Why are modern RPGs designed to be played on autopilot?

More like modern games in general. It's very rare to come across a game that expects you to think for yourself.

>>385396993
autopilot suxs. Except its in a flight sim then its feature.

>>385396993
Games in general have treated the player like a complete retard since 2007 or so.

>>385397157
>>385397850
If there was a big-budget AAA game that didn't cater to retards, would it be a financial success?

>>385397989
No, 95% of the audience would get to the first level, be told they can't go upstairs, and then wander around the foyer for 2 hours before leaving a bad review and taking the game back to the store.

>>385396993
Require less effort to create (No need to set up environmental clues/ navigation points or multiple solutions) and test (That a good player can follow along the quest) but the lowest common denominator that is commonly aimed at has no concept of quality to measure this design against so it's still generally accepted.

>>385398092
I still can't believe that this is actually true. Fucking Dishonored.

Is Gothic II any good?

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While the former is superior. The problem with the is that 90% of game writing isnt good enough to back up such a complex system.

In the majority of games I play, I dont' give an angstrom of a fuck about whats going on and if that much effort was required I'd go play a game I actually gave a shit about. In takes a lot to get me in to a role in an RPG if I can't make my character. And most "RPGS" nowadays just tell you that you care about things and what you are instead of letting you create your own story.

>>385398502
>any good?
its non ironically the best rpg.

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>>385396993
>But at this point in the game you stand no chance against an Orc, so if you try to kill it to get its weapon you will get raped

>>385397989
>>385398092
Not an RPG, and I do admit that I'm a Nintenbro, but BOTW doesn't tell you anything. Map markers are either marked by yourself or "unlocked" after you're done with whatever you there (collectible, shrine, etc.).

I hope more developers will follow, seeing that they all hail it as the second coming of christ.

>>385399112
Because shrines are completely unnecessary aside from for getting the master sword. All of the major things are waypointed to all fuck, the only actual part where they don't tell you anything is how to get to fire mountain, which I honestly see as a detriment, because it expects everyone to either go through the obnoxious cooking system designed by a demented manchild, or stumble upon the stable that sells the potion.

>>385398263
>>385398092
>Fucking Dishonored.
Please be joking. I didn't play Dishonoured at launch.

it's not like people enjoy the witcher 3 for the gameplay

>>385399107
good ole aoe2

>>385396993
All the casual features can be turned off in the Witcher. You fucktard.

>>385397989
The Souls series exists

>>385399897
During the Lady Boyle masquerade mission you get told that a large area is off-limits and a lot of playtesters would obey the guard that told them that so they had to add some more pushing hints to go to the second floor I think. Just search Dishonored playtesters and it should turn up.

>>385400097
Is the game designed around the handholding features or is there sufficient information in the world to deduce shit without them?

>>385400241
Even that started catering to retards more in the later installations.

>>385400241
the souls series is challenging, sure, but in a dodge and counterattack muscle memory way. once you get good at it, you don't really have to think about what you're doing, it just becomes a game of dodging extremely called-out attacks repetitively.

>>385400429
>Is the game designed around the handholding features or is there sufficient information in the world to deduce shit without them?
ignore this retarded poster.
witcher 3 was designed completely around the quest markers.its like taking a health regen cover shooter and giving you an option to turn the health regen off but without giving you any medpacks.

>Eagle vision
>Batman vision
>Witcher vision
>Thiaf vision
>Aug vision
>Mordor vision
>etc etc

Ubisoft deserves to burn for popularizing this garbage.

>>385400679
You are a fucktard. Turn off the witcher senses and you will find the missions are incredibly detailed. Most missions have vastly different outcomes depending on your organisation, what information you gather, dialog you choose and evidence you collect.

>>385401075
Crysis 1 did it first though, if someone's to blame, it's "PC game of century"

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>>385397157
To add to this, you guys need to realize what the culture of the current video game industry is. These companies have been saying for the pass twenty years

>let's make our games more accesible
>let's broaden our audience
>let's make our games art
>let's make it this or that

And here we at the precipe of what is considered the least passionate time of this industry. It's not even just about challenge. Take FF7 for instance. You have people who will absolutely say it's a terrible game because they cannot connect with any of the characters. They do not understand that FF7 was made for an entirely different core of gamers, gamers who don't even play the games of today because they are so mediocre.

