Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Tanner Glass]

You just described your cookie-cutter sandbox game, Bethesda and Rockstar have been making those since the late 90s.

Yeah but not really. Bethesda and Rockstar games are much more restrictive. RDR2 and GTA5 are super on-rails with minimal player choice outside of "be kind of nice" and "be kind of a dick".

Bethesda does a bit better but still has super locked in quest lines, essential/unkillable NPCs, and so on. The closest they got to freedom in the genre was New Vegas (which was Obsidian anyhow) which is why it's still fondly remembered despite being kind of ass.

BG3 is just 5e: The Video Game. Pretty much any RPG with a party and spell lists, even a simple one like Dragon Quest, will be too complicated to handle in real time (inb4 "BG 1 & 2," because those games are unplayable if you don't pause frequently).

Dragon Quest has 0 emphasis on movement or positioning. It is very much a basic turn based game.

Final Fantasy games played with RPG commands in real time with the Active Time Battle system(s) in the various games and worked well enough.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

I'm not even talking about consoles. Arcades, specifically, before consoles became the standard, mostly had real-time action games that chewed up entire wallets' full of coins for kids.

Gosh. No shit arcade games were mostly real time. They're designed around short games that need to be fed quarters to keep playing, and are largely meant to be easy to pick up, with a "learn everything you need to know to play the game in 30 seconds, even if you spend 10 years mastering it" type game design.

Although I do hear (and see, from mame rom sets) that things like mahjong are popular in Japan, and there are video poker games and the like, but those are a minority.

That doesn't mean that there's no weird stares or people getting weirded out that they go up against people old enough to be their parents.

Or its adults playing adults.

Well, players did ask for more player choice in their games, and romance is one option, where players wish they can bang every party member they have, so no shit, the market shifts demand to what the players want. Players want to ship their MC with any main companion character in their party. That is the result.

No, it's poor design and writing. Other games manage player-sexual love interests without going from "Hi, we just met" to "I'm finding myself strangely attracted to you" in two side quest's time like BG3. Dragon Age did it just fine, for example.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

Bethesda does a bit better but still has super locked in quest lines, essential/unkillable NPCs, and so on. The closest they got to freedom in the genre was New Vegas (which was Obsidian anyhow) which is why it's still fondly remembered despite being kind of ass.

To be fair, You can nuke the Railroad at pretty much anytime in Fallout 4, even before you get the chip decoded.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Gosh. No shit arcade games were mostly real time. They're designed around short games that need to be fed quarters to keep playing, and are largely meant to be easy to pick up, with a "learn everything you need to know to play the game in 30 seconds, even if you spend 10 years mastering it" type game design.

Yes, and those arcades were that popular that when consoles came along, there were ports for arcade games.

Or its adults playing adults.

Best case scenario. Worst case scenario, you're the only adult in a room full of kids aged 8-14, and they all look at you weird.

No, it's poor design and writing. Other games manage player-sexual love interests without going from "Hi, we just met" to "I'm finding myself strangely attracted to you" in two side quest's time like BG3. Dragon Age did it just fine, for example.

Well of course, it's poor design and writing. But it's what the people want. They want to be able to fuck their entire party. Many people who play RPGs ARE that kind of people. So of course, BG3 gives that to them.

Just because something is wanted by the people, doesn't mean it's automatically the height of artistic writing. Sometimes people enjoy cheap smut. A huge chunk of the entertainment industry lives off of that.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Yes, and those arcades were that popular that when consoles came along, there were ports for arcade games.

... okay, and? There were also ports of turn-based strategy games to consoles, once consoles got the technical capability o handle them. Wasn't a lot you could do with a 2600 or Intellivision, though.

Best case scenario. Worst case scenario, you're the only adult in a room full of kids aged 8-14, and they all look at you weird.

I'm telling you what I see when I go to the game store.

Well of course, it's poor design and writing. But it's what the people want. They want to be able to fuck their entire party. Many people who play RPGs ARE that kind of people. So of course, BG3 gives that to them.

Again: Playersexual NPCs have been done much better. The problem isn't that you can fuck them, it's that they damned near try to rape you in your sleep they're so eager to fuck you.

Larian games never really did romance, before. I guess we know why. They suck at it even more than most game companies.

Just because something is wanted by the people, doesn't mean it's automatically the height of artistic writing. Sometimes people enjoy cheap smut. A huge chunk of the entertainment industry lives off of that.

Odin's floppy man-tits, the irony here.

 

[The Ugly One]

Dragon Quest has 0 emphasis on movement or positioning. It is very much a basic turn based game.

CCGs don't have movement and positioning, either. You don't need a battle map to have more complexity than a player can handle in real time. You could make DW work as a real-time game with a bigger controller, but by the SNES area, there are way too many actors and actions for real time to be viable.

