discuss with the game itself.
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Post by GhostCow »

Any of you guys looking forward to any mods to fix things you don't like about the game? Personally I think all of the classes are pretty boring, especially compared to what we got in BG2, so I'll be hoping for some mods that add classes that are actually interesting. If the game is easy enough to mod, I might actually make some class mods myself. I've always been partial to cloth wearing high dps martial classes like the kensei.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

GhostCow wrote: March 8th, 2023, 15:15
Any of you guys looking forward to any mods to fix things you don't like about the game? Personally I think all of the classes are pretty boring, especially compared to what we got in BG2, so I'll be hoping for some mods that add classes that are actually interesting. If the game is easy enough to mod, I might actually make some class mods myself. I've always been partial to cloth wearing high dps martial classes like the kensei.
I'm hoping for some interesting campaign mods, assuming Larian launches with the editor like DOS1 & 2. Divinity editor is seriously underrated, basically a modern NWN. Hoping the popularity of BG3 makes it catch on.
MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

I feel like rubbing salt into the wound that @rusty_shackleford has over AD&D.

Image

This is from the 1974 White Box of D&D. Spell research has always been a part of the game while Feats have not.

:smug:

:king:

:Inspector:
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Post by J1M »

GhostCow wrote: March 8th, 2023, 15:15
Any of you guys looking forward to any mods to fix things you don't like about the game? Personally I think all of the classes are pretty boring, especially compared to what we got in BG2, so I'll be hoping for some mods that add classes that are actually interesting. If the game is easy enough to mod, I might actually make some class mods myself. I've always been partial to cloth wearing high dps martial classes like the kensei.
5e combat and character choices are pretty bland. My hope would be for a class that takes advantage of the environmental interactions they carried over from Divinity. Doesn't need to be broken like a hulking hurler.
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Post by agentorange »

MadPreacher wrote: March 8th, 2023, 12:46
Atlantico wrote: March 8th, 2023, 12:19
rusty_shackleford wrote: March 8th, 2023, 12:02

NWPs correlates to skills, not feats.
more gamey nonweapon proficiencies, it's an awesome-button

(why doesn't bold work on text? ... oh it does, but it is super subtle)
Careful or he'll split your comments out into a new thread like he did mine when I expressed contempt for feats being for brain dead players that can't think outside of the box and need the handholding of the game writers.
This might be a fine argument for PNP, but this is a thread about a video game after all. Things like "thinking outside the box" are not real options in most CRPGs, since a CPRG at its smallest element is a hand-held journey through a pre-determined PNP campaign where the only choice you have is what numbers to increase. Feats on the other hand lend themselves to video games very naturally because they are a binary choice, you take one feat or another and it can have an immediate and noticeable effect on combat. Since combat is the only area in most CPRGs where the player can have any real freedom (the story and problem solving being relegated to choosing one of a number of pre-made options), you may as well focus on giving the player more options for how to approach combat encounters.

Developers would have to entirely rethink the way they approach making a CPRG for stuff like improvisation and imagination to to be a fundamental part of it (DOS1 did seem to try something like this with the teleportation pyramid and some of the environmental spells, but I don't know if DOS2 built on this or got rid of it, and no idea what BG3 is doing there). Incidentally, this is why I think games like Thief and Deus Ex can be viewed as being sort of the other side of the coin in the effort to transmute PNP to the computer game medium, where instead of focusing on numbers like levels and stats and dice based combat they focused on the improvisational, imaginative problem solving aspect...now if only we could get a game that artfully combines both (probably why games like VTMB and Fallout feel the most like playing a PNP campaign to me, because they at least made an attempt to get some of the imaginative, improvised problem solving and adventuring quality in there alongside the leveling up and numbers based combat stuff).
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Post by Shillitron »

agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 02:33
MadPreacher wrote: March 8th, 2023, 12:46
Atlantico wrote: March 8th, 2023, 12:19


more gamey nonweapon proficiencies, it's an awesome-button

(why doesn't bold work on text? ... oh it does, but it is super subtle)
Careful or he'll split your comments out into a new thread like he did mine when I expressed contempt for feats being for brain dead players that can't think outside of the box and need the handholding of the game writers.
This might be a fine argument for PNP, but this is a thread about a video game after all. Things like "thinking outside the box" are not real options in most CRPGs, since a CPRG at its smallest element is a hand-held journey through a pre-determined PNP campaign where the only choice you have is what numbers to increase. Feats on the other hand lend themselves to video games very naturally because they are a binary choice, you take one feat or another and it can have an immediate and noticeable effect on combat. Since combat is the only area in most CPRGs where the player can have any real freedom (the story and problem solving being relegated to choosing one of a number of pre-made options), you may as well focus on giving the player more options for how to approach combat encounters.

