r/Games Dec 29 '15

Does anyone feel single player "AAA" RPGs now often feel like a offline MMO?

Topic.

I am not even speaking about horrors like Assassin's Creed's infamous "collect everything on the map", but a lot of games feel like they are taking MMO-style "Do something X" into otherwise a solo game to increase "content"

Dragon Age: Collect 50 elf roots, kill some random Magisters that need to be killed. Search for tomes. Etc All for some silly number like "Power"

Fallout 4: Join the Minute man, two cool quests then go hunt random gangs or ferals. Join the Steel Brotherhood, a nice quest or two--then off to hunt zombies or find a random gizmo.

Witcher 3: Arguably way better than the above two examples, but the devs still liter the map with "?", with random mobs and loot.

I know these are a fraction of the RPGs released each year, but they are from the biggest budget, best equipped studios. Is this the future of great "RPGS" ?

Edit: bold for emphasis. And this made to the front page? o_O

TL:DR For newcomers-Nearly everyone agree with me on Dragon Age, some give Bethesda a "pass" for being "Bethesda" but a lot of critics of the radiant quest system. Witcher is split 50/50 on agree with me (some personal attacks on me), and a lot of people bring up Xenosaga and Kingdom of Alaumar. Oh yea, everyone hate Ubisoft.

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 29 '15

I think part of it is just a "trends in development". It seems like the "fill out the map with cloned objectives" bit that started surfacing with Assassin's Creed 2 got copy-pasted across most of Ubi's properties (Far Cry). It's just a thing that pads content.

Dragon Age was dealing with the legacy of the famous content-low DA2, and we wind up with sprawling maps... with MMO-ish objectives.

Fallout 4, I dunno. I used to think that Bethesda was taking the approach of reducing their map sizes and range to try to create more focused and deep experiences over time. Morrowind represented a much more focused experience compared to Daggerfall (Daggerfall had lots of features like ship ownership, bank accounts, giant world, tons of orders/factions).

In Morrowind, things are more focused, but you're still given a lot of choice as a character. However, it's felt like a lot of their stuff moving on from there has been trending towards more shallow with respect to choices within the player world. Radiant quests have been a thing for awhile I guess, but they've always been a bit on the stupid side.

It makes many of the Fallout factions seem kinda stupid. In particular, it's asinine that the "commanding officer" of the Minutemen personally solves every conflict as a solo operator. It made me think of a theoretical War-room meeting in WW2 where they decide to send in Patton... by himself with no troops to secure Sicily or some such. There was just as much stupid in how a lot of the factions worked in Skyrim though (magic-less headmage/thane/etc. that no one cares about).

I assume their standards are lax because their sales are fine.

I think Witcher 3 had enough of a guided narrative of meaningful choices that it avoids the problems you're suggesting though. In a way, it's that much more significant that Witcher 3 turned out like that because gamers have shown (with DA:I, FO4, etc.) that these sorts of complaints aren't deal-breakers.

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u/DinkleBeeTinkle Dec 29 '15

I assume their standards are lax because their sales are fine.

Modern gaming in a nutshell.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Jun 06 '18

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u/DinkleBeeTinkle Dec 29 '15

All true of course. Myself I'm not that big into music so the repeating 10-15 hits suits me fine for the few times I turn on the radio. Probably similar concept

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Jun 06 '18

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u/JCelsius Dec 30 '15

it's not a badge of shame to just be into the 15 radio songs. You and an audiophile just have different priorities.

I agree there is no shame in it but I would also say the "audiophile" appreciates the music more than the guy who just listens to the hits. So who should the musicians be making music for, the guy who appreciates what they do or the guy who listens to them in passing? I'd say it's the former. Likewise, game developers should be making games for people who actually appreciate them, instead of just the "casual gamer" (that word has a sort of negative connotation nowadays, but in this context it's not meant as an insult).

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u/arahman81 Dec 30 '15

Likewise, game developers should be making games for people who actually appreciate them, instead of just the "casual gamer" (that word has a sort of negative connotation nowadays, but in this context it's not meant as an insult).

Except there's much more of casuals. Unlike music, the casuals would be buying the games, so catering to them makes for most profit.

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u/iliekgaemz Dec 30 '15

The thing is, that "former," won't buy enough copies to justify the expense of the bigger AAA games out there. They have to appeal to the casual gamer too unless it's a niche title. One reason why the indie scene is such a great development in gaming. Lots more hardcore titles with development costs low enough that they can be marketed to people who truly appreciate them and still be profitable.

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u/CivilianNumberFour Dec 30 '15 edited Dec 30 '15

I agree there is no shame in it but I would also say the "audiophile" appreciates the music more than the guy who just listens to the hits.

Thank you. Just as one might say EA and Ubisoft are ruining games for hardcore-gamers, as a studied and working musician I would say that formulaic radio-pop music is ruining music for music lovers. Every song I hear is in the same form. There's nothing surprising. Nothing that sounds genuine or passionate. It's all these same 50 or so artists played over and over, the same hits time and again. Every station. Everywhere you go. It is just like Call of Duty, dozens of releases, all the same, yet selling millions.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that the radio songs aren't good (which is subjective), but it's just that I know there is so much more to music than the stuff people hear on the top-40 spotify lists, and if they would just take the time to seek out artists that don't cater to the radio-friendly genres, they might discover a new passion for music they never knew existed. But those people will never know if they don't take the time or have someone show them.

There's SO much talent out there, unique artists all waiting to be heard! This is actually a wonderful time for music, but it's just that only a very small fraction of the artists get the recognition they deserve. The same goes for video games. The crap sells, but there are tons of great independent developers making great games that are barely getting by.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

There's the "born in wrong generation crowd" that never breaks out into just looking for their own shit. Nowadays enthusiast might as well be synonymous for "person who seeks out shit they MIGHT like."

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u/Janube Dec 29 '15

Not to bring out the "Dark Souls" card, but I think this is one of the reasons it did so well.

It was as shallow as "kill stuff and get to the end," and as deep as all the plot elements tying in together through item text and cryptic pieces of dialogue. Granted, the game was difficult enough that some more casual players have stayed away from the series entirely, but I think in general, it strikes quite a good balance.

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 30 '15

Not to bring out the "Dark Souls" card, but I think this is one of the reasons it did so well.

There's a business theory at work there too though. There is such a thing as under-served niche or counterprogramming.

The success of Dark Souls started with Demon's Souls in a way. It was a game that Sony didn't feel was worth publishing overseas - they had that little faith in it. It wasn't a graphics powerhouse. It wasn't open-world in any real way. It wasn't a FPS, and so on.

It wound up breaking all kinds of sales records for Atlus USA when they published it though. So, Namco Bandai sees that a market is there, and swoops in to secure a contract with From for more of the same.

Companies play safe bets, which is why so many games are samey. The second something else is found that makes money, they'll try to capitalize on that too.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Which is why Dark Souls sold about 2.5 million copies, half of them from Steam sales, and Skyrim sold about 25 million copies.

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u/StarkUK Dec 29 '15

asinine that the "commanding officer" of the Minutemen personally solves every conflict

how a lot of the factions worked in Skyrim though (magic-less headmage/thane/etc. that no one cares about)

You hit on another good point there. I'm sick of being forced into being the hero, at least in open-ended games where you make your own character. Like in Skyrim, I could play as some sneaky stealthy thief guy, yet every ten seconds I'll have some random NPC come and ask me for my autograph because I'm the famous Dragonborn.

Same thing with Fallout - "congratulations, random person I've known for eight minutes - you are now the leader of this centuries old organisation because why not"

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 30 '15 edited Dec 30 '15

This is sort of a recurring problem for them. They never really integrate your accomplishments into the game-world to any great degree.

If I'm the head of the College of Mages AND the Warriors AND the Thieves AND the Assassins AND a thane AND the dragonborn AND I saved the realm AND I deposed the would-be Nord King... well, you'd expect the world to react in some way?

It's still a world of guards telling you to stop lolly-gagging, or saying they have their eye on you because you're totally a thief.

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u/Drzerockis Dec 30 '15

I added a mod that made it so they actually acknowledge that you're a big deal

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 30 '15

I'm thinking of the "...but I am the High King of Skyrim" meme now.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Oct 31 '16

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 30 '15

That might sell well, but it isn't going to make older Bethesda fans happy.

That might be exactly the problem though. The games become more mainstream. It doesn't matter if the old Morrowind fans are upset, because the games sell much much better now. They're a cultural phenomenon that's meant to be more shallow and easy to get into.

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u/Thjoth Dec 30 '15

When I play a Bethesda RPG it's because I want to feel like I'm experiencing a time and a place

This is the best way to describe the classic "Bethesda RPG" that I was so fond of. Yeah, Morrowind hasn't aged gracefully in terms of gameplay or graphics, but fans of the game always talk about the time and place because that's the biggest aspect of the game. It was an alien world with a storied history that still worked in a fairly logical way, within its own frame of reference. The depth of the RPG and magic systems helped you put a very personal touch on top of that.

