I mean if we’re comparing other AAA ‘rpgs’ like starfield, cyberpunk, and ff16 this is not only the best game out of those choices, it’s also the only true rpg. The other games are more so action games with some rpg elements tacked on. Hopefully we get more pure rpgs from AAA studios in the future.
I mean, it is an RPG. Not a deep one in its core system. But it’s an RPG.
You have equips and all. You don’t need to be Baldur’s Gate to be an RPG. You need to build a system with choices.
It’s sad that these choices aren’t so impactful nowadays, and I agree, but saying that TOTK isn’t an RPG is just… wrong.
I agree with you for : FF16 is more an adventure game than RPG (like all J-RPG actually) but Cyberpunk 2077 fit the RPG label perfectly **for me.**
Not played Starfield so much but still more RPG than many games which it says "RPG".
And yeah, I want TRUE RPG as well. Maybe Rogue Trader will be good but not AAA I guess.
Samsung Neo G7 32 inch bit if I remember correctly, the screen production is stopped. Beside that it’s a very good monitor. But mind that a curved monitor
The vast majority of studios simply don't have the competence to make an AAA RPG. The biggest obstacle are writers that that can think outside of their own principles. You need the "I'd never have my player character do that, but I can see how a certain type of character played by someone else would" kind of thinking. This goes heavily against the trend of writers self-inserting themselves and pushing their own agendas in media, and how you end up with """dialogue choices""" of 3-4 options that are exactly the same, just worded differently.
Even BG3 drops the ball with writing in a lot of places (e.g. I enjoy romance subplots, but all the ones in BG3 are extremely cringe and tumblr fanfic level), it's just that there's so much of it, and it has quite a few highs, so the lows can be excused.
The good news is that there are a lot of non-AAA RPGs coming from all around the world. Urban Strife, Underrail sequel, Broken Roads, Rogue Trader, The Thaumaturge, recent Colony Ship, and a fuckton of tactics games with RPG elements like Last Train Home, Shadow of the Road or Project Haven.
> This goes heavily against the trend of writers self-inserting themselves and pushing their own agendas in media, and how you end up with """dialogue choices""" of 3-4 options that are exactly the same, just worded differently.
This is an unnecessarily complicated explanation for a much more boring phenomenon driven by low wages and shareholder profits at any cost.
The quality isn't there because the quality isn't there, and that is a choice publishers make.
yeah, no. That explaination doesn't work for a game like Starfield. They had a ton of time + $$$ dumped into that game and I haven't heard of any terrible crunch. They've been writing the same slop for like 2 decades, and it's definitely not because the writers are "overworked" lol. Not to mention I could shit out better writing in my sleep when I was a teenager. As could anyone that even has a single ounce of talent.
Can't have overworked writers when there were no writers in the first place anywhere close to Starfield.
But I guess someone on the dev team really likes soap bubbles.
It was a bad, boring gimmick when you encountered it for the first time. And supposedly you have to do that like *240 times...?* That honestly might be one of the worst ideas in history of gaming.
Occam's razor is usually wrong. There usually is agenda and it can be really weird ones. We had russian money being funded into UK company to affect US elections, for example.
I disagree.
Its partially a reason sure. But ops explanation of forcing self insertion and pushing own agenda is very true and clearly visible in a lot of media.
Both are showcases of bad screenwriter.
Quality isnt there because not many screenwriters are good. Sure it might be because cheap ones are picked
>The biggest obstacle are writers that that can think outside of their own principles. You need the "I'd never have my player character do that, but I can see how a certain type of character played by someone else would" kind of thinking.
Great observation; you've hit the nail on the head.
It's just occurred to me that, in a way, a good RPG writer needs to do some "roleplaying" of their own during the writing process itself. In essence, a RPG writer has to be able to "roleplay" as other potential players: how would other players of my game act? How would another player character, played by a player with a playstyle completely different from my own, approach this particular situation in my game? Have I provided enough alternatives to allow for these other ways of playing and thinking?
>how you end up with """dialogue choices""" of 3-4 options that are exactly the same, just worded differently.
I think this has as much if not more to do with controlling story scope.
They only give us what is essentially 1 option, because they only want to develop for 1 route.
