prodigydancer

Sure. Before D:OS I played Dishonored (which I somehow completely failed to notice until I read about it in Thief reviews). But in the context of this thread I meant specifically party-based CRPGs. Of the games you named, New Vegas is the closest match and it's a 4 years old game. Most fans of the genre have already played it repeatedly. So it's all relative. Give me something that amounts to BG2 greatness every year and I, too, will have high standards. Sadly, it's not the case so far.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

I said "most", not "all". It's pretty obvious that writing and loot aren't the game's strong suits. But you're just too picky. Sure, there are some shaping-up-to-be-great RPGs on the horizon but that wave is coming after a long low tide. SRR and SR:D were nice but short. And what else noticeable did we have recently?

@Erez Most of what you're ranting about applies to any video game. It's just the way they are and have always been. Was D:OS your first?

Yeah with their emphasis on co-op they could as well make it four. Indeed. Still, D:OS is a reasonably good game and is totally worth playing. With better writing and with a bit more inspired art design it could've been epic though.

Good point about formations.

Wow, I didn't realize that for so many people the only important thing about combat was XP gains. Now I wonder - why bother with playing the game at all if you share that point of view? If you don't care about the process, if you all you care about is XP, you can as well cut out the middle man. Use a cheat engine and watch the numbers fly!

So it's just a pure coincidence that those disappointing and controversial BioWare releases happened after the acquisition and when BW had spent some time under EA's umbrella?

We're discussing a game with no actual healing, remember? Dead people do no damage (and neither they do anything useful for that matter). People having naked backline characters has more to do with how the game currently punishes you for wearing any kind of armor. BTW, most low level robes in IE games were purely cosmetic too. Now if a ranged caster, for example, can neither be realistically effective while wearing medium or heavy armor nor realistically survive while wearing light or no armor, what's the point of sacrificing a party roster spot other than "you're supposed to have a wizard in your party if it's a fantasy game"? When the margin of error is too small, the option is no longer viable in practice no matter how sound it's in theory.

Out of context it's hard to tell how well this is going to work. Because it all depends on the implementation. For example, if they'll have dynamic aggro tables and aggro management skills, we'll have traditional MMO combat. Which isn't odd at all though I doubt it's what we want. If there'll be enemies that will ignore all aggro and simply go for the squishiest target then the question is how often we'll encounter those. If they're few and far between, crowd control and clever positioning (maybe with occasional kiting) should suffice. But if they're common enough the most efficient party composition may turn out pretty awkward: either six glass cannons betting on destroying everything really fast or six tanky characters winning fights through impenetrable defense and slow attrition. The latter possibility is particularly disturbing because it'll certainly kill all the fun.

There's a nice (but tragically underused) feature in D:OS that I really hope to see in other games: the ability to shape some spells more tactically than is normally allowed. Firefly, for example, allows you to draw your own "path of fire". And spells like Teleport that allow you choose target and destination. It's a pity that Larian didn't make more spells and abilities that require more than aim-and-click-once to use. Modern CRPGs need to use such sandbox elements much more boldly because they make combat fun and justify adding tougher enemies and more intelligent AI. What level are you now? I hate to rain on your parade but after Cyseal it's not nearly as great.

/double facepalm

Victory should be its own reward. And it is when the battle is challenging. On the other hand, XP awards don't make easy and boring fights any more interesting.

OK, but what can you say about increased radius being undesirable due to friendly fire? Logically speaking, higher stats should always be beneficial and not detrimental. INT in its current for is a mixed blessing at best. Possible solution: allow us to select the desired radius for each cast (within limits depending on INT score).

That's how you play RTwP.

PS:T is my absolute favoring game (not just CRPG) of all times. And I believe that combat system was as important as everything else. And it's very unfortunate that inXile made the wrong choice on the matter. But It's within their right to ruin their games as they see fit. Personally I won't touch TToN with a ten-foot pole but I'm just one guy so who cares, right?

No I don't though I'm sure inXile wants to spin it that way. I was there on PS:T forums back when the game was being developed so I know what I'm talking about. Black Isle obtained IE license when the engine wasn't even finished. And then they heavily modified it for PS:T until it was exactly what they wanted.

/sigh There's already a plethora of new turn-based games. Even TToN is going to be TB (which is very disappointing and completely against the spirt of P:ST).

Yeah. ME2 on Insanity with imported saves (i.e. you start with crappy weapons vs. max level enemies) was really ....... easy. /facepalm

5 reasons why I hate the notion of "degenerative gameplay": (Note: I'm going to abbreviate it to DGP. Yeah, I'm lazy.) 1) It's poorly defined. Actually it's not defined at all. You can take any gameplay aspect and call it DGP. And then - unless you're simply trolling - you need to explain what you're talking about. So why don't you skip vague buzzwords and go straight to business? 2) It's purely subjective. Just because you dislike something doesn't mean everyone does. Ever wondered why D:OS is so popular and so praised despite all its issues? Because it's diverse and because so many things are optional there. E.g. I don't care for crafting in general and I find it particularly tiresome in D:OS. Good news: I don't have to do it. But I know people who love crafting. More good news: they have an opportunity to experiment with potential ingredients to their heart's content. But personally I still don't care for crafting and I still feel it meaningless. So is extensive crafting DGP? Who will decide and based on what? 3) It doesn't help to identify the cause of the issue. Let's take for example "bad design" - another common inane phrase (which I shamefully admit to using). At least it puts the blame squarely on the product. Conversely, when we say something like "inflated expectations" we blame the target audience. We may as well be wrong in both cases but at least we've made ourselves clear. Gameplay is partially a byproduct of design and partially just personal preferences - this is especially true for complex games like CRPGs where players generally have a lot to do and problems can be solved in various ways. So something is wrong, but what and where? Slapping a DPG label won't help us find out. 4) The wording is extremely unfortunate because it's derogatory and insulting. It sounds childish and silly. If someone called my way of playing a game DGP I'd be inclined to click ignore instead of reply. And that's a temptation I tend to give in to. In any case you can hardly hope to get a polite and insightful response. Do we really need to incite and encourage flame wars? I think they happen often enough on their own. 5) It's simply overused which makes it all the more annoying. Seriously, aren't you tired of typing "degenerative gameplay"? At least "bad design" is short. Learn from the old skool, guys. --- TL;DR: just let it die.

Don't you see what's wrong with this statement?

I wonder why. I don't care for TES games all that much but it's only logical to make the next step and remove XP from the equation completely.

Depends on how much mandatory combat we'll see in the final game. With no XP for kills... if, say, 90% of encounters are skippable, then pumping combat stats may be precisely what "doing it wrong" means.

So maybe it's not that bad then?

The complete absence of voice acting in SRR was regrettable but tolerable because NPCs had nicely written dialogs that were fun to read. Voices could add more depth but at least we got well-painted portraits. D:OS on the other hand is an example of how voice acting can make things worse. When the quality of writing is bad enough, you don't even want to read the dialogue text let alone listen to characters actually talking. And voiced looping NPC chatter is one of the most annoying features of D:OS. I had to mute sound every time I was shopping in Cyseal because it was really driving me crazy.