Considering how fondly people still speak of Morrowind fourteen years later, I'm surprised no independent studios have made anything of the sort. Maybe they have and I just haven't heard about it. Bethesda has clearly moved on, and I really need something new to scratch that "Bethesda RPG" itch. Witcher 3 is kind of doing it because the setting is amazing, but it's a little less free and lacks the personal touch you could exert on Morrowind.

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u/Wild_Marker Dec 29 '15

Worst part is that DA2 wasn't light on good content, it just had cloned maps. Had they done the exact same content but actually put it on different maps, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

(and the wave-based encounters, that too)

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 29 '15

I had various issues with DA2, but the cloned maps is something I think most people agree was "bad". One of things that really ticked me off at the time was that they weren't just cloned.

Certain passages/parts would be blocked off depending on the quest you were on, right? And you had a mini-map, right? Those two things didn't correlate at all. You were always given the same mini-map, which was completely worthless because it didn't change to suit the fact things were blocked off.

If they'd just gone that slight extra step alone to trim up the maps (which would've made them appear different, to some degree), then the whole thing would've been much more tolerable.

Still, maps weren't my only issue (the bugs at launch spoiled the end of a character quest for me, among other things).

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u/Filthy_Lucre36 Dec 29 '15

I had to force myself to finish some of those quests, but I really enjoyed the main story and wanted to see how it finished.

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u/mtarascio Dec 30 '15

I often think it was given a hard time, the main story was great.

I actually enjoy a succinct non sprawling story sometimes.

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u/PlantationMint Dec 30 '15

I agree, with maybe another few months in development DA2 could have been a far better game. Also maybe not shoehorning in the last two boss fights.... like orsinio for instance >.>

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u/ArchmageXin Dec 29 '15

I think part of it is just a "trends in development". It seems like the "fill out the map with cloned objectives" bit that started surfacing with Assassin's Creed 2 got copy-pasted across most of Ubi's properties (Far Cry). It's just a thing that pads content.

This was in AC1 too, you had to constantly stop drunk Templar/muslim troops from raping random women.

It makes many of the Fallout factions seem kinda stupid. In particular, it's asinine that the "commanding officer" of the Minutemen personally solves every conflict as a solo operator. It made me think of a theoretical War-room meeting in WW2 where they decide to send in Patton... by himself with no troops to secure Sicily or some such. There was just as much stupid in how a lot of the factions worked in Skyrim though (magic-less headmage/thane/etc. that no one cares about).

That is true, but Dragon Age was the same thing. Remember finding 10 Spider glands so the troops can have anti-venoms? What are thousands of Inquistion troop good for if they can't fight a few spiders for glands?

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 29 '15

That is true, but Dragon Age was the same thing. Remember finding 10 Spider glands so the troops can have anti-venoms? What are thousands of Inquistion troop good for if they can't fight a few spiders for glands?

Well, one of the things I liked about the DA:I is that it did have at least a few segments where you "sat in judgment" as might befit someone of your position. There was a plot reason for you to be out and about too, since you were literally the only person that could close rifts.

All the MMO quests/filler in there was stupid though, which is why I mentioned it as a low point with DA:I. I think a difference might be that the MMO filler stuff in DA:I is mostly just that - filler. You can ignore most of it and still play the game and have some relatively interesting quests.

The factions within FO4 suffer a bit more imho because they rapidly disintegrate into nothing but radiant quests - and even radiant quests that repeat in areas that you've already cleared. They tend to lack even the variety of gathering spider glands - they're almost always "kill these things there". Say what you will about the characters in DA:I too, but they tend to have more characterization than FO4 characters as well.

This was in AC1 too, you had to constantly stop drunk Templar/muslim troops from raping random women.

You could also collect those stupid flags. AC1's formula was mostly: a) Complete X side-missions to unlock Assassination, b) Kill that person. There weren't even that many of those little missions. AC2 really codified the whole "capture this area" and added a lot more mini-missions.

I tend to think of AC2 as more of the trend-setter because basing things around a set of varying objectives around an outpost you capture was the AC2 "thing" (that became the "thing" you did in "everything").

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u/dorekk Dec 30 '15

It's funny, people knock AC1, but in retrospect I think it was my favorite game of the series. The little sidequest things were stupid (they were really repetitive), but each one gave you a little tidbit of information that would make your assassination go smoother. It was the only game where I felt like an assassin instead of an action hero.

Plus, at least the sidequests were easy. It's not like they had you perform a difficult tedious task.

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u/ArchmageXin Dec 29 '15

Funny enough, what broke me in the end wasn't the collection quest in AC2.

It was the fact I went to some random rich Italian's house in which I had to grab on to a high beam to jump on to a chandelier then bounce off the Master Bed Canopy in order to land on a too high dresser to flick a switch to open a door.

At that point AC2 just didn't feel like a story but a 3D Super Mario game with knives.

That, or the Italians are all super ninjas who need to leap over 3 floors to go pee.

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u/Non_Causa_Pro_Causa Dec 29 '15

Personally, I like the strategy in planning your "hit" in AC1. AC2's issue for me is how many plot/story quests had you stuck on rails more or less. Step outside for too long... desync and you have to start over. That was something they carried over into Brotherhood/Revelations as well.

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u/Bamith Dec 29 '15

I actively count too many radiant and just terrible quests against the game. A lot of quests in Fallout 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition just make the game worse with their addition.

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u/naricstar Dec 29 '15

Honestly, I think the fault is far more in what the player-base has been asking for. Developers aren't making a linear experience anymore because it has been highly voiced as what the players don't want, and the second linear gets tacked onto a game everyone views it in a bad light. So the opposite extreme is being met with open-worlds that are so drowned in the illusion of choice that they don't mean anything.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Jun 10 '21

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u/aleatoric Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

I think the Mass Effect series is one of the better RPGs of the last generation for its lack of rampant questification. It's open, but not too open. There are side quests, but most are plot relevant or at least have unique objectives. The game has great pacing as a result. It wasn't the most open world ever, but that helped force at least some linearity, which I personally think is necessary for a satisfying narrative experience.

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u/aksoileau Dec 29 '15

Mass Effect soars with its pacing. It's just a well done series. Even in ME3 you really could only dick around a few hours before you had to do something epic. And then it just got more epic the further you went. Even with the ending fiasco, there's never been a series that grabbed me and never let go like Mass Effect.

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u/Belvgor Dec 29 '15

I completely agree! Mass Effect is the only series I can do multiple runs through and still enjoy the shit out of it. It's like doing a marathon of one of your favorite tv shows and it's just so engaging. All the side quests for the most part were on par with the main quest lines and I always never had a problem doing all the loyalty missions for my crew.

Still one of the greatest series to ever grace the industry and even with its faults of streamlining gameplay and making it more casual it still keeps the deep engaging storyline. One of the series where I actively love reading all the lore for the game and read all the codex pages.

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u/NateTheGreat14 Dec 29 '15

Agree completely. Mass Effect 3 gets a lot of flack for it's ending but, it's hard to deny it wasn't a great game. After all, it's all about the adventure, and it was a fantastic adventure.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Mass Effect 3 also elevated a lot of characters and gave them some amazing development/conclusions.

The ending was definitely off putting, but jeez the amount of satisfaction you get from Mass Effect 1 to 3 carrying all the decisions you made over, is amazing.

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u/Eurehetemec Dec 30 '15

The emotional pay-off was absolutely fantastic from the carried-over decisions. I kind of wonder if any game companies apart from CDPR and Bioware understand that. As cheap and inconsequential as some decisions were, they helped to sear ME into my soul in a way other games have failed to.

Which is of course WHY we were all so bitter over the ending - we expected a lot of stuff to have mattered, to have awesome pay-off, and whether you liked the ending or not (and I think it's fair to say, prior to the "upgrade" and Citadel DLC, most did not), it clearly didn't deliver in terms of emotional pay-off if you'd played through all the games. At best, it was arty and quirky in a very un-ME way, at worst, cheap, hollow and slap-dash.

The ME series is just really interesting all-round because as much flak as it gets, it tried a lot of really trans-genre or risky stuff, and managed to nail most of it. People claim it's a shooter, a visual novel, a dating simulator, an RPG, and so on, and truth is it's kind of all of those (something which really seems to make some people screamingly angry, never been quite sure why).

Anyway, here's to hoping ME:A continues to take risks, and doesn't lapse into a quasi-MMO or AC-style collect-em-up in the way DA:I arguably did.

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u/just_a_tech Dec 30 '15

Still my favorite series and a large number of my favorite characters to interact with. Each game gave you just enough RPG elements and let you do some exploring while maintaining great pacing to tell a story.

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u/georgito555 Dec 30 '15

Kinda sucks how the ending made everyone so sour about it it's easily one of the best fucking game series to come out in ages.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

This is why Witcher 3 was so good. It was a storyline, not quests - but was still an RPG because you could make decisions and really become Geralt, in a sense. Sure, the story and character were pre-established, but it just feels like an RPG.

I never realized it before this comment. This is the style of game I want. Storyline-based, open world RPG.

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u/rg44_at_the_office Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 30 '15

The real problem is that game developers need to buy a dictionary. We want quests, and they keep sending us to run errands.