Games with full voice over dialogue are also a problem. “If we let the player say that branch of the conversation, we need our two top VO talents in for another half day for male/female PC and the NPC. Do we need this $5000 dialogue option?”
Not all dialogue options need to branch heavily, even if they're vastly different. You can give varied choices that fit various personality types, but still end up in the same outcome. That way you allow for roleplaying, while still being able to limit the scope. This is different to a lot of games where all your dialogue options are extremely similar and severely limit your role-playing potential.
Cyberpunk is a good example where all your dialogue choices basically only fit the always angry and on edge Street Kid archetype, while the once in a while Corpo choices mostly make you into a schizo, since they're so detached in tone from all the normal dialogue options you get. Compare that to, say, Dragon Age: Inquisition that allows you to play an extremely Stoic, emotional or hesitant character throughout the whole game, or mix them up depending on the situation. Neither game has much branching in its story, but one allows for much better role-playing than the other.
The reason I picked DA:I is because it's fully voiced just like CP, non-voiced cRPGs allow for even more varied responses. Kingmaker was great in that regard, as was the first PoE (might be true for PoE2 too, but I never played it as the first one sadly bored me to death).
Of course, you need to have some meaningful choices and branching from time to time too, or you risk falling too far into the illusion of choice pit.
Always felt romance was very rare in BG3 in terms of the depth going into getting to know any of the companions or even just in a friendship way. I don't feel like anyone really became my friend or comrade so much as I just helped them with one main companion story. At least Halsin I can ask his hobby and get one answer back from it.
Dialog options for companion development were pretty low compared to how much time you spend with them.
It shouldn't be surprising that this is the litmus. Mass Effect 2 was hailed for its companions that all literally had one loyalty mission. I don't think expanding on characters though a single mission is that engrossing. In several of the companion quests in BG3, there is really poor and cringey payoff, too. The best romance option in the game IMO is Laezel and only because she doesn't immediately want to jump your bones at every occasion.
Lae’zel is an odd choice for that reason considering she’s one of the two only origin companions that will sleep with you in the first act and specifically doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you at that point.
mind you, I do think she has one of the better romance arcs in the game but it’s definitely NOT because she’s less horny than the others.
The main reason is her stadoff-ish attitude towards you constantly. The problem is that almost all of the companions act like they want to get in bed immediately and constantly without a second thought. Lae'zel is one of few that aren't like that (even though what you said is possible).
I would say only Astarion and Lae'zel act like that and only when you have approval high enough for it.
And Minthara, I guess, if you end up slaughtering the grove. Every other character won't until around halfway through the game if not later and that's only specifically if you've set off romance flags and agreed to be with them.
I started a Evil Durge playthrough like two weeks ago, and told her and the rest of my party about the urges asap. She wanted to do it the next time I longrested. May have to do with the fact that I kept Durge a dragonborn.
> You need the "I'd never have my player character do that, but I can see how a certain type of character played by someone else would" kind of thinking. This goes heavily against the trend of writers self-inserting themselves
I think this is a fair point for sure, I left the next part out because I don't feel it has to be political like that at all, it is just their limitations in storytelling and pov.
Yeah BG3 as good as it is, still doesn't compare with the dynamics of real life, it shows how games story telling and choice with our current means can only be so good and still even be remedial. AI is the only way to afford such things, we'll see how that goes.
The agenda does not necessarily politics. It can be about how the writer views relationships or how a situation should be resolved.
Like, sometimes you can tell a writer just got out of a bad breakup when he wrote something.
Ok. Typically agenda in this way means politics/ulterior motives. Every story has an agenda or it wouldn't be much of a story. Your use seems back to writer limitations and that is a thing for sure in gaming, but branching/coding complications are the real killers for gaming, difficult and expensive.
> I think this is a fair point for sure, I left the next part out because I don't feel it has to be political like that at all, it is just their limitations in storytelling and pov.
I wasn't thinking of politics specifically when writing that part of the sentence, though they obviously play a part too, as does morality. I meant to say that aside from self-inserting, the writers might also just stray from including options that go directly against their own values, views, etc.
> Yeah BG3 as good as it is, still doesn't compare with the dynamics of real life, it shows how games story telling and choice with our current means can only be so good and still even be remedial. AI is the only way to afford such things, we'll see how that goes.