Developers would have to entirely rethink the way they approach making a CPRG for stuff like improvisation and imagination to to be a fundamental part of it (DOS1 did seem to try something like this with the teleportation pyramid and some of the environmental spells, but I don't know if DOS2 built on this or got rid of it, and no idea what BG3 is doing there). Incidentally, this is why I think games like Thief and Deus Ex can be viewed as being sort of the other side of the coin in the effort to transmute PNP to the computer game medium, where instead of focusing on numbers like levels and stats and dice based combat they focused on the improvisational, imaginative problem solving aspect...now if only we could get a game that artfully combines both (probably why games like VTMB and Fallout feel the most like playing a PNP campaign to me, because they at least made an attempt to get some of the imaginative, improvised problem solving and adventuring quality in there alongside the leveling up and numbers based combat stuff).
Games have become so repetitious and 'by-the-numbers' in their design.. that if a Developer actually broke the mold.. they would probably need to SPELL-IT-OUT to players picking up the game, since we have all been trained to expect so little.

Countless games with invisible walls, immortal npcs, generic +1337 damage items with nothing interesting. It's all so tiresome.

When a game like DOS1 even scratches the surface of what is possible.. I as a player instinctively don't even try to 'experiment' - in most games when you teleport over a chasm or through a window it's a bug and your game softlocks or corrupts your save.. it feels so weird to even be allowed to try something creative in games anymore.
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Post by agentorange »

Shillitron wrote: March 15th, 2023, 05:11
agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 02:33
MadPreacher wrote: March 8th, 2023, 12:46


Careful or he'll split your comments out into a new thread like he did mine when I expressed contempt for feats being for brain dead players that can't think outside of the box and need the handholding of the game writers.
This might be a fine argument for PNP, but this is a thread about a video game after all. Things like "thinking outside the box" are not real options in most CRPGs, since a CPRG at its smallest element is a hand-held journey through a pre-determined PNP campaign where the only choice you have is what numbers to increase. Feats on the other hand lend themselves to video games very naturally because they are a binary choice, you take one feat or another and it can have an immediate and noticeable effect on combat. Since combat is the only area in most CPRGs where the player can have any real freedom (the story and problem solving being relegated to choosing one of a number of pre-made options), you may as well focus on giving the player more options for how to approach combat encounters.

Developers would have to entirely rethink the way they approach making a CPRG for stuff like improvisation and imagination to to be a fundamental part of it (DOS1 did seem to try something like this with the teleportation pyramid and some of the environmental spells, but I don't know if DOS2 built on this or got rid of it, and no idea what BG3 is doing there). Incidentally, this is why I think games like Thief and Deus Ex can be viewed as being sort of the other side of the coin in the effort to transmute PNP to the computer game medium, where instead of focusing on numbers like levels and stats and dice based combat they focused on the improvisational, imaginative problem solving aspect...now if only we could get a game that artfully combines both (probably why games like VTMB and Fallout feel the most like playing a PNP campaign to me, because they at least made an attempt to get some of the imaginative, improvised problem solving and adventuring quality in there alongside the leveling up and numbers based combat stuff).
Games have become so repetitious and 'by-the-numbers' in their design.. that if a Developer actually broke the mold.. they would probably need to SPELL-IT-OUT to players picking up the game, since we have all been trained to expect so little.

Countless games with invisible walls, immortal npcs, generic +1337 damage items with nothing interesting. It's all so tiresome.