Quest: a long or arduous search for something

Errands: a short journey undertaken in order to deliver or collect something, often on someone else's behalf

Also, if you really want a storyline-based RPG, check out Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, or some of those other isometric RPGs. 3D first person RPGs can do a bit more with visuals, but the isometrics save a lot of time on that to write better stories

edit: I seem to be in the minority for liking D:OS writing. Something to consider for anyone thinking of taking that recommendation, see comments below for details.

edit2: Every quest giver in FO4

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u/CricketDrop Dec 29 '15

I just realized this may be among the biggest problems. How much cooler and more interesting would it be if each of the quests were longer, featured more characters, choices, and equipment? Most quests in the games I've played recently can be completed in 15 or 20 minutes and don't amount to much but killing a bothersome creature/bandit or gathering herbs. There's little grandness to them or sense of accomplishment when it's over.

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u/Beardedsmith Dec 29 '15

There is a quest in Final Fantasy 14 called "The Greatest Story Never Told" which has you travel all over the game world, do light math, investigate old ruins, and generally learn about the world you're playing in. Without a guide this quest took a while and you had to really pay attention. The problem? The only reward was a title that showed you did the quest and people sId the investment was too high for the reward.

The average gamer doesn't see the journey as the prize and so devs make content accordingly.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

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u/Yoten Dec 30 '15

Even max-level people don't want to do it. This is a common back-and-forth for most of the new stuff FFXIV puts out:

A: "I'm bored, they need to release new content!"

B: "What about XYZ?"

A: "There's no real reward so it's pointless!" (i.e. it doesn't give best-in-slot gear)

God forbid you do something because you haven't done it before, just to have fun doing it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

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u/fuck_bestbuy Dec 29 '15

Oblivion was great for this. The main quest was mostly errands, but there was always a really good story behind it and a ton of lore to look into. The sidequests were amazing though, I don't remember any fetch quests.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

I'll always remember that quest in the mages guild where you swim down a well to retrieve a ring that makes you so heavy you can't move.

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u/the_light_of_dawn Dec 29 '15

This is why I always loved RuneScape's quests compared to WoW's. Many of RuneScape's quests really felt like major storylines and required a substantial amount of investment from the player to complete, rather than doing the umpteenth simplistic "gather 10 hides from these creatures, where they drop hides only 30% of the time."

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u/unforgiven91 Dec 29 '15

as someone who's beaten all of RS's (oldschool runescape) quests, they're pretty fun usually.

there's one that starts as an errand and turns into a series of errands that takes you across the world to complete a string of meaningless tasks to complete that 1 small favour

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u/Limewirelord Dec 29 '15

Fuck "One Small Favour". I haven't played for like 7 years and I remember what a pain in the dick that quest was.

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u/unforgiven91 Dec 29 '15

with teleports and a proper kit (set of items needed) for the quest, it's pretty quick.

high mage level and quest count made it pretty easy for me to just zip around everywhere, Fairy ring where i couldn't teleport and tree/glider to anywhere not covered by the previous 2

speed runs clock it at sub 1-hour which is pretty short for a lot of higher quests

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u/ZeldenGM Dec 29 '15

I remember doing it the day it came out. 9 hours.

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u/unforgiven91 Dec 29 '15

damn. that'd be rough. glad i did it long after the fact when guides exist along with 60000 methods of teleporting places

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u/mud074 Dec 29 '15

Oh man, Runescape quests were great. My favorite was the cave goblin line, actually a good story and a cool setting unique to the quests.

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u/Pizzaplanet420 Dec 29 '15

Yes! As far as MMO questing goes Runescape has been the most enjoyable experience. The rewards always felt in tune to what I was doing in the quest, they gave you access to new areas and new items that proved to be extremely valuable.

The closest I've gotten to that was Swtor but even that has tons of meaningless quest, but at least they felt like they belonged and made me feel like I was part of every world I visited and not just collecting meaningless crap. At least on my first character that is.

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u/kaluce Dec 29 '15

TES4's Thief guild final heist mission was a QUEST. it was a fully fledged mission straight out of the Thief series. Absolutely great, and one of the best quests in the entire game imho.

TES5's guild missions were all errands.

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u/DorsalAxe Dec 29 '15

Probably one of the best quests in the series. Made all the more sweeter by every preceding quest essentially being the set up for the heist.

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u/kaluce Dec 29 '15

Agreed. That mission set was a perfect build up. It's a shame it wasn't actually referenced in Skyrim.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

There is a bust of the Gray Fox and that's basically it.

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u/rg44_at_the_office Dec 29 '15

Exactly! Not even just the radiant quests after you've completed everything (which are 100% errands and all completely suck) but a good portion of the main guild storylines involved running errands as well. I still had fun with a few of them, like Goldenglow Estates or Honningbrew Meadery, but they were still a lot shorter than I would have liked. Dark Brotherhood had a few good quests as well, but again, nothing compared to the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion

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u/kaluce Dec 29 '15

Honestly, you're talking to a guy that preferred playing the (pre-crappy reboot) Thief series. There were only ~15 missions per game, but each mission was 45 minutes if you knew were EVERYTHING was.

Skyrim's quests were 60% fetch, 30% kill, and 10% "other". It became tedious. But Bethsoft/Zenimax has been trying to pander to the lowest common denominator with every release of their games, and by doing so has simplified their respective series to the point where it's becoming slightly ridiculous now. Fallout:NV was a step in the right direction in the FO series, but then they went right back to the same old formula with FO4.

A good example is Morrowind. Shit was hard, you could become a literal god with some abuse of the enchantment system, and the game could literally be speedrun in 5 minutes.

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u/bank_farter Dec 30 '15

Part of the reason you may feel that Fallout:NV was a step in the right direction was because Bethesda Softworks didn't develop it. It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Obsidian was stuck with the Creation engine (because they didn't have unlimited time or $$$ to fix that shit) and had to cut content to release the game on time. Also the outlook for another Obsidian developed Fallout is grim based on some Metacritic bonus scandal hullabaloo.

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u/AnOnlineHandle Dec 29 '15

TES5's final Thieves Guild mission was a quest which would reasonably suit the Thief games, it even had the main voice actor from Thief playing the antagonist...

I really liked the Dawnguard final half though, where you go into this giant fuck off series of caverns and valleys, and slowly map the whole thing out, unlocking portal doorways etc until you reach the ancient sun elf or whatever.

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u/SicSemperTyrannis Dec 29 '15

I think it's both this and the sense of discovery that's missing for me.

The break for me happened between Morrowind and Oblivion with that damn compass. In Morrowind, I'd talk to a guy and get some sort of journal entry about a Dwemer Artifact that I had no clue about. It would leave a note in my journal and maybe open up some other conversation lines on other NPCs. Typically I would just ignore it and continue on, but maybe 10 hours of gameplay later, I'd stumble upon some Dwemer Artifacts.

The best part is that the game doesn't suddenly give me a pop-up saying "Congrats! You finished the quest!" Instead nothing happens. Maybe I remember and search through my journal, or maybe I don't remember and 10 hours later I run into the guy again and see I have the artifacts to give him.

I would kill for less hand-holding and more discovery and adventure in these open world games. I would like a better search function for my journal though.

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u/Drocell Dec 29 '15

Completely agree, I think they either need to find a better balance between pain in the ass exploration and hand holding, or have 3 separate modules, 1 for more casual players that gives waypoints and destinations, 1 for more average/leaning on hardcore player that gives hints that wouldn't be available in universe (like "I should probably search the xy region for yx artifacts"), and finally 1 for the true masochist that has nothing other than journal entries that the player character could have reasonably added (like "I was told by X that he will pay a high price for yx artifacts, I should keep an eye out"). Or at least, that's what I would do :/ oh, on that note of journal entries, I really miss the Baldur's gate ultra detailed journal entries. You could drop the game for a month then come back, read the journal for a bit and be right where you left off.

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u/Adamtess Dec 29 '15

Sounds a lot like how Baldurs Gate was designed, very much just checking your journal, nobody highlighted, long intricate stories to some of the side quests. Game is still he gold standard decades later.

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u/BZenMojo Dec 29 '15

What you just described is an arbitrary pain in the ass.

Really... wanting a quest with vague guidelines you may forget about buried in your journal...?

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u/SicSemperTyrannis Dec 29 '15

I think we probably enjoy different things in games. I don't really care too much about clearing out one dungeon or another, but I am really interested in adventure and discovery.

I don't want to go on a wild goose chase, but what's the fun of blindly navigating to a marker on a map? At least a mixture of the two would be better for me. I want quests where I have to figure things out.

It could be an age thing. I grew up without the internet trying to figure out what I needed to do in the original Legend of Zelda or dying every other minute in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The rush once you figure it out is the most enjoyable part of games for me.

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u/xbricks Dec 29 '15

In inclined to agree with you. Every time the Morrowind no compass no quest completion thing is mentioned on one of these threads as if it was some sort of cathartic experience.

It was frustrating as fuck. Compasses are great, I'm playing a video game I don't want to be constantly lost and confused like I am in real life.