Final Fantasy games played with RPG commands in real time with the Active Time Battle system(s) in the various games and worked well enough.

ATB isn't real time. It's more like turn-based with a timer to make sure you don't take all day to choose your action.

I never hear about BG1 or 2. Nobody ever, ever talks about them anywhere, even in passing. You hear way more about Dark Alliance actually. BG3 would probably have been met with the same fate.

Baldur's Gate is a popular PC game from a quarter century ago. Dark Alliance is a console game from the 00s. All that really says is nobody you interact with was a PC gamer in the 90s.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

That sounds like a "you" issue.

BG 1+2 won multiple awards, inspired numerous spinoff games, were basically single-handedly credited with reviving a flagging RPG market at the time, and have gotten rereleases with updated engines on Steam, GOG, Android and iOS.

Sounds like an everybody else issue, because they're not talking about it much. Its awards it won over 20 years ago don't change that. You could probably do a search here in this forum and see how many pre-BG3 announcement topics or posts were made about BG1&2.

You'd probably get more instances of Pong mentioned tbh.

I mean, at the end of the day it's like 25 years old, of course it's not gonna be "all the buzz" or anything, but the name carries a built-in market, and you're a fool if you don't think it does. So does the "Dungeons and Dragons" name, too.

Right, nobody talks about Zelda because it's like 40 years old. Nobody talks about Final Fantasy because it's 40 years old. Oh wait...

Dungeons & Dragons itself comes up often enough, but when it's about video games it seems to be Dark Alliance or even those Capcom arcade games that get talked about.

Just face it, the game got pushed harder for being woke smut. You can admit this.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

... okay, and? There were also ports of turn-based strategy games to consoles, once consoles got the technical capability o handle them. Wasn't a lot you could do with a 2600 or Intellivision, though.

Yet the number of action-games far outstripped them. Especially when the 80s and 90s marked a shit ton of space shooter games and adventure games.

I'm telling you what I see when I go to the game store.

Same. I've seen kids react weird to an adult trying to play Pokemon cards with them.

Again: Playersexual NPCs have been done much better. The problem isn't that you can fuck them, it's that they damned near try to rape you in your sleep they're so eager to fuck you.

Larian games never really did romance, before. I guess we know why. They suck at it even more than most game companies.

Of course that's the case. Previous games have handled sexuality with more nuance before, like Mass Effect, it's just that fans complain that they can't fuck every party member, so Larian games just decided to make everyone fuckable.

Odin's floppy man-tits, the irony here.

Cheap smut is basically a huge chunk of the entertainment industry today. I'm not surprised at all that BG3 wanted a slice of that action.

I mean, how many times in YT do you come across a video with anime titties slapped on the thumbnail? A lot. Why? Because that shit gets clicks. So the algorithm puts such videos up-front.

Just face it, the game got pushed harder for being woke smut. You can admit this.

Some people don't want to admit it, even though it's rather obvious that's the case.

 

[The Ugly One]

Yet the number of action-games far outstripped them. Especially when the 80s and 90s marked a shit ton of space shooter games and adventure games.

Yes, action games are more popular than turn-based games. That doesn't mean action is a linear technological advance over taking turns, any more than it means battle royale games are a linear advance over 6v6 multiplayer team deathmatch.

 

[Grimdark Reaper]

Wasn't the whole "companions get absurdly easily attracted to the player" thing in BG3 actually a bug that, to my knowledge, has since been fixed? You guys are having an awful lot of arguing over a thing that's not exactly true anymore.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Yes, action games are more popular than turn-based games. That doesn't mean action is a linear technological advance over taking turns, any more than it means battle royale games are a linear advance over 6v6 multiplayer team deathmatch.

Depends on the player and what they want to play at that time. A person who enjoys a turn-based game now might decide they want a realtime action game later on, or vice versa. Just as you can have a kid who wants to play chess at one time, and gym sports in another time.

 

[Scarthew]

First off all roguelikes are turn based, of which there's been a massive resurgence caves of qud, cogmind, tales of majeyal, stone soup, etc. Turn based jrpgs never went anywhere and now there's been a lot of big budget titles, xenoblade, SMT, persona, atelier, dragon quest and even yakuza now are all turn based and that's ignoring the hundreads of more anime franchises that turn most people off, in fact final fantasy which has seen a massive decline in popularity is the only one that switched. X-COM and tactics games like it sold like crazy till they made a bad one. One of the biggest trends in indie of the last 5 or so years has been the deckbuilder roguelite, Inscryption, slay the spire, darkest dungeon. And TCG are still massive hearthstone and its clones (not artifact though), along with MAGIC YuGiOh and Pokemon have only grown in the modern era with digital ways to play them and thus ways to play without absurd investment and the need to meet stinky people in person to play them. Pokemon is still nintendo's 2nd most profitable franchise behind only mario and clones of it are all over the indie space with games like cassette beasts and TemTem seeing success. Then you also have stuff like civilization which is popular even when its shitting out terrible sequels and other grand strategy or even city builder stuff. Then you also have the real time with pause stuff which definitely appeals more to turn based fans than shooter fans, stuff like oxygen not included or FTL.

