Starfield

[Walpknut]

Yeah, not finding the literal talking deathclaw (one of the more controversial aspects of Fallout 2) memorable raises some suspicions.

Playing some games that i found somewhat forgettable during my first playthrough a few more times after that playthrough made it much easier to remember because i became more acquainted with them. So to play a game dozens of times and still not remember some characters is definitely odd, specially when they can be recruited as companions.

Not only that but Goris even has a unique combat intiation animation and everything.

Also "perk points" in Fallout 2? And who "doesn't bring up level ups" that's what lets you build your character. Not to mention Fallout 2 also lets you get additional perks from quests and choices

 

[Risewild]

 

[Walpknut]

Another weird statement is how "the game never let you pick the wrong choices" what? Lynette in Vault city? Fucking Caesar at his tent? You can piss off so many NPCs on Fallout....

 

[Mechazawa]

How is that not a roleplay element? How is having a high medic skill and thus playing a medic character not roleplaying?


They literally do because those are the things that tell the characteristics of your character. Those are the things that allow your character to influence the world, meaning roleplaying.


That's not roleplaying, that's larping. A game that doesn't react to how you go about in a world doesn't allow roleplaying.


Yes, because that's better than a system that tells the characteristics of your characters and allows perks to do interesting things instead of wasting perks slots on dumb damage increases. And also doesn't cause immense overlap between builds because a lot of them don't have to pick the same exact perks to avoid not being able to do much damage.


The huge difference is that you can choose to not increase your damage in a level where you get a perk and instead increase something else and get a perk that increases your killing speed. That can't happen in a system like in Fallout 4's because you are always forced to take damage increased perks at all times to not get behind in damage. Even just skipping one level means the enemies have gotten a boost in health and defense while your damage stayed the same.

It also helps that the scaling in the original Fallout games is not shit. So you are not further forced to pick damage boosts to not fall behind.


If you play poorly. I have done melee builds in New Vegas and i have had no problem closing the distance.

All of these arguments sound incredibly similar to that terrible Manyatruenerd's video on Fallout 4, but maybe that's just me.

I don't know what you understand as roleplay. I am using the meaning it has had since the 70's or so. The game system (if one even exists) is totally irrelevant to your ability to play as a character of your own design. You conveniently left the table top part out of your response. The thing Fallout was trying to emulate with its adoption of the SPECIAL system.

The things that "tell the characteristics of youre character" are what ever you decide. A system is not a requirement for that. You can roleplay in Fallout 2 and decide that you have a phobia of gunpowder, so you never use guns. You don't need to have some trait in the game that literally prevents you from using guns.

A game reacting to your roleplay is irrelevant. The only time you will have that is in an actual Table Top with a real human game master. I can't roleplay as anything other than a dirty tribal who wanders into town in Fallout 2, in something like Skyrim I can roleplay as almost anything I want. The ability to roleplay (and the plethora of mods that allow it) is why Skyrim is basically "The" roleplaying game. I can't roleplay in Baldur's Gate, I am utterly railroaded into the story and eventual encounter with Seravok and Irenicus. I can't roleplay in most cRPGs, rather I am on rails watching the story come by me. In Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas, I can roleplay a hero, a villian, a dumb ass, a medic(?), a dirty vagrant, or a pompus ass. In Mass Effect I am stuck being a captain of a ship working for some dumbass intergalactic illuminati. We call these "RPGs" but they are more of a misnomer in my opinion, as you dont really roleplay. You're "playing a role" of the protagonist, but thats not a very good definition as that would include basically every game with a protagonist.

As for Melee, try running up and killing the deathclaw at the start of Fo4 with melee and not using power armor. PA is basically cheating in most games, so yeah if youre using that and doing melee, then sure, its fine. Go into FNV and kill Cesar and escape his camp without sneak or using guns or power armor. I tend to avoid PA in most of the games because its often too good. You could say that is totally my fault, and fair enough I accept that. But calling Melee OP or even powerful is a stretch in my opinion.