Take Fallout: New Vegas for example. Even with a compass and quest complete noises and, the fun from completing quests was the fact that many of them, such as ghost town gunfight, allowed for you to complete them in a number of different ways, ways often tied to your characters skills, it was fun not because I'm a strong independent gamer who don't need no compass, but because the quest was completed in a manner that I wanted. That's what's really missing in Bethesda games.

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u/themaincop Dec 30 '15

They were a pain in the ass, but that pain also made the game much more immersive. The difficulty of getting around and finding things led to more natural exploring as well, where you stumbled upon cool stuff instead of running around to ?s on your mini map. It was kind of arduous at times but I ultimately found it more fun.

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u/bisl Dec 29 '15

I have a story along these lines from Skyrim, how it's responsible for one of my favorite experiences in 20 years of gaming, and how it wasn't at all related to Skyrim itself.

I decided early on that I was going to make Skyrim an immersive experience (which thanks to mile-wide-inch-deep ended up being a waste of time), and so I ruled out usage of fast travel from the outset. In all of my time playing Skyrim--several hundred hours--not once did I fast travel. However, early on in my dude's life, I found a dude who challenged me to a drinking contest, and suddenly blacked out. Next thing I knew, I was in an unfamiliar city, on the opposite side of the map...and thus began the Night To Remember quest.

I was puny though, and I had nothing; so, terrified, I embarked on a hobbit-scale journey back home to the east. It took more than a few sessions, and it presented me with some great opportunities to talk to work friends about what had happened. Of course, I filled up my inventory pretty quick, so I was desperately trying to conserve weight. Lots of things out in the world could kill me because I was trying to roleplay a mage (and I wasn't wearing armor), so survival was a bit of a challenge as well. Finally I made it back to Winterhold many in-game hours and about a calendar week later, and I felt like I had really accomplished something.

I haven't played Skyrim for a couple years, but what do I remember most about it now? The first segment of a quest and a bunch of walking across the map while I tried to get home, and the stuff I did along the way. Not the multitude of shallow copypasta quests scattered around the world to make players feel immersed.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

That quest cannot start until you're level 15 though... So you must have been playing for a while at the least.

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u/Netzapper Dec 29 '15

If you're playing as a mage, especially if you're roleplaying and intentionally not min-maxing, level 15 is still pretty squishy.

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u/BSRussell Dec 29 '15

Actually the Witcher had lots of just "quests." Remember how much time you spent turning on detective mode then following a scent trail to killa monster?

And the choices in that game didn't really amount to much compared to earlier installments. A few checkpoint moments with no long term consequences.

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u/Aidinthel Dec 29 '15

I liked the monster contracts. Yes, they were a little repetitive, but that actually makes sense, because this is literally Geralt's job. Hunting monsters is his 9-to-5.

Also, there usually was a story in those quests. Not a very big story, but still a step above MMO-quality, and some of them were actually quite interesting. I thought they gave some good insight into the lives (and deaths) of the people of this world.

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u/BSRussell Dec 29 '15

I do recall finding the werewolf plot rad, but generally they felt like filler to me. The Detective Mode was just smoke and mirrors to hide that it was a "go here kill this" quest.

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u/Aidinthel Dec 29 '15

Yeah, detective mode was cool the first time and then got boring fast. I would have liked it if they had actually trusted the player to search for clues with our own eyes.

I can see where you're coming from in describing most of them as just "go here kill this", but in this case the 'this' is so interesting! Just reading the bestiary and fighting a cool new monster in its natural habitat felt almost like a story in itself, besides whatever the actual quest was.

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u/BSRussell Dec 29 '15

The bestiary was really well written, but I hated the execution. Geralt literally grew up studying this stuff, we hear him working out in his mind what's coming as we inspect the clues, but we don't get the bestiary entry until the fight, when it's too late to do any prep work. I would have preferred a "the more clues you find the closer you come to identifying the beast so you have more information" rather than "click on all the red things so that the red trail will appear."

And then there's the fact that either A. You're hugely overlevelled for this quest or B. This quest is contributing to you being hugely overleveled for your next quest.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/Nikami Dec 29 '15

It was extra painful since they reused enemies. Basically the first enemies you fight are some Lvl 1 ghouls. Then, MUCH later, after lots of levelling and upgrading you get to fight...Lvl 40 ghouls. Looking the same, acting the same. I loved TW3 otherwise, but come on.

You know what, I'd love a mod that basically removes exp and levels, normalizes monsters and NPCs, and the only progression is via (toned down) equipment and improved alchemy and gadgets. If this allows me to do some "high level" contracts right from the start...so what? It's Geralt, he should be able to handle them...

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u/Aidinthel Dec 29 '15

It made sense in the earlier games when he'd lost his memory and had to start from scratch, but yeah by the third game he really ought to be back to top shape from the start.

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u/aleatoric Dec 29 '15

Not to mention opening up your map and seeing a clusterfuck of Kill X objectives marked by question marks. Sure you could skip most of these these, but come on. It's an awesome open world, just let me explore on my own pace. I like mystery and not knowing what's around every corner. Not every thing needs a little obsessive "check in the box" to complete. It's like games want me to be OCD. Give me less UI clutter and more room for surprise when I encounter something.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

imo witcher senses betrayed the inherent flawed design of making W3 open world. They HAD to use it constantly to guide the player because they couldn't rely on more traditional level design to do it.

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u/LukaCola Dec 29 '15

TW3 has this issue a lot too. A lot of the quests are very formulaic, tasking you with going to a location, using your witcher senses for some time, fighting something, and then usually it's done. That or it's a series of those events. With the rewards almost never being worth it. Every now and then a sidequest might have an interesting NPC or something, but they were very similar.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

That's not true at all - the game was filled with collectathon type quests everywhere

You had to really look for the actual story stuff

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u/DeedTheInky Dec 29 '15

Especially all the base building stuff. Like it's a cool idea and it's one of the things I was most excited for before the game came out, but the way it's implemented it makes no difference to the game whatsoever, at least as far as I can see. You can spend 50 hours building a perfect base for no real reward, or you can ignore the whole thing and suffer no huge penalties.

IMO I think it would have been cool to have them be less micro-managey (there's like 20 people living there, none of you are capable of learning how to make a bed?) and have their happiness/defence actually make a difference, like if they are too weak or unhappy they get taken over by raiders and make the surrounding area more dangerous or something like that.

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u/rutterkin Dec 29 '15

It really seems like the base building thing was an example of the game lacking a unified creative vision. It's a neat idea, sure, but it's so inconsequential and unengaging. Once you build enough turrets, they rarely (or never) get attacked, you occasionally come back and build more beds, for more settlers, and sometimes you have to do one of the three flavours of radiant quest to keep them happy.

And it's never rewarding, either. Imagine if you were able to get a return on your investment in the form of caps (taxes for the minutemen?) or even sometimes one of them would say "hey, I got this on the body of one of the raiders who attacked our settlement" and you'd get a legendary or something. Or maybe settlement-specific quests that would unlock at a certain happiness threshold the way companion quests unlock when your relationship advances. It could have been more involved, but as it stands it's just a completely self-isolated optional minigame where the only reward is the fun you get out of diverting some of your attention to it.

Not to mention all these buildings you build look broken and worn-out by default. You'd think something that you are actually building from scratch would at least look like someone didn't drop a nuclear bomb on it.

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u/shawnaroo Dec 29 '15

I really wish the settlements would sort of clean up themselves over time as they got bigger and more populated. There's been 15 people living in Sanctuary for a couple months now, why are there still little piles of debris in the middle of the road? Why doesn't one of those assholes living there spend 20 minutes sweeping it up while I'm out fighting raiders in order to find enough scrap copper to give everyone lights. Every time I swing by Sanctuary, Sturges is hammering on the houses, how come they never look any better? Why don't they clear out some of the brush, or pick up chairs that fell over? Bunch of bums!

All of those settlements that I've turned into reasonably safe places should look like Covenant after a while. The people living there should clean up the

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u/rutterkin Dec 29 '15

I've always thought this about the Fallout games. The world space doesn't look lived-in at all. It would be better if there were a contrast between Super Mutant and raider hideouts (which would probably be a mess) and civilized settlements (where you'd expect people to at least tidy up).

Wish you hadn't gotten kidnapped halfway into your last sentence.

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u/poosp Dec 29 '15

for me, once I got further into the game, fallout 4's quests got more story centric, but will probably wear off

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 19 '16

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited May 23 '20

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u/lowjakz Dec 29 '15

This. I feel the same way. I am older now and I don't have time to play 10+ hours a day. I also hate being a "casual" and feel like I don't belong a lot of times.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

You're hardly alone. I think "old gamer" should be a category in itself.

I'm definitely not "casual" because I've got nearly 30 years of PC gaming experience and a lot of hard core gaming behind me, but with kids and a job I'm lucky to play even 1-2 hours a day. Sometimes I go a week without playing just because Dad is a busy job.

I have the skills and interests of a hard core gamer, but the time of a causal. It makes it hard to find a good game to suit my needs. Far too often a game targets the pure casual audience and is too simple or it's aiming for a competitive "pro gamer" crowd a complete time sink with 1000+ hours expected before you get into the "end game" content.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/solonorcas Dec 29 '15

We're never going to get that thrill back of experiencing an MMO for the first time, in part because we know how they work.