Turn based games are a multi-million dollar industry all on their own so its absurd to downplay them just because you don't play them. The idea they're archaic is just as stupid as saying any old game is "outdated" and they're far from being niche when they're some of the best selling games of all time even today.

 

[The Ugly One]

Depends on the player and what they want to play at that time. A person who enjoys a turn-based game now might decide they want a realtime action game later on, or vice versa. Just as you can have a kid who wants to play chess at one time, and gym sports in another time.

A "technological advance" has nothing to do with what you feel like playing at the moment. An 8-core 3.5 GHz 64-bit CPU is an advance over a single-core 400 MHz 32-bit CPU. Basketball is not an advance over chess. You've been trying to argue that real-time games are more technologically advanced than turn-based games, and the only reason turn-based games ever existed was the processing power to do complicated games in real-time didn't exist at the time. That simply isn't true. Turn-based games neither predate real-time games, nor have they gone away in the roughly 50 years since the commercial video game interest came to life with the first Pong cabinet.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

A "technological advance" has nothing to do with what you feel like playing at the moment. An 8-core 3.5 GHz 64-bit CPU is an advance over a single-core 400 MHz 32-bit CPU. Basketball is not an advance over chess. You've been trying to argue that real-time games are more technologically advanced than turn-based games,

That's for video games. And the reason why many early RPGs were turn-based was because they couldn't simulate real-time combat, which is why later RPGs toyed with the concept later on.

and the only reason turn-based games ever existed was the processing power to do complicated games in real-time didn't exist at the time. That simply isn't true. Turn-based games neither predate real-time games, nor have they gone away in the roughly 50 years since the commercial video game interest came to life with the first Pong cabinet.

Turn-based games are still a staple, because there will always be people who prefer that, but the same could be said for real-time action games. That still doesn't remove the fact that some RPGs turned more towards action rather than turn based as time went on.

 

[Scarthew]

And the reason why many early RPGs were turn-based was because they couldn't simulate real-time combat, which is why later RPGs toyed with the concept later on.

This has never been true at any point in time. Turn based rpgs are just translations of table-top games, they were never the first rpgs either. Your understanding of the history of computer games is just wrong. Turn based games just have many benefits over real time games when it comes to decision making so they focus on making the most multifaceted decisions possible instead of just relying on reflexes, Chess is one of the oldest designed games in existence and its still one of the most popular for a reason. When an rpg becomes real time it usually just devolves into DPS and any sense of strategy goes away.

 

[Super Dilator Duel 3D]

Some of the best games ever made are simple puzzle titles like Dr. Mario, Bejeweled and Tetris, especially the sequels which take the original gameplay and put new spins on it. Anyone can get into them due to the simplicity but they never stop being enjoyable for players who invest the time to get good at them. I think this genre of game is underappreciated in modern times and we need more games that follow the same formula.

 

[Scarthew]

Some of the best games ever made are simple puzzle titles like Dr. Mario, Bejeweled and Tetris, especially the sequels which take the original gameplay and put new spins on it. Anyone can get into them due to the simplicity but they never stop being enjoyable for players who invest the time to get good at them. I think this genre of game is underappreciated in modern times and we need more games that follow the same formula.

Nothing ever filled the void popcap left after EA canibalized them.

 

[Super Dilator Duel 3D]

Nothing ever filled the void popcap left after EA canibalized them.

Agreed. Most of the post-EA Popcap games are good ideas and lots of potential hidden behind a thick fog of horrific monetization schemes and completely retarded design choice that ruin everything else (see the entirety of the Plants Vs. Zombies franchise after the first game)

What EA’s done to Popcap should get them tried for desecration of a corpse.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Ah, there's a one unpopular opinion i have:
Final Fantasy 6 is the peak of the franchise. FF7 is just a downgraded FF6 (even Sephiroth is just Kefka but without the clown part, just the insanity part).

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Wasn't the whole "companions get absurdly easily attracted to the player" thing in BG3 actually a bug that, to my knowledge, has since been fixed? You guys are having an awful lot of arguing over a thing that's not exactly true anymore.

It was true as of my most recent playthrough this morning.

I picked up Gale, did one mini-dungeon, went to the Druid grove, talked to Korga, saved the kid from the harpies and he did his first "I've grown so close to you" speech. Elapsed game time MAYBE an hour, generously, and game-progression wise maybe 10% of the first act of a three act game.