Edit: I thought about it, and while the game reacting to your actions in some ways is definitely good, its one of those things where nobody is ever going to be satisfied. There will always be ways people feel a game has fallen short in that department. Take Fallout 2, why Can't I just walk to the east coast and end my journey there? Where is the East Coast ending? Yeah, that's probably an absurd request of an ending, but whose to decide that really? It is because of this that I don't put much stock into how much a game narratively reacts to what I do.

---

Yeah, not finding the literal talking deathclaw (one of the more controversial aspects of Fallout 2) memorable raises some suspicions.

Playing some games that i found somewhat forgettable during my first playthrough a few more times after that playthrough made it much easier to remember because i became more acquainted with them. So to play a game dozens of times and still not remember some characters is definitely odd, specially when they can be recruited as companions.

No, a talking death claw is not that memorable in a franchise that's filled with absurdities. I knew there was "a talking death claw" but his name or anything about him was no, not really memorable to me. What I mostly remember about Fallout 1/2 (or any game for that matter) is more so the aesthetic, themes, environment, environment design, music, and game mechanics. I couldn't tell you the story of unreal or any of the names of the levels, but I could tell you were most of the secrets in the levels are, for example.

 

[Walpknut]

Man, these trolls are getting really low level.

 

[TorontoReign]

Another weird statement is how "the game never let you pick the wrong choices" what? Lynette in Vault city? Fucking Caesar at his tent? You can piss off so many NPCs on Fallout....

Cmon guys he did not beat the game he is engaging on the typical shitty Bethesda fanboy level. Walpknut you are just like him since you will buy Starfield and bust a nut over it and then when people complain you guys will be like WELL AT LEAST WE CAN MOD IT.

 

[The_Citzen]

Another weird statement is how "the game never let you pick the wrong choices" what? Lynette in Vault city? Fucking Caesar at his tent? You can piss off so many NPCs on Fallout....

Idk if this is in reply to me but that's not exactly what I said, I was talking about how I don't like skill checks appearing on the answers in Fallout NV, I preffer the system from Fallout 2 that requires the player to actually think what he needs to say instead of just picking the one with a skill mark on it. Overall I think Fallout NV for the most part has a stronger writing than 2, but those little things make 2's dialogue way more memorable.

 

[Risewild]

I'll bite the bullet here.

I don't know what you understand as roleplay. I am using the meaning it has had since the 70's or so. The game system (if one even exists) is totally irrelevant to your ability to play as a character of your own design. You conveniently left the table top part out of your response. The thing Fallout was trying to emulate with its adoption of the SPECIAL system.

The things that "tell the characteristics of youre character" are what ever you decide. A system is not a requirement for that. You can roleplay in Fallout 2 and decide that you have a phobia of gunpowder, so you never use guns. You don't need to have some trait in the game that literally prevents you from using guns.

The thing is that a RPG doesn't need to have that type of roleplaying to be a RPG, and in fact, the first RPGs both tabletop and cRPGs were pure Hack & Slash without roleplaying or story or even any real character interaction besides buying equipment and kill stuff. Also, there are plenty of other games and genres where the player can do your type of roleplaying. Roleplaying like you mean is not a real part of RPGs.

Back in the day, people even thought that adding more story, interaction, world building and roleplaying would be the end of the RPG genre:

Spoiler: The End of RPG?

From Dragon Magazine #146, June 1989:

As you can see, the first tabletop RPGs and cRPGs were all Hack & Slash type. The "roleplaying" was only added almost 15 years after they were already called Roleplaying Games.


RPGs are stat games, where the characters have to use their skills and attributes to interact with their world. The player is the decision-making of the character and the character tries to act on these decisions. So in a RPG, it's needed to have a perk, trait, skill etc. that tells your character that he can't use firearms because of being allergic to gunpowder.

For example, Richard Garriot, the father of cRPGs that made tens of cRPGs and was the first person to create the genre (back in 1975) defines RPGs and role-playing games:

Diablo, great game. Loved it. For me, I use the term "RPG" for it because it is a stats game. It's a "Do I have the best armor equipment compared to the creature I'm facing?" There's not really any story for it. It's a great challenge reward cycle game. Blizzard, by the way, does the best challenge reward cycle games I've seen.