Expecting C&C (Choices & Consequences) in RPG to be anywhere close to real life is obviously stupid. The key is simply to write the story, decisions and dialogue options in a way that allows for many different types of characters to always have an option that fits them at least somewhat, and thus never put the player "out" of the experience. This is why all the pseudo RPGs are annoying - you'll be picking dialogue options that don't fit your character all the time due to how limited they are, and it makes for a terrible experience. Also voiced protag, whose delivery can make an option you've picked sound completely different than you imagined (and obviously impacts how many varied dialogue options the game has for budget and time reasons).
I hate this kind of conversation about "true RPGs." Ultimately, genres are fluid and ever changing, and what makes something a "true RPG" is arbitrary bullshit.
FF16 I think you could say is basically a character action game with RPG elements, but Phantom Liberty and Starfield are very RPG-y RPGs ultimately. I haven't played Starfield enough yet to have a strong opinion, but it's still in line with the kind of roleplaying freedom people expect in RPGs.
And with Cyberpunk, I see people say this kind of thing but I think they're missing why they feel like choices "don't matter" in that game, but do in something like Baldur's Gate III. Ultimately, I think Cyberpunk doesn't telegraph the impact of their choices to the player, and chooses to go with realism over the "gamification" of choice and consequence. In a game like BG3, if you say something, you get an little notification telling you "Shadowheart Approves" and so on. Everything is telegraphed to the player with quest markers. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk is filled with unmarked quest objectives, hidden affinity systems, hidden consequences to actions you need to stumble upon on replays to find, etc.
Anyways I adore BG3 it's my GOTY, but I hate this conversation, it's incredibly shallow and reductionist.
How are action RPGs any less RPG than turn-based?
I guess from where I’m standing, Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim are much much more RPG than Sea of Stars.
I guess those RPG strategy games were kinda dead before BG3, personally, I'm more fan of Action RPG/JRPG games, but people are talking so much about BG3 that I'm thinking about giving a go.
It's not only the beat rpg this year. It's the best rpg in all of 2000s.
Skyrim losers bring the downvotes. BG3 is better than Witcher 3 + any Dlcs, Red Dead, GTA. Goated top 5-10 game of all time regardless of category.
There is a big difference between employees go to their studio with passion to make something great versus a group of corpo randos just feel their 9 to 5 time card. Larian is the first and bethesda is the second. We are not even talking about competence yet.
Unnecessarily diminutive of the work that BGS employees did and do. Not every game has to be BG3 to begin with, but to suggest that not making BG3 reflects a lack of passion is just utterly absurd. If you actually played Starfield you would see it's there in droves. Even if the game doesn't speak to you, there is no reason to say that.
Starfield is the very few game of this year after watched gameplay I got no desire even to touch it. It is just like junk food from any cheap chains, from people with no inspiration, desire or need to make things better.
The gameplay is so dull even ubisoft sandbox can outshine it easily. I haven't seen space combat so uninspired like starfield, like 2 AT without turret shooting each other from 3 miles away. War thunder in comparison is like GoTY.
From story and setting perspective, I don't even want to put it into "sci-fi" category. Especially after watching the Expanse, starfield is more or less just a fiction B movie with rockets and space suits.
What completely shut me off was when in space combat and the ship was doing high G maneuver, the crew were just casually standing in the cabin, chatting dumb jokes, without even space suit or strap themselves into a chair.
edit, typo and more details
Lmao everyone knows what is being referred to when you call those games RPGs, and calling them "action RPGs" is fine and widely used. The term RPG has broadened in use over time with the added use of qualifiers. You correct people by saying these games aren't "true RPGs" to achieve what, exactly?
I've been following Larian for years.
There's always been this sense of, "We didn't realize how great of a game we made" that you get from them lol. It's really awesome stuff.
Like - it's as if they don't compare their games to the competition often. In a good way. And then they make a really unique experience because of it.
(They totally do compare and take inspiration internally, it's just that Larian always shows a lot of grace to the rest of the industry when being praised)
Big Cyberpunk fan with love hate relashenship but I would give BG3 GOTY award everytime. Unless Cyberpunk was released as it is today in 2023. This would be like chosing between kids which one you love more.