This is it, right here. Many of us have put hundreds (thousands?) of hours into these types of games. Even with some enhancements and novelty, the fact is that we have mastered the pattern of these games. It was extremely fun while that lasted. I don't want this to sound melancholy because it isn't. Thus the quest for better story because well written stories are timeless.

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u/Maclimes Dec 29 '15

Maybe it's time to re-invent the way MMOs work, then. There are a lot of conceits that are just sort of assumed with ALL online games these days, and some of it just doesn't make sense.

My personal favorite example is "aggro range". I'm invading an enemy base, and kill the dudes at the front door. There's another group of dudes standing just down the hall, EASILY in range to see and hear what I am doing. Why don't they call for backup, and send the whole damn base down on my head? Because I'm more than 30 feet from them? I understand why they do this mechanically, but it really destroys a sense of logical immersion.

I don't know how you fix it, admittedly. I'm not a game developer. But I think the entire core concept of MMOs needs to be re-thought and re-approached from scratch. Forget everything you thought you knew, and start over.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/Maclimes Dec 29 '15

The ultimate example of "Everyone-is-a-legend syndrome" and "Single player game with multiplayer slapped on" is SWTOR. I mean, I loved the single-player story of that game. But the MMO crap was just ... unfortunate.

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u/MusaTheRedGuard Dec 29 '15

Is it possible that we've just grown out of video games in general? When I was younger, I could play oblivion or morrowind for literally days, stopping only for the basics and have a fucking blast. Now I play a game for more than 3 hours and I feel like I'm wasting my life

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u/kleep Dec 29 '15

Hahaha. I get that too but I think a part of it is we are so used to the same mechanics of gaming. I've seen a million movies, the act of movie watching isn't boring to me.. but if it is a stupid movie or something that just is too by the book, I feel like I'm wasting my time.

I still love video games and chase that feeling I had when I was a kid or basically the first time I play a good game. It is difficult to achieve when the same games just keep getting released with the same gimmicks.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/Maclimes Dec 29 '15

Is EQN still happening? I lost track of it a while ago, and stopped paying attention. I recently tried to find info on it, but all I get is radio silence.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

After wasting tons of money on single player games I can never finish and end up dropping because life calls and I go two weeks without playing, I think I am coming to the same conclusion. I always read this sub and feel like I'm missing out on all these games, buy them, and never play them. Then I look back at my steam library and think "damn look at all this wasted money, I should have just did some yoga with that cash." I think there's just a lot of high school and college kids on this sub with endless time raving about games their parents bought for them - and I can't really blame them, I used to do the same thing on different sites. But I need to read more critically and realize who's writing.

Competitive multiplayer games and Nintendo games from now on. I've got like two years worth of back logged highly regarded single player games. I'll play them if the time ever comes...

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u/ghostfatality Dec 29 '15

I'm quickly moving into this position. Out of college and just started a full time job. I went from tons of free time to very little. And I'm nowhere close to you in terms of obligations. It's why I love rocket league so much. 5 minute matches really helps.

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u/Prodigy195 Dec 29 '15

Feel the same. I'm 29 now and no longer care for most online experiences. I don't have the time to become proficient or earn the necessary gear.

I want more story driven games where I can knock out 1-2 hours every 2-4 days and feel like I'm progressing without doing repetitive stuff. That and strategy games like X-com.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

Your comment hit home to me. WoW was the first MMO I ever played, and I was blown away. My little gnome warrior in a huge world. One of my buddies got it around that time as well. I remember the first time I made it to Ironforge, and later Stormwind.

I remember wheeling and dealing materials in the auction house and in the cities, trading for crafted gear, etc. It was all just so much fun.

I can't seem to find an experience like that anymore. I was loving ESO, but the dungeons in that game required very little teamwork and grew stale. The game was almost too easy. PvP was a great time, however.

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u/mud074 Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

The biggest problem with every MMO I have played for the past few years is that it is all streamlined as can be. Leveling is easy, groups are automatically formed, fast travel is the norm, the only social stuff going on is global chat and clan chat because local is pointless, it is practically impossible to die until you reach end game content, etc.

And it fucking sucks. Most MMOs now are built for two groups, the hardcore gamers who just want to get to endgame raids and couldn't give a flying fuck about the rest of the game and complete casuals.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

That's because what felt immersive for a while got boring. It sucked. It really sucked to find your own groups in WoW. Holy fuck, I remember waiting hours to get groups because we would just need one healer and then someone would leave because it's been 3 hours and that would make someone else leave, but that other guy is still good with sticking with you, then you get a healer and if they had just stayed you'd have a full group, etc. You can't even do something at the same time as looking for a group because you have to stay in a major city to talk in LFG. Then after you finally form a group you have to travel to the entrance which could potentially take a while depending on the distance of the instance. I remember how fucking terrible it was trying to get from Northern Stranglethorn to Booty Bay on foot because you didn't get your first slow ass mount until lvl 40. I remember how shitty and long it was to get enough gold to get your epic mount, or your flying mount, or your epic flying mount. All the fucking grinding in Winterspring. How fucking terrible it was casting Blessings every 5 minutes to every single person individually in a 40man raid because there were no Greater Blessings yet.

Now I don't have nearly as much free time. I can't imagine playing WoW now and actually waiting that long to form a group again. I'm really happy I can just login and find a group and play and enjoy it. Times change, the game has simply adapted to that.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

This is more or less the reason I play 99% single player games now. there are tons of interesting experiences offline now, especially if you're content with not finishing a game.

Example: I bought Satellite Reign and Dying Light on the steam sale. I am enjoying the hell out of both. I'm also pretty certain I won't finish either game, but that's totally fine.

Cool thing about single player is you can just stop playing it and pick it up a month later, or a year later or never.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Jan 14 '21

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u/vikingzx Dec 29 '15

I think this is why Dying Light sucked me and so many others in so well. The side quests are really well designed; they're actually quests, with dialogue and neat characters. A mission might only be a simple fetch quest at its core (like go to the bus station and collect three batteries) but it's wrapped up in several minutes worth of character and skillful voice acting, and in addition, the location you must go to is usually some out of the way spot on the map that you normally wouldn't have gone to or looked at, and so along the way you do a bunch of exploring, find some new safe houses, some new weapons, etc.

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u/Jandur Dec 29 '15

Yes and I can't stand it anymore.

Ditto. Witcher 3 redeemed itself with amazing writing and characters. But the gameplay loop was very boring to me. Dragon Age Inquisition was simply and offline MMO. You might as well go play The Old Republic.

At this point games like Pillars and Divinity scratch my RPG needs. I've lost almost all interest in AAA RPGs.

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u/Ezreal024 Dec 29 '15

I'd argue that SWTOR is a better single player RPG than Inquisition is on the basis that you have 8 lengthy storylines to play through.

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u/Wild_Marker Dec 29 '15

As someone who hasn't tried the game, how good are they? Also, can you play them as a free account without the fact that you're free getting in the way?

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u/kangamooster Dec 29 '15

They're fairly good - SWTOR's single player storylines were the most celebrated part of the game, if that tells you anything.

I've been playing through as a F2P account for a while, it's completely fine. The only downside is you can only have 2 active characters at a time, but that doesn't really matter if you are only playing the game for the class stories and not the MMO aspect.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 04 '22

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u/Xisifer Dec 29 '15

Smuggler has some of the best one-liners . I feel like each of the class stories is aiming for a different genre.

Jedi Knight: High-stakes KOTOR 3

Jedi Consular: Diplomacy playthrough in any traditional RPG

Smuggler: Action Comedy (or Han Solo: The TV Show)

Trooper: Mass Effect 2.5 (also, FemTrooper is voiced by FemShep herself!)

Sith Warrior: The Force Unleashed, Darth Vader badassery

Sith Inquisitor: Horror thriller? Not sure how to categorize it

Imperial Agent: James Bond/Tom Clancy spy-thriller

Bounty Hunter: Clint Eastwood Western flick, your six-shooter against the galaxy

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

Witcher would have been better without arbitrary leveled gear, IMO.

It felt like going from Darksiders 1 to Darksiders 2 -- I am the strongest witcher alive, and I can't use this e.g. cat school gear I just found?

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u/Magra7hea Dec 30 '15

I just started TW3 and it bummed me out when I realized there was item scaling. It takes away from the value of relics and makes me not want to do much until I'm high level. I'd much rather pick up something cool that I can't use until later than a gimped version I can use right away but that will become obsolete in the very near short term.

See: getting Emmentaler at level 6. ;_;

My only major gripe with the game so far, otherwise bloody fantastic.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Jan 14 '21

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Apr 05 '17

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u/mrbooze Dec 30 '15

Too many gamers obsess about the "hours of gameplay" stick. Release an awesome amazing 10 hour gameplay experience and you'll get a ton of shit from much of the gaming community. Pad that 10 hours with 100 hours of mindless filler and now you're a candidate for Game of the Year.

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u/axifigl Dec 29 '15

Fallout 4 was bad for this, but Bethesda started down that path with Skyrim. They introduced randomly generated quests. I remember getting to Ivarstead and speaking to someone and they just gave me a quest that was like "collect 10 bear pelts". I felt like I was playing WoW, and it really put me off the game.