>>385400463
The difference is that in the souls series, you had to master that skillset. You also had to learn through progression and death how to encounter each fight. You got better at it because you were learning, and once you beat the boss, you felt a great sense of reward. Failure is an underrated mechanic these days because companies want everyone to feel good all the time so they continue to rate the game high and continue to pay for the DLC and microtransactions that they are providing.

>>385399763
>Because shrines are completely unnecessary aside from for getting the master sword
so are side-quests in other games

>All of the major things are waypointed to all fuck
what do you mean? as in "natural paths" (like that road to zora city)? I'd agree if you meant that, but I feel like that had to be done because otherwise most players wouldn't know where to go to make progress.
For example, I coincidentally found that fisher village like 60+ hours into the game because it's not mentioned anywhere else in the game. It'd be really hard to make the whole game like that, but I agree the sense of discovery would have been even stronger.

>>385401928
>so are side-quests in other games

This is a funny statement to hear in concern of Botw's shrines. So you agree then that the entire game is just filled with sidequests?

>>385401992
you could say the same thing about the first two Fallout games, which are pretty phenomenal RPGs.

>>385401992
did I ever say anything else?

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>>385396993
How big is Gothic 2's playable compared to TW2?
Because to me it looks like the former is absolutely tiny compared to the latter, not even a contest.

Which makes "eventually find the cave, and inside a dead orc" a massive ordeal without at least some form of direction.

>>385402105
Of course. But that's the thing here. If we bring up the Fallout games, which one's main quest was more flushed out then? Assume a person ignores all the shrines in botw and follows the main question. In comparison to the first two FO games, how complete is the main question of Botw?

I have my own answer to that question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baJBYEKf60Y

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Why hyped got Divinity OS2? The literal dozens of ways to escape Fort Joy gives me hope for its potential.

>>385402265
>question

I need to fucking check my posts before submitting more

>>385402265
i wasn't that guy, i've never played botw, it just seemed like you were arguing that side quests are meaningless fluff

>>385402327
Sidequests are only bad when the game is built around them. Because they are no longer quests. Just busy work.

>>385396993
What makes quests good is fun. Having to go through unnecessary hoops and hurdles to finish a quest is the opposite of fun.

If you ever end up wondering what you are supposed to do or where to go then it's by design not a good quest. Players giving up is not an indication of your shit being good, it's an indication of it being bad, so bad that it makes people not want to play it.

>>385401992
What's wrong with that
The game uses a different structure than most games, since you can just run straight to ganon after starting the game, with sidequests helping to weaken ganon and powering up Link
And that's pretty cool

>>385402448
Fuck off retard, stay out of our genre.

>>385396993
You're comparing a cars salesman to a sandwich seller, two totally different markets.

The first RPG in that image is for people who like puzzles, thinking and exploration to find the answers to problems. You could basically just call them Puzzle RPGs.

The second RPG is for people who prefer a story thats given to them by the developer, linear pathways and action. They basically fall into that ARPG category we already have.

I prefer PRPG too, but the think these are the same types of genre for the same consume is silly. The second one is more popular, which makes it more profitable, which is why developers do that instead of the first one.

>>385402524
you make it sound like it's one or the other. lots of good RPGs are good because they found the balance between the two.

>>385402464
What's wrong with it is that it's no longer an adventure game. It's a game where you literally choose when you want to end it. The difference between botw and speedrunning a game that has different levels of progression is that botw is not a game. It's a children's playhouse. The problem, of course, is that Nintendo didn't take the time or effort to flesh out a living interesting world to dwell in. In Fallout as that one anon had spoke of, they made sure to fill a lot of content and allow the player a great amount of freedom in how they approached the game. The dialogues were detailed, the weapon and item system was rich. It was a level of detail that was necessary if you want to give the player a full world to explore and immerse themselves in.

The only content that took that role in botw were literally shrines and korok seeds. They are the quintessential substitute for detail. Instead of finding a cove of remote mutants, or finding some ruins that once belonged to a bunker that now had a rich set of goods to loot, instead of a town where the player can socialize or do what they want to shape it, you instead got a physics puzzle.