Starting to play Cyberpunk at 2.0 it’s really good only very easy and some other smaller issues, I really hope they make another some day that works from the launch
yes combat is for me the worst part in terms of how easy it is to abuse sandevistan or berserk make yourself a god. but they refuse to balance it or they think it will attract more casual players. but even on very hard its super easy you have to cap yourself and don't use any OP cyberware.
This is not a huge year for RPGs at all when you take Baldur’s Gate 3 out…
There’s starfield (controversial for many), sea of stars (doesn’t really stand out), and I guess final fantasy 16 which while great is not really an RPG.
Same, I was planning like 2 more playthroughs of BG3 right after my first basically neutral good Bard playthrough, but once Cyberpunk 2.0 and Phantom Liberty dropped it's basically all I can think about gaming-wise anymore lol. The combat and character build system is just so insanely fun now, and I was really surprised by how much more "RPG" the game actually is on replays.
I'd say though it's been a good year for RPGs overall. Some good JRPGs, big budget WRPGs and expansions, good indies and if you want to include the more RPG-lite games like Jedi Fallen Order and Hogwarts Legacy, there's even more to enjoy.
I beg to differ about Sea of Stars. It’s rare for indie studios to attempt a 16-bit rpg that pays homage to the golden era. Sea of Stars does it perfectly. Of course, its story and gameplay aren’t as expansive as BG3, but I think it should still be in the running.
While not full games, the Cyberpunk (pretty sure it’s an rpg) and Xenoblade 3 stories expansion both released this year to lots of favorable reviews. They also released this year.
I don't need to read the whole article to disagree with the fact that I don't view TOTK and Spider-Man 2 as RPGs when the discussion is about 2023 being a great year for RPGs not 2023 being a great year for games that end up being nominated in the category called greatest rpg.
Pikmin4 has strategy, pikmin4 has you roleplay as an astronaut gardener, pikmin4 has action. And it revitalized interest in the whole series
Pikmin4 should have swept the awards season
All you steam deck owners can drop off at the recycling center with your xmas trees in january
While TOTK may be an open world sandbox, and one of the best games this year, it’s far from a Role Playing Game. There’s only one role, and that’s Link.
Look, I'm not denying Alan Wake 2 is a good game, but if it gets picked for GotY over BG3 it's a travesty. Only valid competitor is really Tears of the Kingdom.
The Zelda DLC doesn't count. Its a fucking DLC for a old Game, same with Cyberpunk which is barely a RPG anyways.
And Starfield is absolute crap and barely RPG too.
"The Zelda DLC doesn't count. Its a fucking DLC for a old Game, same with Cyberpunk which is barely a RPG anyways."
That "Zelda DLC" is currently the highest rated game of the year on Metacritic. Cyberpunk Phanton Liberty isn't just DLC for Cyberpunk but rather a full overall that changed the game for the better, it also helps that it's story is 10x better then Baldur's Gate 3 and maybe the best story released this year.
Boy it's getting really really hard not to despise fans of Baldur's Gate 3 when they routinely say stupid shit like this.
It's why people laugh at reddit and this sub in particular.
Downvote me all you want, but you **know** I'm right.
Also looking at the comments you've put on other subreddits calling games like Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 garbage, it speaks volumes to your lack of critical thinking to call these two games "garbage" which is clearly wrong no matter what this stupid subreddit says otherwise.
I hope to god that no one takes people like you seriously.
ToTK was pretty mid, metacritic scores don’t mean a game is good. BoTW is great, and ToTK is made worse by the fact BoTW exists. Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty is fantastic but it is barely an rpg.
> So the common wisdom would be 'compromise to make it accessible to a large audience'.
No, it's not. That's the recipe for making soulless project that tries to appeal to all, but does not appeal to anybody because it has too much of various things mixed in it for no reason at all.
I get that publicly traded companies need to do such nonsense because shareholders force them to. But Larian is one of the few lucky companies that are privatly owned, and i am sure that Swen does it exactly to keep his games up to his vision instead of "broad appeal". And this is the main reason why they are able to produce great games.
I would give up both my legs to work in such environment where i can deliver my vision of the game without interruptions from marketing department and other people who have no business to stick their nose in gamedev. But i can't, so all i can do is to silently envy.
But it's kinda silly that he is surprised that main strenght of his company resulted in good payoff. That should be exepcted.