On the other hand, Thief or Ultima are role-playing games versus RPG -- which I know stands for role-playing game. When I think of a role-playing game, it is now where you are charged with playing an actual role and qualitative aspects of how you play are every bit as important as what equipment you use. That's what I find most interesting. It's a lot easier to do stories there.

Tim Cain shares a similar opinion about what makes a RPG:

You control a ship that starts off as a bare-bones hull, and as you acquire resources and credits, you can buy upgrades to improve your ship, as well as gain new crew and landing craft to replace any that were lost in battles and exploration. These features are a direct analog to the skills, items and hit points in a typical role-playing game, making Star Control 2 closer to a CRPG than an adventure game.

The non-Bethesda Fallout games are RPGs and adhere to the classic definition of RPGs. I don't know why people these days think RPG is a complicated genre to define. People have defined it since it first appeared all the way back in 1974.

 

[xxdemonxspawnnxx]

None of those 3 characters are memorable to me and I've played the game a dozen times. I don't even remember who Goris is.

And you never got past the tutorial?

As for the melee, I like it in Fo4 primarily because of blitz. Melee in the 3D Fallout games is basically trash without blitz because you just die before you close the distance or you play as a junkie taking all of the drugs for buffs. And for myself in particular I feel its required to mod the games to make guns actually deadly, which puts melee in an even weaker state. You could say its my fault for making it such that getting shot in the face actually kills you, but the idea that guns have to be weak to make melee viable is nonsense to me.

I like Melee in FO4, but not because of blitz. VATS is boring. Using bash button on humans let you do special moves. You can also use perks to increase damage threshold.

Skills are not a "roleplay" element. Having/not having skills has nothing to do with your ability to roleplay, you just suck at roleplaying. People roleplay in Minecraft (a game with no character system). Even in Tabletop, some of the best roleplay I have ever seen is with EXTREMELY brief mechanics, often only 3 skills with between 1 and 3 levels (thinking of the roleplay Jesse Cox ran, Oddballs.) and thats it, thats the whole system.

Are you telling roleplay in Fallout is trying to convince yourself who you are instead of what you are able to do with your character?

"...and you are forced to take them for other perks" False.

True. Most of the boring damage boost perks end with a special perk that allows you paralyze enemies. You HAVE to put perk points in SPECIAL because all the good perks come last and you begin with only 21 SPECIAL points(40 in other fallout).

"Granularly build your character" in other words, you can build your character in a more tedious way than just getting a perk that gives you 25% more damage; you can level up 3 times and boost your damage 25% with 1% intervals.

The point is, you can't do everything in a single playthrough. You have to make choices and you feel rewarded for wasting skill points in doctor/science,etc.

Level ups are less rewarding? Literally the only level ups that matter in Fallout 1/2 are the ones that give you perk points. The rest of the levels are so irrelevant that nobody even brings them up when it comes to character building. You still get boring level ups where you only do slightly more damage, you just have to click more times to get through those screens.

Combat Skills in Fallout 1/2 increase hit chance. Increasing lockpick skill is necessary to increase the chance to unlock doors. Speech is obvious(the best one is talking someone out of suicide bombing). Science lets you hack terminals(which have more interesting stuff than boring logs(FO4)). Doctor unlocks special dialogues(speech, but less bluffing) and even get special quest, companion, gift from another doctor(companion).

Perks in FO4 proved nothing(except fun for a short time); they do what skills and SPECIAL do in other FOs.

 

[The_Citzen]

And you never got past the tutorial?

To give the guy some credit, I must say that Goris isn't the most memorable character i Fo2, sure his concept is awesome and everything, but the game has so many other great characters that come first into my mind, like Myron, Sulik, Frank, hell even most of New Reno characters. People like to bash on Fallout 2 for the story not being that serious but IMO it has the best characters in the whole series.

 

[xxdemonxspawnnxx]

To give the guy some credit, I must say that Goris isn't the most memorable character i Fo2, sure his concept is awesome and everything, but the game has so many other great characters that come first into my mind, like Myron, Sulik, Frank, hell even most of New Reno characters. People like to bash on Fallout 2 for the story not being that serious but IMO it has the best characters in the whole series.