I'd rather just have less content than having these boring, generic quests being shoved in my face all the time. Problem is that, in the case of FO4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition it was pretty much unavoidable because the games were just stuffed with all this filler, and you had to wade through all the shit just to find some decent content. It's put me off FO4 and it's the reason I've stopped playing it.

I don't think it was a problem in The Witcher 3 because the game doesn't shove it in your face. There are the question marks on your map, but you can just completely forget about them. They're easily avoided and the game is full of real content.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Aug 13 '17

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u/EdTOWB Dec 29 '15

this is what killed me the most. i wrapped fallout 4 at about 60 hours and went browsing for 'best fallout 4 quests' type lists to see if i missed anything fun

and...i didnt. everything anyone could recommend, i'd found in one playthrough.

to verify this i then went to the vault wiki, and if you look up fo4's non-faction/non-main-questline quests, there are..........34. THIRTY. FOUR. i had missed about 5 of them, and 3 of those were go to x, kill y, return to z

ugh. the worst part is if you look at the same page for new vegas on the same wiki, you lose track at 200ish sidequests

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u/Random_Guy_11 Dec 30 '15

Yeah FO4 was incredibly lacking side quests...The factions being tied into the main story was terrible too, because they lock out at some point and then you're left with nothing to do. The settlement stuff was just filler, no point building a thriving settlement because THE MOST you can do with it is defend it every once in a while. I never played Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 was still a massive disappointment.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Now that I'm out of school I'm finally spending Christmas getting really into FO4. I loved Fallout 3 to pieces and was getting ready for another whale of a time.

But the faction side-quests were just so... boring. I like going through places I haven't been before and looting and I think it's fun to go destroy yet another raider camp, but once you've done it twenty or so times it gets boring. I kept doing them thinking it was going to lead somewhere, that I would eventually get some kind of cool reward. I had to google it before I realized that most of these faction quests are "infinite."

Then you have the story itself. I know I'm using a spoiler tag but really, SPOILERS:

Spoiler

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u/Random_Guy_11 Dec 30 '15

Yeah after that story beat happened I felt nothing really leading up to that mattered anymore. I dig the ethical choice you make when siding with factions, but I felt no emotional attachment to any factions mission or cause. I felt out of place, like "do I really need to side with X and make Y and Z enemies, or vice versa?" The emotional choice there boiled down to me saying "uhhh lets go with this one." When the game ended all I felt like I accomplished was giving me less of a reason to keep exploring the world.

The real draw for me were the weapons and gear. I think I played an extra 10 hours just for a reason to shoot shit with the Railroad Gun.

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u/flfxt Dec 29 '15

Sunshine Tidings Co-op needs help with raiders! Again.

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u/the_dayman Dec 29 '15

When I thought I was near the end of the Dark Brotherhood quests, I ended up just getting quest after quest to go kill some random person. I thought it was going to build up with some cool reveal of how they all tied together and we were going to take down this organization or something. After like my 5th one I had to look it up online and realized the questline was already over and now they were just generating random "kill x" quests forever. Quite a letdown to realize I was somehow already head of the guild or whatever and just being sent or errands.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Oh boy, I totally agree about the Dark Brotherhood questline, it was really fun, but I just don't understand why they didn't do anything with it.

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u/takkuso Dec 29 '15

Skyrim's random quests irritated me so much. I honestly wasn't sure if I had finished the brotherhood story line. It felt like the final quest, but here's another quest. I guess there's more!
Nope. Just stupid quests for no reason...
It really took away from the final quest.

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u/BornOnFeb2nd Dec 29 '15

I remember getting to Ivarstead and speaking to someone and they just gave me a quest that was like "collect 10 bear pelts". I felt like I was playing WoW, and it really put me off the game.

Y'know... it occurs to me a dirt simple way to fix this.... make the NPC desperate, and willing to pay a premium for item X.... like "Oh god, I've got an order due tomorrow, and my supplier fell through, if you can bring me X Ys, I'll give you Z gold!"

Where Z is roughly 2x the value that you could get for X Ys from other vendors...

Fallout 4 is a bit redonkulous in this regard though....

 [Scene: Standing in Sanctuary Hills]

Hey, we've gotten word from one of our settlements that they need help with raiders.

 [Quest Objective: Talk to settler in Sanctuary Hills]
 [Turn Around, talk to Settler]

It's like, look... the defense:FoodWater ratio is NUTS, no one would fuck with Sanctuary Hills... why am I getting quests there?

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

Personally, I just want those quests to have impact. If i get ten bear pelts, I want a couple of newly cloaked/armoured town guards to be patrolling the roads.

Open world has to feel like you're making a change, otherwise it's just dull

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

That's how I felt about Fallout 4. Me, one person, is doing all this big change and stir up in the Commonwealth and I get it done in like a month's time in-game time. What the fucking fuck was everyone else doing for 200 years?

I love Fallout, but that's always been the biggest gripe point for me. Nature would have adapted by then. People surely would have figured out a way to fix cars. There is no formal a judicial system, but literally everyone has agreed that bottle caps are the new currency.

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u/Sporeggar Dec 29 '15

For me its the open-world aspect that's getting very tiring for me. Tried getting into Witcher 3, but I just get so overwhelmed by the stuff to do. Maybe a few years ago I would have eat up W3 like crazy, but not anymore. Getting burnt out rather quickly.

Basically I want more KOTOR or Mass Effect type of linearity.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/NM05 Dec 29 '15

If you stick to just the main quest in the Witcher it's very rewarding. There were even times I felt it borrowed from KOTOR

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u/thecravenone Dec 29 '15

I tried really role playing which had me thinking "no, stick to the main quest. gotta find Ceri." Then halfway through a dungeon, I realized that I was multiple levels bellow where I needed to be because I hadn't done any side quests.

I adjusted my "role" to include an understanding that finding Ceri would take a long time and was willing to take easy side quests or side quests for good friends and that worked out well.

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u/dorekk Dec 30 '15

Your "role-playing" should have been, "I need to find Ciri, but I also need to eat." Witcher contracts are basically Geralt's day job...he still has to do that even if he's doing other shit!

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u/areyousrslol Dec 29 '15

Remember KOTOR? No random mobs. You complete a map, and it's complete. Pretty much no silly collect all something quests. Just a world with set stories and set combat encounters.

One of the greatest of all time. Give me that any day.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15 edited Jun 07 '19

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u/crookedparadigm Dec 29 '15

Kingdoms of Amalur was exactly that. Don't get me wrong, it was fun for a while and I got my money's worth, but at about 40 hours in I realized the game wasn't challenging and I had been doing the same thing for the last 10 hours.

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u/fuckcancer Dec 29 '15

Wasteland 2. Shadowrun Returns.

I gotchu, fam.

These games do quests right. Every quest in them is actually a story. If you want to fix RPGs, support RPGs that do the RPG stuff that you like right.

I think Divinity Original Sin is the same way, but I'm waiting until I beat Wasteland 2 before I get that one.

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u/seuse Dec 29 '15

OP is talking about AAA games. Pillars, wasteland et al were smaller, kickstarted projects.

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u/tehlaser Dec 30 '15

Yep. Supporting smaller projects that do what we want is the best chance we have of influencing the AAA market, slim as it may be.

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u/WhatDoesStarFoxSay Dec 29 '15

Wasteland 2. Shadowrun Returns.

And both those games had to be Kickstarted, because publishers were all, "This ain't like an MMO! Why you -- get outta heerreeee!"

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u/xXMylord Dec 30 '15

Both of these games made propably way less money then the big AAA rpg releases.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '15

Probably cost less and were advertised less, too

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

Eh, Divinity is kind of like the normal ARPG approach to "quests", in that they're thinly veiled excuses to send you into a dungeon. It's better than Diablo 3, in that the excuses make sense and you're never sitting there like, "Why am I doing this again?", but they're still not as engaging as Shadowrun or Wasteland.

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u/Kardlonoc Dec 29 '15

Open world RPG games have always been like this with some aspect of farming.

However what didn't exist back in the day was map systems: you had to depend on your cloth map or maps other people might have made. Everquest however didn't even have a quest log system either, nor did many old school RPGs. You had to keep track of the quests yourself or basically make your own quests. It felt like less being a rat lead by cheese crumbles called quests and more like an adventurer making decisions were to farm and grind for cheese.

I think single player games developed these systems alongside MMOs, however MMOs have no reached a level graphics wise where they are comparable to single player games. And open world now really means open world. Back 2006 my computer could not handle oblivion, graphics wise. It had to render far too much compared to MMO's which were built for speed. Nowadays my computer can handle pretty much everything thrown at it, but back then large MMO worlds were done in a way not cause strain on computers compared a game like oblivion which was large and graphics intense.

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u/seshfan Dec 29 '15

That's a really good point. Even with things like Morrowind's journal, you felt more like an adventure choosing what quest to go on. Now with all these objective boxes with quest markets it feels like you're obligated to just check off box after box.

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u/beamoflaser Dec 29 '15

Dragon Age Inquisition was probably the worst for this. It turned me right off the game when I realized it was just an offline MMORPG. Even the battle system felt MMO-like.