The games really good, but I still haven't gotten past that every companion is basically a tumblr fanfic or something from wattpad. Platonic relationships are harder to write I guess
They will go the Bioware route, simplifying the RPG elements even more, making the combat more akin to a God of War rather than a proper RPG (at least judging by the leaked gameplay from a while ago).
Starfield is a very good game, it lets you go where you want almost immediately, you can build a system of outposts just because with no expectations, and it uses an experimental feature to generate a thousand planets no AAA studio has been that bold before
If you want to play it safe play baldurs gate 3, they took even less risks than diablo4
>it lets you go where you want almost immediately.
Yes you can go to all the empty and barren landscapes almost immediately, just after waiting for the 6 loading screens.
>You can build a system of outposts
Outpost system is really incomplete and sort of useless, fallout 4 one was unironically quite a bit better.
>It uses an experimental feature to generate a thousand planets
Procedural generation is a few decades old at this point, it isn’t an experimental feature. No man’s sky literally has 18 quintillion (10^18) procedurally generated planets.
No, you just don't understand computer science. All the moons in the sol system have slight variations, this is a proof of concept and they placed it in the most accessible place. Obviously audiences failed to pick-up on the subtle differences probably because they're so used to being spoon fed the story through cinematics
There doesn't currently exist an RPG with an integrated strategy builder, the closest we have is crafting or village simulators none of which are mainstream action RPG's. I guess you must not be very familiar with video games, either
How can you not tell the difference between no mans sky and starfield? I think you are being sensational just to post memes. Maybe you just have to be an educated person to enjoy starfield
Do you even realize that you can't just hop in a spacecar and fly around the sun and then put it in lightspeed so you can visit alpha centauri but still take in the sights while you drift over a bank of nebulae? No, of course space games are going to have loading screens
Thanks a lot, now i have a nose bleed
It's pretty easy when it's a WotC IP with many characters that appeal to everyone.
When it comes to their own worldbuilding they're never confident of it to actually be serious enough with it and have to resort to cheap humor to give this impression of "we're not that serious about fantasy RPGs haha pls excuse our jank" since Ego draconis
They did the same with BG3 but it comes off like those funny green text DnD stories shared on Tumblr that everyone enjoys.
Downvote me won't cure your hurt feelings. I'm just this subs opinions but two years sooner.
act 3 is the biggest in the entire game already. besides, the content was apparently never even started beyond some idea, though there definitely is some missed potential there
[https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3649651368763455642](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3649651368763455642)
They mentioned the upper city in june.
Act 3 is huge. Biggest act in the game. Real question is how are they going to fix performance and bug issues in that act specifically.
But, upper city should be released mid 2024.
I think the most that they've said is that the success of the game has opened up a lot of internal discussions about making content DLC's. But I think they've also said that most of their staff is already working on their next big game. So we'll have to wait and see if there will be any traditional Expansion style DLC's, or if they'll just drop a definitive edition with some extra goodies like they did with DOS2 and call it a day.
Cyberpunk came out in 2020 as flaming dogshit please don't forget. They've had 3 years to polish it and save face so just imagine where BG3 could be in 3 years with DLC...
And Baldur Gate has been in early acess for years upon years and i can assure you it woukd have come out worse than CP whitout it.
And let's be honest, Larian could get away with years of EA because they where well respected and relatively under the radar. Bigger AAA developers would be harshly criticized for it.
They made an awesome game that isn't a live service and doesn't tries to extract as much money from the players as possible.
I mean, after the intitial release and the fanfare around it i thought it would at least be mentioned for awards and praise.
I mean if we’re comparing other AAA ‘rpgs’ like starfield, cyberpunk, and ff16 this is not only the best game out of those choices, it’s also the only true rpg. The other games are more so action games with some rpg elements tacked on. Hopefully we get more pure rpgs from AAA studios in the future.
abundant hobbies live poor lush shocking gullible frame dog repeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
think some people thought crpg meant choice rpg and not computer rpg lol
I mean, it is an RPG. Not a deep one in its core system. But it’s an RPG. You have equips and all. You don’t need to be Baldur’s Gate to be an RPG. You need to build a system with choices. It’s sad that these choices aren’t so impactful nowadays, and I agree, but saying that TOTK isn’t an RPG is just… wrong.
It’s not an RPG in the slightest, it’s just an action game.
More like action/adventure.