When a game like DOS1 even scratches the surface of what is possible.. I as a player instinctively don't even try to 'experiment' - in most games when you teleport over a chasm or through a window it's a bug and your game softlocks or corrupts your save.. it feels so weird to even be allowed to try something creative in games anymore.
https://www.vg247.com/dishonored-quests ... laytesters
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 02:33
Developers would have to entirely rethink the way they approach making a CPRG for stuff like improvisation and imagination to to be a fundamental part of it (DOS1 did seem to try something like this with the teleportation pyramid and some of the environmental spells, but I don't know if DOS2 built on this or got rid of it, and no idea what BG3 is doing there).
BG3 leans into it even harder from what I saw at EA release. Legitimately looking forward to this releasing.
MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 02:33
This might be a fine argument for PNP, but this is a thread about a video game after all.
This isn't even what my argument is about. When you can actually deal with the facts that Generic Fantasy Superhero RPG the Fifth Shitting is NOT D&D let me know. Otherwise, I don't give a fuck about your idiotic opinion on CRPGs as the Gold Box and original Baldur's Gate games show that you don't need retarded feats to complete the game.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

HLAs are just proto-feats

Being able to do more than click the "accept" button on a level-up is a good thing, btw.
MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 09:45
HLAs are just proto-feats

Being able to do more than click the "accept" button on a level-up is a good thing, btw.
They were introduced in the Player's Options books which are optional rules for AD&D 2E. In my experience nobody actually used them.

I thought you declared that AD&D 2E wasn't AD&D. :smug:
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:01
rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 09:45
HLAs are just proto-feats

Being able to do more than click the "accept" button on a level-up is a good thing, btw.
They were introduced in the Player's Options books which are optional rules for AD&D 2E. In my experience nobody actually used them.

I thought you declared that AD&D 2E wasn't AD&D. :smug:
You can find approximations of feats going back far before that. Class abilities are just feats that are auto-selected for you without any player input from the player.
Image

You seem to think player choice is a bad thing.
MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:05
MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:01
rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 09:45
HLAs are just proto-feats

Being able to do more than click the "accept" button on a level-up is a good thing, btw.
They were introduced in the Player's Options books which are optional rules for AD&D 2E. In my experience nobody actually used them.

I thought you declared that AD&D 2E wasn't AD&D. :smug:
You can find approximations of feats going back far before that. Class abilities are just feats that are auto-selected for you without any player input from the player.
Image

You seem to think player choice is a bad thing.
Incorrect that they were feats. They are special abilities for specific classes that only that class can get. I don't care if you like feats or that you like Generic Fantasy Superhero RPG Third through the Fifth Shitting. What I do care is that you call this abomination D&D. It's not and never was. Even the authors of said Third through Fifth Shitting say that they use nothing of what Gary wrote.

You're better than this when you argue since you usually don't use strawmen. You have to shift the argument into something that you can win when you can't.

You also dodged answering the fact that you declared AD&D 2E is not AD&D when it is. It's funny how selective you are when it comes to applying the branding of D&D. I'm actually laughing at you.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:08
rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:05
MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:01


They were introduced in the Player's Options books which are optional rules for AD&D 2E. In my experience nobody actually used them.

I thought you declared that AD&D 2E wasn't AD&D. :smug:
You can find approximations of feats going back far before that. Class abilities are just feats that are auto-selected for you without any player input from the player.
Image

You seem to think player choice is a bad thing.
Incorrect that they were feats. They are special abilities for specific classes that only that class can get. I don't care if you like feats or that you like Generic Fantasy Superhero RPG Third through the Fifth Shitting. What I do care is that you call this abomination D&D. It's not and never was. Even the authors of said Third through Fifth Shitting say that they use nothing of what Gary wrote.

You're better than this when you argue since you usually don't use strawmen. You have to shift the argument into something that you can win when you can't.

You also dodged answering the fact that you declared AD&D 2E is not AD&D when it is. It's funny how selective you are when it comes to applying the branding of D&D. I'm actually laughing at you.
Er, yeah, imagine if there were feats that only certain classes could pick. Weird.
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Class_Feats
MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:10
Er, yeah, imagine if there were feats that only certain classes could pick. Weird.
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Class_Feats
Citing DANDINO doesn't help you rusty. You might as well reference GURPS or Hero System or Aftermath!! for your argument.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:12
Citing DANDINO doesn't help you rusty. You might as well reference GURPS or Hero System or Aftermath!! for your argument.
MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:08
Incorrect that they were feats. They are special abilities for specific classes that only that class can get.
um
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

"People would just walk around. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t even go upstairs because a guard told them they couldn’t. They’d say 'Okay, I can’t go upstairs.' They wouldn’t do anything," he explained.
This is why we can't have nice things.
MadPreacher