Yeah I agree Goris is less memorable compared to others like Cassidy, Bishop, Myron, Marcus even Lynette. Funnily I found enclave characters less memorable, even Arch Dornan.

 

[TorontoReign]

I'll bite the bullet here.

The thing is that a RPG doesn't need to have that type of roleplaying to be a RPG, and in fact, the first RPGs both tabletop and cRPGs were pure Hack & Slash without roleplaying or story or even any real character interaction besides buying equipment and kill stuff. Also, there are plenty of other games and genres where the player can do your type of roleplaying. Roleplaying like you mean is not a real part of RPGs.

Back in the day, people even thought that adding more story, interaction, world building and roleplaying would be the end of the RPG genre:

Spoiler: The End of RPG?

From Dragon Magazine #146, June 1989:

As you can see, the first tabletop RPGs and cRPGs were all Hack & Slash type. The "roleplaying" was only added almost 15 years after they were already called Roleplaying Games.


RPGs are stat games, where the characters have to use their skills and attributes to interact with their world. The player is the decision-making of the character and the character tries to act on these decisions. So in a RPG, it's needed to have a perk, trait, skill etc. that tells your character that he can't use firearms because of being allergic to gunpowder.

For example, Richard Garriot, the father of cRPGs that made tens of cRPGs and was the first person to create the genre (back in 1975) defines RPGs and role-playing games:


Tim Cain shares a similar opinion about what makes a RPG:


The non-Bethesda Fallout games are RPGs and adhere to the classic definition of RPGs. I don't know why people these days think RPG is a complicated genre to define. People have defined it since it first appeared all the way back in 1974.

RPG Codex is so autistic they cannot define RPG. That is why. The genre is mostly over blown due to tabletop influence having nothing to do with blobbers or isometric turn based role playing games. The mechanics are so different when comparing D&D to something like Witcher 3. These days if the game has dialog choices and some stats it must be RPG.

 

[The_Citzen]

These days if the game has dialog choices and some stats it must be RPG.

Sadly this is so true, it is by a long shot one of the worst ways to define an rpg, because if you consider that you are basically saying that every telltale game is a rpg...

People should use more the name of the subgenre when talking about rpgs, like crpgs being a bit more similar to the tabletop games, arpgs being things like Dark Souls and stuff...

People calling everything an rpg nowadays fucking ruins my experience in most games, I am 100% sure I would have enojoyed The Witcher 3 way more if I didn't came expecting or at least wanting to see the so called "best rpg ever", because judging only by the rpg systems Witcher 3 sucks both as an crpg and a arpg.

 

[Mechazawa]

I'll bite the bullet here.

The thing is that a RPG doesn't need to have that type of roleplaying to be a RPG, and in fact, the first RPGs both tabletop and cRPGs were pure Hack & Slash without roleplaying or story or even any real character interaction besides buying equipment and kill stuff. Also, there are plenty of other games and genres where the player can do your type of roleplaying. Roleplaying like you mean is not a real part of RPGs.

Back in the day, people even thought that adding more story, interaction, world building and roleplaying would be the end of the RPG genre:

Spoiler: The End of RPG?

From Dragon Magazine #146, June 1989:

As you can see, the first tabletop RPGs and cRPGs were all Hack & Slash type. The "roleplaying" was only added almost 15 years after they were already called Roleplaying Games.

RPGs are stat games, where the characters have to use their skills and attributes to interact with their world. The player is the decision-making of the character and the character tries to act on these decisions. So in a RPG, it's needed to have a perk, trait, skill etc. that tells your character that he can't use firearms because of being allergic to gunpowder.

The non-Bethesda Fallout games are RPGs and adhere to the classic definition of RPGs. I don't know why people these days think RPG is a complicated genre to define. People have defined it since it first appeared all the way back in 1974.