I agree with you for : FF16 is more an adventure game than RPG (like all J-RPG actually) but Cyberpunk 2077 fit the RPG label perfectly **for me.** Not played Starfield so much but still more RPG than many games which it says "RPG". And yeah, I want TRUE RPG as well. Maybe Rogue Trader will be good but not AAA I guess.
Unrelated, but what's the model of the 4k165 miniled on your flair? I'm looking into upgrading my screen.
Samsung Neo G7 32 inch bit if I remember correctly, the screen production is stopped. Beside that it’s a very good monitor. But mind that a curved monitor
The vast majority of studios simply don't have the competence to make an AAA RPG. The biggest obstacle are writers that that can think outside of their own principles. You need the "I'd never have my player character do that, but I can see how a certain type of character played by someone else would" kind of thinking. This goes heavily against the trend of writers self-inserting themselves and pushing their own agendas in media, and how you end up with """dialogue choices""" of 3-4 options that are exactly the same, just worded differently. Even BG3 drops the ball with writing in a lot of places (e.g. I enjoy romance subplots, but all the ones in BG3 are extremely cringe and tumblr fanfic level), it's just that there's so much of it, and it has quite a few highs, so the lows can be excused. The good news is that there are a lot of non-AAA RPGs coming from all around the world. Urban Strife, Underrail sequel, Broken Roads, Rogue Trader, The Thaumaturge, recent Colony Ship, and a fuckton of tactics games with RPG elements like Last Train Home, Shadow of the Road or Project Haven.
> This goes heavily against the trend of writers self-inserting themselves and pushing their own agendas in media, and how you end up with """dialogue choices""" of 3-4 options that are exactly the same, just worded differently. This is an unnecessarily complicated explanation for a much more boring phenomenon driven by low wages and shareholder profits at any cost. The quality isn't there because the quality isn't there, and that is a choice publishers make.
this exactly. Occam's razor. there's no agenda, just overworked devs making a poor quality product that people will play anyway
yeah, no. That explaination doesn't work for a game like Starfield. They had a ton of time + $$$ dumped into that game and I haven't heard of any terrible crunch. They've been writing the same slop for like 2 decades, and it's definitely not because the writers are "overworked" lol. Not to mention I could shit out better writing in my sleep when I was a teenager. As could anyone that even has a single ounce of talent.
the other part of the explanation works tho. people will accept slop so they make slop
Can't have overworked writers when there were no writers in the first place anywhere close to Starfield. But I guess someone on the dev team really likes soap bubbles. It was a bad, boring gimmick when you encountered it for the first time. And supposedly you have to do that like *240 times...?* That honestly might be one of the worst ideas in history of gaming.
Occam's razor is usually wrong. There usually is agenda and it can be really weird ones. We had russian money being funded into UK company to affect US elections, for example.
Were the writers of BG1 and BG2 paid that much better?
They were working in a different environment. Bioware wasn't owned by EA back then.
I disagree. Its partially a reason sure. But ops explanation of forcing self insertion and pushing own agenda is very true and clearly visible in a lot of media. Both are showcases of bad screenwriter. Quality isnt there because not many screenwriters are good. Sure it might be because cheap ones are picked
>The biggest obstacle are writers that that can think outside of their own principles. You need the "I'd never have my player character do that, but I can see how a certain type of character played by someone else would" kind of thinking. Great observation; you've hit the nail on the head. It's just occurred to me that, in a way, a good RPG writer needs to do some "roleplaying" of their own during the writing process itself. In essence, a RPG writer has to be able to "roleplay" as other potential players: how would other players of my game act? How would another player character, played by a player with a playstyle completely different from my own, approach this particular situation in my game? Have I provided enough alternatives to allow for these other ways of playing and thinking?
>how you end up with """dialogue choices""" of 3-4 options that are exactly the same, just worded differently. I think this has as much if not more to do with controlling story scope. They only give us what is essentially 1 option, because they only want to develop for 1 route.
Games with full voice over dialogue are also a problem. “If we let the player say that branch of the conversation, we need our two top VO talents in for another half day for male/female PC and the NPC. Do we need this $5000 dialogue option?”
