Superb RPG?

[imitenotbecrazy]

I've seen some interesting discussion about the quality of this "RPG" since release and want to talk about some points.

 

The skill system is incredibly streamlined and ultimately generic. Group levelling skills until 50 has led to all of my characters feeling, acting, and succeeding the exact same way. I would have to intentionally decide on a "dump skill group" in order to come close to a real flawed character. I could not pass only TWO conversational skill checks due to them being a 100. It's just far too easy to have those skill points in just simply barely levelling them. 

 

The gear system is embarrassing for a 2019 RPG. You continually get thrown the same stuff over and over with little to no stat change/advantage or even a reason to choose new gear. GR Breakpoint had a more meaningful gear system, which is incredibly detailed and useful. It makes you want to explore and find new items, where OW just makes me want to sell everything. For weapons, the 'Tinker' mechanic eliminates most need for getting new weapons. You might want to move to the mkII version to save some cost in tinkering but overall, I don't even want to grab weapons other than to sell them. 

 

By and large, fetch quests dominate this games quest list. What it boils down to is "I want a thing, this person can get me this thing, but I need to get them this other thing first" It's incredibly boring and repetitive. I can't see how people demonize Bethesda for this yet are praising Obsidian

 

Choice and consequence (HAHA) is largely a farce. I've save scummed a bunch of situations only to find out they had the same outcome anyway. Maybe one line of dialogue was different and addressed my choice but it's largely meaningless. In fact, they've gone out of their way to make your choices seem less meaningful. I killed the named leaders of a faction and their whole base in my second playthrough, got a simple line of dialogue about it, then still ended up in the same fight with that faction (that I wiped out) with "Faction Leader" as a replacement for the named NPC that I killed. Absolutely disappointed in how meaningless the choices are here. 

 

Not necessarily indicative of an RPG but my god this is short. Just under 17 hours with a dozen side quests, a bunch of loot hunting, and general messing around the credits started rolling. It was almost over before I knew it. I was honestly shocked when I saw the point of no return message. Fallout 76 had a longer main quest than this. 

 

The dialogue is good, we knew that would be the case. I say good because it's not very compelling. It's funny and the variety of writing is good but nothing makes me really give a damn about them or the situation. This was the same as how I felt about New Vegas, so perhaps I should have expected the main quest to be lackluster to me. Side quests held my interest much more

 

This is all speaking on the "RPG" aspects of the game, which it should absolutely excel at. Basic gameplay mechanics, combat, visuals, enemy and NPC variation are complaints for another day

 

Why do any of you feel that this is a "superb RPG"??

[thearmourofGod]

this game is an actual rpg

mass effect, bioware and beth are not

period

 

[imitenotbecrazy]

1 minute ago, thearmourofGod said:

this game is an actual rpg

mass effect, bioware and beth are not

period

 

Wow, some quality points you have there. Quite the conversationalist

[Wormerine]

It's a pretty good mainstream action RPG. The best one I played since... Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect 2? I don't think it's as good as either of those games. It is less on rails then ME2 and has depth and some choices to make, but not as flashy. Has less depth and smaller scale then NV.

It's also made on a smaller budget then both of those games, I am pretty sure. It's a small scale, focused main stream RPG game, starting new IP, which development started while Obsidian was still an independent studio. For what it is and aiming to be, it's pretty good. 

It was never advertised or sold as harcore, sprawling, deep RPG. As a matter of fact, communication from Obsidian was often reminding that it is NOT Fallout New Vegas2, but a more humble production. If anything I am quite surprised how open individual areas are. I was expecting something closer to KOTOR. 

[uuuhhii]

the worst part of the game are weight limit and first person

why would obsidian choose nausea inducing first person are beyond reason

other than that maybe tinker item level and stealing are some what annoying

why would item still mark as steal after all the owner are dead

didn't fnv already handled that?

and if one wish to make a character bad at something

start with min max attribute are the most direct way

Edited October 30, 2019 by uuuhhii

[thelee]

6 hours ago, imitenotbecrazy said:

The skill system is incredibly streamlined and ultimately generic. Group levelling skills until 50 has led to all of my characters feeling, acting, and succeeding the exact same way. I would have to intentionally decide on a "dump skill group" in order to come close to a real flawed character. I could not pass only TWO conversational skill checks due to them being a 100. It's just far too easy to have those skill points in just simply barely levelling them. 

this is my main criticism of the mechanics.

I think they should lower the threshold for when you need to specialize, down to 40 at least. There's just too much of a margin for same-iness otherwise between different characters.

Edited October 30, 2019 by thelee

[ComradeYellow]

The plot and the setting are very suburb and I'm not sure what you're looking for in mechanics seeing as how I had a blast tinkering with the right combination of skills and attributes.

 

It's almost like you want a PnP RPG.

[imitenotbecrazy]

6 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

The plot and the setting are very suburb and I'm not sure what you're looking for in mechanics seeing as how I had a blast tinkering with the right combination of skills and attributes.

 

It's almost like you want a PnP RPG.

I liked the setting and the plot, although I do feel that the main quest itself is rushed and short, it was enjoyable. 

 

The skills however, just ended up feeling mostly the same as there was always something I wanted in one group, but didn't care about the other skills in that group. This leads to getting most of the groups to at least 50 before you can make a character feel unique. I just wanted individual skills to attribute points to. That in itself would have mostly remedied my complaints with skills. I'm sure this will be fixed with mods but as is, vanilla skill levelling is too streamlined and generic for me 

[Wormerine]

34 minutes ago, imitenotbecrazy said:

This leads to getting most of the groups to at least 50 before you can make a character feel unique. I just wanted individual skills to attribute points to. That in itself would have mostly remedied my complaints with skills.

Some skills are on comparable levels in few brackets, but some are quite apart. As skills in same categories are governed by different attributes, at least in my case some of them ended up quite apart forcing me to choose between upgrading one skill I really want, or boosting the less relevant ones. 
 

It’s possible that some categories aren’t as diversed as others - I didn’t analyse them in-depth. 
I like the perks which unlock every 20 points and overall enjoy how they did pickpocketing, and hacking/lockpicking. Economy is too forgiving though. A more controlled supply of lockpicks would be better, like in Deus Ex. Then again, lockpicking in Deus Ex is an alternative route, not “more loot” feature. 

[metalworks]

8 hours ago, imitenotbecrazy said:

The skill system is incredibly streamlined and ultimately generic. Group levelling skills until 50 has led to all of my characters feeling, acting, and succeeding the exact same way. I would have to intentionally decide on a "dump skill group" in order to come close to a real flawed character. I could not pass only TWO conversational skill checks due to them being a 100. It's just far too easy to have those skill points in just simply barely levelling them. 

In what difficulty did you play it?

[thearmourofGod]

lol @ non supernova crying

and then complaining

in ignorance

[imitenotbecrazy]

10 hours ago, metalworks said:

In what difficulty did you play it?

I played on Supernova and Hard

[imitenotbecrazy]

5 hours ago, thearmourofGod said:

lol @ non supernova crying

and then complaining

in ignorance

Ahh the child troll returns 

[PUBG2055]

I agree , the fetch quests are annoying . And there isn't really any consequences to our choices in this game which I found disappointing. Factions are relatively useless except for cheaper prices .