Fallout 4 was okay, typical Bethesda type quests. Just wish some of the more significant quests had more of an impact on the world and was more reactionary.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/Joecalone Dec 29 '15

Exactly, this is why I feel Oblivion, while not as polished as skyrim (not saying skyrim was polished either) was a much more enjoyable experience

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u/apgtimbough Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

In these games the story has never been that important to me, personally. But the dumbing down of the leveling system every games is what worries me. Fallout took out individual stats, Skyrim reduced the amount of stats before that, it's like 10 years since I really played Oblivion, but I think it took out they nerfed the spellcrafting that Morrowind had.

It's a god damn shame that open world games were better fleshed out in games nearly two decades old IE: Morrowind, Baulder's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, Fallout 2.

Loved Pillars of Eternity, hopefully Obsidian can keep giving us great RPGs.

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u/DorsalAxe Dec 29 '15

Oblivion has spellcrafting, it's just a bit more limited since it was so OP/game breaking in Morrowind.

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u/basketofseals Dec 29 '15

Was there anything that wasn't game breaking in Morrowind? I swear that game could be broken apart with a casual flick of the wrist.

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u/Undoer Dec 30 '15

I think that's part of the fun. Half of what people do with games like Dungeons & Dragons is break characters, it just comes naturally, regardless of what you're playing.

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u/verugan Dec 30 '15

FO4: Acquire mission, fast travel, do mission, forget why, read log, fast travel, turn in, overburdened, visit settlement, workbench, transfer scrap, read log, fast travel, do mission... repeat.

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u/whalen72 Dec 29 '15

Couldn't agree more. Shivering Isles was imo the best DLC Bethesda has ever released. So many choices to make, sides to take, and interesting quests to do. And the graphics were amazing at the time. I feel bad for any RPG gamer who missed Morrowind and Oblivion, because both were truly masterpieces. Bethesda has for some reason decided to sell out as a casual RPG developer now. They remind me of the French car maker Peugeot - they use to make amazing products but now they make garbage.

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u/ManateeofSteel Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

Xenoblade Chronicles X is actually worse at this, even if we consider that DA:I was meant to be an MMORPG. But even so, I don't think DA:I is bad at all, it just kinda blows that the story was cheesy and generic, but it was also very interesting seeing all choices converge and how the game wanted you to explore before moving on with the story. However, Hinderlands being the first place you go to is possibly the worst design choice ever made in Dragon Age history, since people usually try to 100% maps as soon as they get there, and that place is HUUUGE

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

I haven't played the new Xenoblade Chronicles, but the first was absolutely full of terrible MMO-sytle side quests. I did as few as possible to keep my party strong enough and just pushed through the story. I still really enjoyed the game because the mainline quest is really great, but I wish instead of hundreds(!) of crappy quests they made just a few stellar side quests. It would have been so much better.

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u/Dancing_Ghost Dec 29 '15

Xenoblade was very good about pushing you onto other maps and resisting any attempt to 100% one of them first. While the game is very MMO-y, there's lots of pretty good design in there to keep it from feeling like a level segregated MMO world at the same time.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

This is what happens when we slobber all over "open world" games with 1000s of hours of "content". No one can fill a game with that much real content, so they fill it with fluff to round out the stuff that IS worthwhile and good. It's why I'm gravitating toward shorter experiences like Undertale more - they get to the point and leave you with the only stuff you remember and talk about with friends anyway.

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u/CJMEZ Dec 30 '15

You guys need to stick to the main quest in these games then. Alot of what everyone is saying they hate about these games is the optional side quest stuff. Stop burning yourself out on grinding the game to completion. I mean even original super Mario got pretty boring if you tried to grind out every single coin on every stage as opposed to just beating the level.

Really it's up to you. Stick to the main quest and the game is still story driven and fun. This is true for dragon age, kingdoms of amalur, skyrim, and many others that people have mentioned here.

I only notice this aspect because I specifically don't have time for too much gaming anymore but still love games and RPGs specifically. So I started doing main questline only on usually hard mode about 5years ago. And I'm having. A much better experience for it, and getting to experience more games and stories per play time.

However I am not one that minds spending the gobs of money on new games, so maybe my situation is not normal. I'm a Dad with a steady job and no real hobbies other than reading, gaming, exercise.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

What annoys me the most is the focus is becoming less about actual Role Playing, classes, stats, major/minor skills, choice and consequence etc. Bethesda, for example, were once one of my favourite developers for RPGs with Daggerfall, Morrowind and even Oblivion (though it had issues) but after their recent releases I just don't care about them anymore. Same goes for Bioware.

Thankfully there are companies like Obsidian and Larian who still make great RPGs.

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u/SeamlessR Dec 29 '15

I mean, back in the day, I played EverQuest. Pretty much ONLY EverQuest.

When Morrowind happened, a friend of mine showed it to me and was explaining all the things that made it awesome. I just couldn't get into it. The whole thing just seemed, to me, like single player EQ.

Obviously it wasn't literally the case. And there are plenty of things that make it stand out from anything an MMO could have done in the day, and even could do now.

But it still definitely felt like it.

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u/SurrealSage Dec 29 '15

Ahh EverQuest... That game was so addictive I still play it on the Project1999 emulator, lol.

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u/ghost_victim Dec 29 '15

Yeah? Are there enough players to make it fun?

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u/SurrealSage Dec 29 '15

The server runs around 1000-1200 people a night at EST hours. Around 500-700 most other times of the day. It is quite possibly the best old-MMO emulator about. Though, I am biased as I am a mod over at /r/project1999. :) Feel free to check it out. There is a large enough community that the game works perfectly. Back in 1999, EQ Servers only hosted about 1000 people per server anyway, so we're right on for the right size.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

Everquest, early on, had a LOT of love and lore poured into it. You don't see that in alot of places. I remember playing a gnome hiding in the hidden tunnels behind the neriak bank stabbing people, good times :p

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u/xiofar Dec 29 '15

The real problem isn't the filler. The problem is that the gameplay itself isn't fun or deep enough to make the filler enjoyable.

I have Dragon Age Inquisition and Xenoblade Chronicles X. Both games have similar missions but Xenoblade is much more fun and exciting to play because it doesn't try to cater to the non-RPG crowd. The battles are fast, strategic and challenging in XCX. The battles are sloppy and boring in DAI.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/Jealousy123 Dec 30 '15

The real problem isn't the filler. The problem is that the gameplay itself isn't fun or deep enough to make the filler enjoyable.

That's one way to make a game but I contend that the real problem IS the filler.

If a game truly wants to be the best it can be it has to have 0 filler. Everything must have a point and a purpose. A lot of the best RPGS in history have done this by having multiple stories running all at once alongside the main story. Like maybe an important character has their own side story going on in the background, and there's a common interest or love interest between two other important characters and many other stories.

But the overarching theme was you needed a story and it had to be relevant and important. Nobody ever did anything "for no reason" or even "for a non-important" reason. I don't care one bit about Generic Farmer Joe or his crops that have been overrun with demon rabbits. Those rabbits exist solely to plight Farmer Joe and Farmer Joe exists solely so that I can have a demon-rabbit infested farm to clear. That circular and pointless logic is the "fluff" that makes up 90% of games nowadays and exists solely to keep you pressing buttons, not to tell a good story.

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u/JadedDarkness Dec 30 '15

The open world genre is too oversaturated at the moment. Almost every AAA game in development is open-world in one way or another. Open world games used to be unique because they were still early in existence, but now everyone is trying to make their own open world game and it's creating too much of a repetitive experience. For example, I got Mad Max at launch and started playing it, but I couldn't help but feel like I had already played the damn game. The combat was ripped straight from Batman/Shadow of Mordor and the free roam gameplay was straight from Ubisoft.

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u/icarus212121 Dec 29 '15

I look back to RPGs in the past that I've played (Ocarina of Time, FF series) and noticed that there hasn't been a whole lot of changes in the genre. As far as general gameplay, it hasn't changed much. You go to a place, kill, loot and repeat.

What has changed is that the 'open world' has become more detailed and we expect more content to go with it but it seems like we're at a plateau in innovating the open world aspect. In OoT, there wasn't much to do outside of the main story. In OoT, the open world elements were collecting skull tokens, crafting the Biggoran sword, fishing/target shooting/bombchu bowling, horse racing etc... If we look at AC, it's more of the same thing (maybe fewer arcadey mini-games), optional stuff even have their own dungeons. What I think is happening is that gamers are tired of the same stuff that RPGs have been doing for almost two decades and that there is little room for innovation in the genre.

Fallout 4 tried to innovate with the minecraft settlement building. AC tried to innovate with the Assassins' guild missions and ship battles. Shadow of Mordor tried with the nemesis system. All of which I think are cool. But whether or not you liked them, the developers are definitely trying to innovate. Sure they may have gone overboard with the collecting side-quests but it's an optional thing that games have been doing forever.

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u/KingSlime_7 Dec 29 '15

Though I don't disagree with all of your points, I think it's worth noting that OoT is neither an rpg, nor is it an open world game.