Post by MadPreacher »

rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:12
MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:12
Citing DANDINO doesn't help you rusty. You might as well reference GURPS or Hero System or Aftermath!! for your argument.
MadPreacher wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:08
Incorrect that they were feats. They are special abilities for specific classes that only that class can get.
um
Good old rusty goes for the invalid comparison logical fallacy.
rusty_shackleford wrote: March 15th, 2023, 10:15
"People would just walk around. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t even go upstairs because a guard told them they couldn’t. They’d say 'Okay, I can’t go upstairs.' They wouldn’t do anything," he explained.
This is why we can't have nice things.
This is what your feats lead to. You have a bunch of braindead morons that can't think critically to overcome their problems and have to rely upon the handholding of the game designers telling them how to overcome the problem with feats.
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Post by KnightoftheWind »

agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 08:24
Shillitron wrote: March 15th, 2023, 05:11
agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 02:33

This might be a fine argument for PNP, but this is a thread about a video game after all. Things like "thinking outside the box" are not real options in most CRPGs, since a CPRG at its smallest element is a hand-held journey through a pre-determined PNP campaign where the only choice you have is what numbers to increase. Feats on the other hand lend themselves to video games very naturally because they are a binary choice, you take one feat or another and it can have an immediate and noticeable effect on combat. Since combat is the only area in most CPRGs where the player can have any real freedom (the story and problem solving being relegated to choosing one of a number of pre-made options), you may as well focus on giving the player more options for how to approach combat encounters.

Developers would have to entirely rethink the way they approach making a CPRG for stuff like improvisation and imagination to to be a fundamental part of it (DOS1 did seem to try something like this with the teleportation pyramid and some of the environmental spells, but I don't know if DOS2 built on this or got rid of it, and no idea what BG3 is doing there). Incidentally, this is why I think games like Thief and Deus Ex can be viewed as being sort of the other side of the coin in the effort to transmute PNP to the computer game medium, where instead of focusing on numbers like levels and stats and dice based combat they focused on the improvisational, imaginative problem solving aspect...now if only we could get a game that artfully combines both (probably why games like VTMB and Fallout feel the most like playing a PNP campaign to me, because they at least made an attempt to get some of the imaginative, improvised problem solving and adventuring quality in there alongside the leveling up and numbers based combat stuff).
Games have become so repetitious and 'by-the-numbers' in their design.. that if a Developer actually broke the mold.. they would probably need to SPELL-IT-OUT to players picking up the game, since we have all been trained to expect so little.

Countless games with invisible walls, immortal npcs, generic +1337 damage items with nothing interesting. It's all so tiresome.


When a game like DOS1 even scratches the surface of what is possible.. I as a player instinctively don't even try to 'experiment' - in most games when you teleport over a chasm or through a window it's a bug and your game softlocks or corrupts your save.. it feels so weird to even be allowed to try something creative in games anymore.
https://www.vg247.com/dishonored-quests ... laytesters
This is just sad, I wonder if one of those playtesters was DSP. Striving for mass appeal will always lead to such steps being taken, because the lowest common denominator has to be catered to at all times. That's why quest markers and minimaps were collectively mandated by the industry, to ensure that even 70 IQ Somalians can have their fun. Games have become glorified checklists and nothing more, "go here", "fetch that", "now bring it back here". To an extent RPG cliches helped bring this about, because what are you doing 90% of the time in most RPGs?. Fetching stuff and bringing it to NPCs. Games like Daggerfall just widened the playspace and made it into a nation-trotting easter egg hunt, giving the illusion of a grand adventure while not really accomplishing much. The appeal comes from the sense of immersion and nothing else.
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Post by Shillitron »

KnightoftheWind wrote: March 15th, 2023, 15:50
agentorange wrote: March 15th, 2023, 08:24
Shillitron wrote: March 15th, 2023, 05:11


Games have become so repetitious and 'by-the-numbers' in their design.. that if a Developer actually broke the mold.. they would probably need to SPELL-IT-OUT to players picking up the game, since we have all been trained to expect so little.

Countless games with invisible walls, immortal npcs, generic +1337 damage items with nothing interesting. It's all so tiresome.