Botw is just a kid version of this idea, but a very casual build of it.

>>385402480
"your" "genre" died years ago when professionals whose job is to actually create and playtest these games came to the same conclusion, convoluted design just for the sake of padding the game and frustrating the player is not beneficial in any way to the average player.

If you want to challenge yourself go read a book.

>>385402674
But what's good to you isn't going to be good to others. The whole idea of the video game business has been to find what makes the most money. And unfortunately, a lot of genres have died because of that very reason. They were niche genres only a more picky audience bought. They also criticized you more. You can argue that developers got tired of dealing with unreliable consumers and went after the ones who were easier to appease, but this also just makes devs out to be unpassionate people, considering the video game industry runs on creativity first, and business second.

>>385402746
nice bait

>>385402674
>you make it sound like it's one or the other.
Because it almost always is. You cant reveal how to play the quests (Skyrim, Witcher) and be a puzzle RPG at the same time like Gothic or DivOS.

The exceptions to this rule are rare, and usually its just a few quests within a game that falls within one category predominately. Like Oblivion which is just like Skyrim/Witcher in handing you how to play, but rarely has a quest like Whodunit? which is a puzzle quest where you have freedom to choose how to finish it.

>>385396993
That sort of open ended gameplay reminds me of another game I literally cannot remember right now. It had an optional quest that starts when you eavesdrop on a couple of guys talking about some special item somewhere near two rivers. I know that's stupidely vague, but does anyone remember?

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>>385402746
It actually died when those professionals got told by the people actually in charge (corporate) to squeeze maximum profit out of a game by having a broad userbase

>>385402910
Arcanum and the quest for that siamese-twin skeleton? There's so many ways to start that quest, I wouldn't be suprised if you can do it by eavedroping.

>>385402691
why is botw not an adventure game? It gives the player the option to go and do whatever they want. Obviously that design choice has its downsides but that doesn't make it less of an adventure. As I said before, it's not an RPG, it's a gameplay-focused action/adventure game so it's obviously not going for the same thing as Fallout or Gothic, which are story-driven.
>In Fallout as that one anon had spoke of, they made sure to fill a lot of content and allow the player a great amount of freedom in how they approached the game.
this is exactly what botw does as well, albeit in another, more mechanics-driven way.

>>385401570
>If it's a multiplat it's the dev's fault
>If it's a pc exclusive it's pc gaming's fault

>>385403516
>How is BotW not a fighting game? You fight all the time :)
Genre names are not to be taken literally. In vidya, adventure refers to games like Myst or Monkey island and their derivarives.

>>385403516
You say mechanics driven way, and yet you fail to realize something. When at any point does said mechanics progress into actual main story usage? How does messing with puzzles in shrines contribute to the game experience of learning a skill to progress myself?

Your answer is going to be through the treasure chest that give weapons and the spirit orbs. Which then you have to ask, what is this all leading up to?

To finish the game. Which only is done by defeating one boss. So you're essentially gathering all these hearts, all these weapons, and all these armor just to fight one boss.

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>>385402248
If you actually mean Witcher 2 it's way bigger, a similar 3 zone structure but with probably double the amount of content in each. Of course it's not the size of 3 though.

I love both Gothic and The Witcher but after playing Gothic you can see how much of the RPG genre has been lost over time.

>>385402910
Breath of the Wild has a side quest that's literally that.

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Breath of the Wild was pretty good about quests. Main objectives are on the map to give you some direction, but side quests only show the NPC that gave them to you. You have to pay attention to what they say to find out where to go, or use the existing knowledge you've built up about where to find materials.

Sometimes you might not even realize you're doing a side quest. The game makes you investigate anything that looks interesting via the korok seeds. Sometimes you might find something unexpected, and only find out later an NPC was hoping someone would do that thing.

>>385403634
I'd like to hear a reason why it can't or shouldn't be called an adventure game, because that honestly confuses me.

>>385403654
you always play to finish the game though. all side-quests give you loot and experience points and whatnot so you can fight the next big thing. Sure, RPGs do give the occasional option to play it in a "non-lethal" way and have the bonus of rewarding the player with short stories even in side-quests, I'm not denying that. But Botw isn't an RPG, it's not going for story, it instead gives the player different options to interact with the world.