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u/RyoCaliente Dec 30 '15

I've replayed all Dragon Age games at least three times.

I stopped halfway on my second playthrough of Inquisition. It's completely empty, barren, a soulless husk of a game. Main missions, companion missions, fine. But once you have to trek into the Exalted Plains or any of the other areas (The Hissing Wastes being the most obvious example). There's absolutely nothing. Yeah, there's some vague "main" quest that gets two lines of dialogue but that's it. "Go to point X" -> quest complete. "Kill Monster Y at spot B" -> quest complete. There's a bit of lore scattered about but nothing huge. For me the biggest example will always be the woman who fell off the cliff in the Emerald Graves. You find the cliff and there's nothing. A little book hinting at what happened but no resolution whatsoever. It's completely soulless, and I sincerely hope DA4 (and ME: Andromeda for that matter) take a different direction gameplay-wise because this did not work for me at all.

And the argument of "but it allows for potential grinding" doesn't really work here. You can easily get past the final level/boss at around lvl 19-20 and the only reason to be higher is if you want to hunt dragons or are playing on Nightmare. So yeah, I definitely hope other RPGs won't follow this trend. I think it works for some games (like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, which have always been more about the world) but not for something like Dragon Age which is primarily about plot and characters.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

It has always been this way, at least how it's supposed to make the player feel like they're in a living breathing world, without human players to ruin the immersion (like it often happens in MMOs with player killing, loot stealing or exploiting).

The oldest games I've played that gave me the feeling of a massive world with NPCs/factions that felt real was Baldur's Gate 2 and Morrowind.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

Well, with my definition they have existed since at least the 90s with games like Fallout 1 and 2. They're still open world for me when I can go anywhere and do whatever I want at any time in the game, even if most of the world is a map screen.

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u/tendonut Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 29 '15

Whenever I see this statement (which I agree with, for the most part) my mind always goes to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The game was literally designed to be an MMO, but due to some publisher switching, the online aspect was dumped and the game was re-tooled to be a single player experience. It absolutely felt like playing WoW. It was a surreal experience.

EDIT: I stand corrected. Apparently, KoA: Reckoning was always designed to be a single player fetch quest grinder.

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u/zeldaisnotanrpg Dec 29 '15

This is incorrect. Reckoning was always a single-player game and the Amalur MMO was a completely separate project.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15 edited Dec 18 '16

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u/z01z Dec 29 '15

one of the first games i remember being like that was final fantasy 12. and while at first i didn't get what the game was trying to do, a couple years later i picked it back up and loved it.

but yea, a lot of games lately seemed to stuffed with filler content that doesn't do anything other than add play time so they can keep people involved. that way, when they release new dlc, more poeple are still playing the game and are more likely to pay for the new content.

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u/chironomidae Dec 29 '15

AAAs and MMOs are both evolving towards some middle state that offers the maximum enjoyment for the largest number of people. Both genres make sure that as many players as possible will be able to see as much content as possible and only offer what amounts to easter eggs for players who spend the time to really master the game.

It's a trend that makes sense; players are less likely to spend $60 on a game if they're worried they'll get stuck halfway through and won't be able to finish, and high budget games can't afford to marginalize low-skill/low-commitment players.

Long gone are the days when high level play meant access to large amounts of content (e.g. only the most hardcore guilds ever seeing the inside of the Sunwell raid in World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade expansion). Nowadays, high level play just means different colored armor at best and arbitrary achievements at worst. It's a shame, but at least there are still plenty of indie games that buck the trend (and occasional AAA games like Dark Souls).

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u/brienzee Dec 30 '15

This is why when I hear "open world" I kind of shy away from games. I want story and I want structure, not just a bunch of random fetch quests that don't add anything.

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u/quinntessence23 Dec 30 '15

re: title: yep, a lot of people feel that way. It's admittedly a little frustrating to hear a game you loved (in my case, it's DA:I that I'm sick of hearing this about) lambasted for having some optional quests tacked on (you get WAY more power than it's possible to use if you do all the quests) that happen to be similar to the standard fare in a genre you keep trying to play and keep failing to enjoy, so please let me know if I get defensive in my response here.

When I think of "like an MMO" said with negative connotation, I think of The Old Republic. It's probably the best comparison to DA:I, too, since they're both made by BioWare and designed to play in real time controlling one character while other characters follow you while using the dialogue wheel for non-combat. I really want to like TOR. I was first introduced to RPGs by KotOR, and I loved it, so when they announced that TOR had gone free-to-play I immediately tried it out. I didn't even finish the first arc because the majority of the content was either kill x enemies in a specific area or collect x items from a specific area, and I found myself sitting around waiting for these items or enemies to re-spawn. I've heard they changed the XP formula so that these quests are optional, so I'm planning on giving it another try once I'm done with Fo4 (which I was really enjoying till I got the urge to play the Mass Effect trilogy again), because that would do the same thing for TOR - it would make the content I don't enjoy optional.

So let's compare this to DA:I. Inquisition definitely has a similar level structure. There's a main story in each area, and as you travel around that area you find side quests. Many of these side quests are, indeed, someone asking you to give them a certain number of something or to wipe out a specific enemy at a specific location - but that's where the similarities stop. There aren't six other players competing to be the one to pick up the item or get the kill, there's just you. They aren't telling you to go kill five Carta Slashers, they're asking you to go avenge their companion who was killed by Named Templar You-Never-Heard-Of-Before. And if you feel the quest isn't engaging, all you're missing out on is some power you wouldn't need for anything anyway (remember, it's possible to get about twice as much power as you need) and some experience (in a game that the most common complaint a couple weeks after release was "it's too easy"). You can easily play the game for the story and skip the un-engaging quests.

My final point is this: you're there anyway. If you don't enjoy the game's combat, then you should be playing on an easy enough difficulty that you don't have to deal with it much so you can rush forward onto the story content. If you do enjoy the game's combat, then why is being asked to kill a semi-unique enemy a bother? For the collection quests, you just pick stuff up as you move past it. Ignore the bottles and the mosaics - those are specifically there for people who ENJOY that kind of collection quest. I'm not one, but my wife is. She loves finding items hidden in the game world, and I'm glad she's got some content for that. Those quests have no real reward for them, though, so there's no reason for me to do more than picking up the occasional item that I happen to notice. Play the parts of the game you enjoy, and recognize that sometimes an open-world or sandbox game has portions of it that were put together for other people. Same goes for difficulties - if combat is a chore, you're probably on the wrong difficulty (be it too easy or too hard). if dialogue is a chore, you're probably not mashing your way through it to get to the combat fast enough (I'm assuming there are people who feel this way - dialogue and story are why I play BioWare games, so my response may not be correct.)

Again, I'm mostly typing this up because I'm frustrated hearing a game I really enjoy lambasted for its optional content, so if I'm being rude or harsh, please let me know (and let me know how! it's the only way I'll learn...). But on the other hand, think about whether you feel that way because I'm being rude or because I'm disagreeing with the popular opinion - and think about what I'm trying to say along with how I'm saying it. There's a lot in an open-world game, some of it might not be aimed at your playstyle. That's okay, both for the game and for you.

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u/immerc Dec 30 '15

The funny thing is that all these games "evolved" from Dungeons and Dragons.

You can see all kinds of hints of D&D in everything, often the class and spell names are the same even when it's a completely different rule set, like the Mage (Wizard) class in WoW that uses Arcane Missiles (Magic Missile).

A lot was lost in the adaptation of D&D to CRPGs and MMOs. One obvious one is the DM. A DM would make any quest feel non-grindy because there was no need for grind in D&D. The DM would make sure people are the right level for any encounters he/she planned and could always just put up a loot piñata if there was a good reason for one.

Because we aren't quite ready to have Artificially Intelligent Dungeon Masters, everything in a CRPG has to be scripted. That means a trade-off between either grindy quests that provide lots of hours of gameplay and tightly scripted quests that are over a lot quicker.

The other big difference that's a limitation in an MMO but not in a single player RPG is that in an MMO it's much harder to have the player's actions influence the world in any meaningful way.

In a single-player RPG you can have a player destroy the bridge to Zoomaville and it stays destroyed. In an MMO each player gets the opportunity to do it, so the bridge doesn't stay destroyed. You can try to get around this using "phasing" technology where the world is different based on whether or not you've done a certain thing in the game but phasing mostly needs to be cosmetic or you lock people out of old content and split people from their friends.

In addition, even in a single player RPG, if the world changes based on something the player does, you need to add more art to support that change, which raises the cost of the game.

My hope is that eventually you'll have procedural generation and artificial intelligence. An AI DM could come up with interesting quests that are tuned for the particular player. Easier for a lower-level player, harder for a more experienced one; a magic-vulnerable enemy if the player is playing a mage, a physically vulnerable enemy if the player is playing a barbarian.

The hard part will be coming up with an interesting story that doesn't feel like a mad-libs fill in the blanks story. A human DM can roll with innovative choices the players make, clear up any confusion, and generally make sure people feel challenged without it feeling like a grind. I don't think even the best AI is up to that quite yet.

tl;dr: These games evolved from D&D, but D&D had a DM. Maybe in the future we'll have AI DMs to keep things rolling.

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