When a game like DOS1 even scratches the surface of what is possible.. I as a player instinctively don't even try to 'experiment' - in most games when you teleport over a chasm or through a window it's a bug and your game softlocks or corrupts your save.. it feels so weird to even be allowed to try something creative in games anymore.
https://www.vg247.com/dishonored-quests ... laytesters
This is just sad, I wonder if one of those playtesters was DSP. Striving for mass appeal will always lead to such steps being taken, because the lowest common denominator has to be catered to at all times. That's why quest markers and minimaps were collectively mandated by the industry, to ensure that even 70 IQ Somalians can have their fun. Games have become glorified checklists and nothing more, "go here", "fetch that", "now bring it back here". To an extent RPG cliches helped bring this about, because what are you doing 90% of the time in most RPGs?. Fetching stuff and bringing it to NPCs. Games like Daggerfall just widened the playspace and made it into a nation-trotting easter egg hunt, giving the illusion of a grand adventure while not really accomplishing much. The appeal comes from the sense of immersion and nothing else.

Processing games through the AAA conveyer belt of marketing-QA-sensitivity training has completely neutered games.

Doing anything in a game that confuses even one person is "bad design" - so even if any talented & passionate developers are still in the industry, you'll never know because their work is filtered through a generation of minimum wage Call of Duty fans living in their moms basement play testing these games, raising "why did I have to think?" as a bug.
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Post by Rigwort »

Part of me wonders if this whole "brain-dead gamers" thing is due to the lack of a manual (and not just because I wish feelies were still a thing...). Sometimes when playing a game I find myself approaching it incorrectly. Like with Gothic II, they say that the docks are dangerous (which they were, in a way) so being the little good-boy I was playing I avoided the docks in particular. Of course, then I couldn't do the myriad of quests there to help me level which were almost necessary in Night of the Raven. I think sometimes players DO need to be told how to play the game, or maybe think about the game. Not enough to spoil riddles and puzzles, but enough to know that certain actions are options. Of course, this wouldn't fix my Gothic II idiocy, but I'm thinking how even WFRP lays out the fact that the world is dirty and grim and you will have to interact with those kinds of areas and people where something more noble would just present it as an option. Of course I never read the Gothic II manual...
Those kinds of manuals that introduced you to the world were almost necessary to games back then and I think they still can serve a purpose. Especially with certain tutorials being so braindead recently, just put that crap in the book. Don't need a tutorial? Great! Just skim through the book and get to the meaty lore bits.

Or I'm retarded. I am.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Manuals were always a technical limitation. Only time I read them was when I was a kid and coming home from buying it and had nothing else to do, or I got stuck and maybe the manual had info. Also, games that used them for dialogue due to memory limitations.

I've quit games because of intrusive, manual-like tutorials. Games shouldn't require your hand to be held to play them, they should be intuitive and possible to figure out through trial and error. Imagine giving someone a manual for watching a movie.
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Post by The_Mask »

At least they know this is cheesy, and if you groaned... don't worry, you're not the only one.

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Post by KnightoftheWind »

Invasive in-game tutorials was a natural result of catering to the lowest common denominator, as well as the increasing complexity of game mechanics. A game like Dragon's Dogma, although fun, isn't a very approachable game. There are menus within menus, complex button combinations, etc. It's no wonder it has nagging tutorials and pawns, but at least both can be turned off, unlike most games.

It's why I find myself enjoying shorter and more linear experiences, rather than open world ones.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

KnightoftheWind wrote: April 1st, 2023, 23:21
Invasive in-game tutorials was a natural result of catering to the lowest common denominator, as well as the increasing complexity of game mechanics. A game like Dragon's Dogma, although fun, isn't a very approachable game. There are menus within menus, complex button combinations, etc. It's no wonder it has nagging tutorials and pawns, but at least both can be turned off, unlike most games.
What do Souls-likes, Boomer shooters, and survival-crafting games all have in common? Think on it a bit before continuing.
► Show Spoiler
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

As an addendum, Hearts of Iron IV being the #36 most played game on Steam right now is amazing to me. 24 hour peak of nearly 54k players! Apparently the game is 7 years old. Wow!
You can say these games have tutorials, but I find them completely impenetrable and always skip them. I learned to play EU3 just by… playing the game. Checking all the menus, and failing. Failing a lot.

If you think your game needs more handholding, just remember a game that is essentially a bunch of layered spreadsheets with rudimentary graphics is one of the best-selling games on Steam.
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Post by NEG »

The_Mask wrote: April 1st, 2023, 22:29
At least they know this is cheesy, and if you groaned... don't worry, you're not the only one.

I see Larian's awful sense of humor finally got its grubby, childish hands on BG3. Sad.
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