>>385397989
not quite AAA, but GGG, the people behind Path of Exile have kept their hardcore ARPG philosophy for years now, and have made millions from sticking to it.

>>385404258
>it instead gives the player different options to interact with the world.
Then the game isn't a game anymore. It's just a sandbox that people pick up, play for a bit, then turn off and play it again when they ready to turn their brain off for another set of hours. That's the problem with that game, and is also the confusion that people are having when it comes to botw's current high praise.

To me, botw is not a zelda game. I've grew up on zelda games from the nes to now. Botw is zelda only by name. A zelda game needs more than what is offered in Botw. It also needs less. A zelda game needs to be balanced with linearity to its braodness. It needs progression to help tell the story of Link gaining power to prepare to defeat the great evil. It needs characters to engage in constantly to give a framework to the world and make Link give a damn about saving it. Botw was not made to be a zelda game. It was made to be a toy. A literal toy.

>>385403634
>Myst
I'd call that a puzzle game

>>385404439
>A zelda game needs to be balanced with linearity to its braodness.
I 100% agree with you there, it is indeed filled with "filler"-material and could've used more dungeons or similiar things.
I think categorizing Botw is hard because while it is, as you say, a sandbox open-world game, it also offers optional story content. Sure, some might say they didn't like it (I really liked the Gerudo and Zora bits, the others not so) but it still does offer it and there definitely is an imbalance between story and "world-freedom". And why shouldn't it be called a game, just cause it focuses more on interactivity in gameplay rather than story?

also holy shit, we really got off the path about discussing map markers/quest design

>>385404439
>Then the game isn't a game anymore.
Your definition of games is unique and shit
> It was made to be a toy. A literal toy.
Yes anon, it's a video gamed aimed at being entertaining, of course it's a toy what the fuck

>>385404992
plotfags are the reason for the downfall of videogaming i swear to god.

>>385404974
The reason the zora, the first part of the game, and slightly the gerudo quests felt better is because that's how zelda games normally go. You get someone telling you they need something done, you're given a space to do said stuff in. The zora one is very very interesting because all the rain acted as a literal way of keeping the player from just climbing their way to the goal. It was a smart decision on Nintendo's part and I believe the game definitely needed more of this. It's fine to give the player a large field to play in. Just make sure to give something to do in said field, which is the problem people had with TP.

>>385404992
If I wanted a toy, I would go buy a toy. Instead, I bought a video game. I expect to have more in it than just running around a field and doing shrines all day. Especially from a zelda game.

It's because we have over saturation of games right now, in 2002 you had 5 games to choose from, you picked three and had them for over a year, so you could spend your time exploring and immersing yourself into the world.

Now, people buy dozens of games a year, and the good press is more than necessary for gamedevs, so you need to make game that way it won't bore or discourage players.

Also, the world in W3 is way bigger than Khorinis, so they had to put some sort of gps and quest markers. Although I agree what they did in W3 is too much

>>385405153
I agree with your first point, had fun discussing this with you (surprisingly without any insults)

Have a nice day, anon. I'm off to get wagecucked.

>>385405153
>If I wanted a toy, I would go buy a toy. Instead, I bought a video game
Video games are inherently toys
Dwarf Fortress is a toy, even leaning as hard to the simulator side as it does
Only pure, actual simulators are not games aka toys, and even that is debatable at the end

>>385405281
You're close to the point, but you also missed it. The reason it's actually the opposite. The first reason is because games are more streamlined and fed to you than ever before. Games don't come out as often as they use to. Let's get one thing straight, and this has been true since the beginning of the game industry. The games made by the top companies will always be the public image of the industry. Bar none. As such, because they're the only ones who survived post 2006, they're the ones that control the content. They control the hype. It has led to an interesting problem where everyone thinks they have to play every game and every game has to appeal to them. And if it doesn't, it sucks and it's not allowed in the "club." This is where the industry is at the moment.

>>385405436
DF has content. Botw did not. Botw is a very poor sandbox game. It would be a better game if it had more things in its world. Like I said earlier if Nintendo had put in the effort to fill the world up more and work on their subsystems better, the game could have been better. In fact, I already have a vision of what a true open world zelda would be, but it wouldn't be possible by Nintendo since they are too much leaning on business these days rather than making a quality game that will be remembered.