I think simply defining it as "stats games" is too vague. If you really want to abstract it to the end, Chess is an RPG. You have different classes, they serve different roles, they have different movement skills available to them, some classes can work in combination with each other to do special skills (Castling, En passant, etc), some classes have other special abilities like returning lost pieces to the board... Of course, it would be absurd to walk around saying Chess is an RPG so there has to be something more to it then that. This is why I go with the definition I relayed because I feel it is much more restrictive. Is Planescape Torment NOT a visual novel because it has stats? IS Need for Speed Underground 2 an RPG because your characters (cars) have stats, can be upgraded, and effect the world around you?

It doesn't matter too too much, unless you have people running around slackjawed talking about how Fallout 4 isn't an RPG. When it literally has stats, a stats page, levels, perks/skills and experience.

Though, one note: I think the verb of "roleplaying" IS 100% what I said. When I said you didnt need stats to roleplay, I meant you didnt need stats to do the verb that is roleplaying, I didnt say anything about the genre. That was just people reading into stuff. Nobody looks at a person playing an RPG and goes "Oh, he's just roleplaying now." And if they did, they are just weird.

 

[Walpknut]

I remember when I could go at it with trolls for pages and pages and not skip a bit, ah to be young again..... and use that time on something useful.

 

[Risewild]

I think simply defining it as "stats games" is too vague.

Yes, that's why I didn't say they are just stats games:

RPGs are stat games, where the characters have to use their skills and attributes to interact with their world. The player is the decision-making of the character and the character tries to act on these decisions.

The stats defining what your character can or can't do is the "foundation" of the RPG genre. If you analyze all the RPG subgenres (cRPG, PnP, jRPG, tRPG, aRPG) you will see that many times this is the only thing they all have in common (and it's the thing that makes them all RPGs).

Gaming genres are dependent on their "foundations" and then other elements are added to the "foundation". A gaming genre is only designated by the entire game, not just individual elements in the game.

For example, "Football Manager" games are full of stats and the characters actually use those stats to influence how they play each match. You play the role of a manager and manage your club, decide training schedules, hire staff, upgrade your club's stadium, hire and sell players, get friendly matches, decide your team tactics, make substitutions, give pep talks to your players, attend press conferences, etc. These games could be considered a RPG, but all of the elements that would make it a RPG are mixed so much with the whole sports manager "foundation" and elements that in the end, it ends up being a sports management genre and not a RPG.

Crusader Kings games all have thousands of different characters, all with their own Attributes and abilities, those attributes and abilities are used for pretty much everything in the game, including decisions that the player can have during events. It's more of a RPG than most modern RPGs. But it's a grand strategy game. Because mixed with the RPG elements is the grand strategy game "foundation" and other elements that obviously makes it a GS game instead of a RPG.

If you remove the character being the one doing things (using it's abilities, skills, attributes, etc.) instead of the player, you totally removed what makes a RPG a RPG. It stops being a RPG right away because that is the "foundation" that makes the RPG genre.

If you imagine any RPG ever made (including any sub-genre) for consoles and computers and remove from those games all the stats, skills, perks, attributes, and any other similar thing that is used for the characters to interact with their world. You end up with a totally different game genre that already exists.
Do that to the classic Fallout games and you would end up with a game that can be considered a bullet-hell-lite or isometric shooter with dialogue. Do that to Daggerfall and you have a FP Action game. Do that to Fallout 3 or FNV and you have a FP/TP Shooter. Do that to Planescape:Torment and you have a Isometric Interactive Novel .
Why is that? Because without that "foundation", the games stop being a RPG.

 

[Morgan_]

I like games.

 

[Risewild]

I like games.

I like fun games but I hate games in general, since the general game these days sucks.

 

[Walpknut]

I am completely neutral with what Bethesda does with Starfield as it's their own IP, it's when they turn Fallout into a Borderlands loot shooter that I get annoyed but my hatred is more defeated acceptance that Fallout is dead rather than a crusade like before.

 

[Norzan]

Talking about the topic, never ever have i ever given less of a shit about a product in my life. It's a black void of not giving a single fuck about this game.

Not even gonna pirate it because that's wasted time i could be using for other many actual good games.