>>385396993
Is Gothic II good? It sounds interesting based on that image.

>>385405546
it has some of the most retarded controls and character handling in gaming history, also they use common everyday american accents in dialogue, the world design is cool though.

>>385397989
Blood Money was a hit with the casuals, but that was '06

>>385405454
So you are saying that we players feel the need to check&complete all the 'big' games there are, and that's why devs are making it easier to do so?

>>385405774
>american accents
Why aren't you playing with the German dub?

>>385406276
I'm saying you have to or you're not politically correct called a gamer. Not in the sense of sjw stuff, but that you're not considered a gamer at all unless you play these hit games. Now who benefits from that kind of mentality on consumers? It's marketing basic.

>why arent you playing the big hit game? You want to be cool right?

>>385402287
Are they still going with that shit "Save the world, but actually haha we're so funny here's a quest giver called bumbelbezexy and you can talk to animals and everything is a joke, but Chosen one, the fabric of the universe is coming loose and everything will be destroyed soo grim, but lel so randum XD" kindda style?

I know I sound like I'm having a seizure but that's what the game felt like as well.

What the fuck happened to tonal consistency, man? Div:OS would have been a 9/10 if it picked a style and went with it. Now it's a horrible overdrawn mess that just takes forever and is essentially just a "awaiting enemy turn" simulator where all you do is watch the spoopy skeleton move across the battlefield and then slip on some oil.

Also, fuck Goblins. I slaughtered those cunts as soon as they showed up. Then I reloaded, and killed them again.

>>385406587

For a second there I thought you were talking about Kingdoms of Amalur.

>>385406587
DOS2 feels a lot more serious. Besides some jovial drunks nothing really felt lel so fanny.

>>385402448
I think not knowing where to go is frustrating as fuck. Like sometimes quests will just have shit descriptions, or NPCs will be move around, and then you'll read that quest log and map and go: "I'm fucking here goddammit" and then you just start going randomly and realize that when the quest said go north, they actually meant go 2 steps northeast and overshot the place and fuck it.... I'm having runescape PTSDs right now, which btw is the best questing system ever created.

>>385406731

Play Mount and Blade and try to do the quests sometime, you will think that everything else is easier

>No, the king is on the other side of the map
>Where the fucks the marshal, Who's the marshal?
>Where's the king? He's partying right now and won't let your paesent ass in to talk about taxes
>Please pass a message to random lord#2345. You can find him in the desert
>The King is now sieging a city halfway across the world.
>Collect taxes from this town being pillaged.
>Oh the king's holding another feast
>"random lord#2345 was defeated in glorious (10:1) combat and was captured!"
>CATTLE HERDING TIME
>Yeah you just missed the king, he's in the desert now
>quest failed

The ultimate redpill is realizing Witcher 3 is just another Ubisoft AAA but with better marketing and shills.

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>>385398502
You doubt the greatest rpg ever made?

>>385406574
It only applies to bro-gaming circles, well to be honest I can't say for sure, because I talk about games on the Internet mostly, and when there is a topic on AAA, I just don't participate.

From the past decade I've never tried any AC, GTA, COD, FF, any Marvel/DC/movie related, the only game I played was Witcher 3, because I'm long time fan of books.

The /v/ has this mentality too, when AAA games fail to deliver, like ME:A, or some Ubigame, it's again the end of gaming, while you just have to check the second page on Steam and play to your heart content for 1/3 the price and double quality.

>>385400429
>>385398092
I haven't watched the playtests but even 15 years ago if a guard told me not to go somewhere and I wasn't given a quest that explicitly wanted me to go there then I generally wouldn't unless I was screwing around, like when I'm on a rampage.

>>385396993
I don't give a shit, this meme image is retarded, I play wRPGs for the writing and Witcher 3 offers the best dialogue I've read since Torment
never played for the roleplay, never will

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>>385396993
>Why are modern western RPGs designed to be played on autopilot?

ftfy

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>>385407428
Fuck off, Dieter.

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>>385398502

>>385408895
>women
FUCKING SJW ALGORITHM REEEEEEEE
what site?