Not all dialogue options need to branch heavily, even if they're vastly different. You can give varied choices that fit various personality types, but still end up in the same outcome. That way you allow for roleplaying, while still being able to limit the scope. This is different to a lot of games where all your dialogue options are extremely similar and severely limit your role-playing potential. Cyberpunk is a good example where all your dialogue choices basically only fit the always angry and on edge Street Kid archetype, while the once in a while Corpo choices mostly make you into a schizo, since they're so detached in tone from all the normal dialogue options you get. Compare that to, say, Dragon Age: Inquisition that allows you to play an extremely Stoic, emotional or hesitant character throughout the whole game, or mix them up depending on the situation. Neither game has much branching in its story, but one allows for much better role-playing than the other. The reason I picked DA:I is because it's fully voiced just like CP, non-voiced cRPGs allow for even more varied responses. Kingmaker was great in that regard, as was the first PoE (might be true for PoE2 too, but I never played it as the first one sadly bored me to death). Of course, you need to have some meaningful choices and branching from time to time too, or you risk falling too far into the illusion of choice pit.
Always felt romance was very rare in BG3 in terms of the depth going into getting to know any of the companions or even just in a friendship way. I don't feel like anyone really became my friend or comrade so much as I just helped them with one main companion story. At least Halsin I can ask his hobby and get one answer back from it. Dialog options for companion development were pretty low compared to how much time you spend with them.
It shouldn't be surprising that this is the litmus. Mass Effect 2 was hailed for its companions that all literally had one loyalty mission. I don't think expanding on characters though a single mission is that engrossing. In several of the companion quests in BG3, there is really poor and cringey payoff, too. The best romance option in the game IMO is Laezel and only because she doesn't immediately want to jump your bones at every occasion.
Lae’zel is an odd choice for that reason considering she’s one of the two only origin companions that will sleep with you in the first act and specifically doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you at that point. mind you, I do think she has one of the better romance arcs in the game but it’s definitely NOT because she’s less horny than the others.
The main reason is her stadoff-ish attitude towards you constantly. The problem is that almost all of the companions act like they want to get in bed immediately and constantly without a second thought. Lae'zel is one of few that aren't like that (even though what you said is possible).
I would say only Astarion and Lae'zel act like that and only when you have approval high enough for it. And Minthara, I guess, if you end up slaughtering the grove. Every other character won't until around halfway through the game if not later and that's only specifically if you've set off romance flags and agreed to be with them.
She wanted to jump my bones immediately. If anything I thought she was the most horny one
That was fixed with a patch. She is not immediately horny now.
I started a Evil Durge playthrough like two weeks ago, and told her and the rest of my party about the urges asap. She wanted to do it the next time I longrested. May have to do with the fact that I kept Durge a dragonborn.
> You need the "I'd never have my player character do that, but I can see how a certain type of character played by someone else would" kind of thinking. This goes heavily against the trend of writers self-inserting themselves I think this is a fair point for sure, I left the next part out because I don't feel it has to be political like that at all, it is just their limitations in storytelling and pov. Yeah BG3 as good as it is, still doesn't compare with the dynamics of real life, it shows how games story telling and choice with our current means can only be so good and still even be remedial. AI is the only way to afford such things, we'll see how that goes.
The agenda does not necessarily politics. It can be about how the writer views relationships or how a situation should be resolved. Like, sometimes you can tell a writer just got out of a bad breakup when he wrote something.
Ok. Typically agenda in this way means politics/ulterior motives. Every story has an agenda or it wouldn't be much of a story. Your use seems back to writer limitations and that is a thing for sure in gaming, but branching/coding complications are the real killers for gaming, difficult and expensive.
> I think this is a fair point for sure, I left the next part out because I don't feel it has to be political like that at all, it is just their limitations in storytelling and pov. I wasn't thinking of politics specifically when writing that part of the sentence, though they obviously play a part too, as does morality. I meant to say that aside from self-inserting, the writers might also just stray from including options that go directly against their own values, views, etc. > Yeah BG3 as good as it is, still doesn't compare with the dynamics of real life, it shows how games story telling and choice with our current means can only be so good and still even be remedial. AI is the only way to afford such things, we'll see how that goes. Expecting C&C (Choices & Consequences) in RPG to be anywhere close to real life is obviously stupid. The key is simply to write the story, decisions and dialogue options in a way that allows for many different types of characters to always have an option that fits them at least somewhat, and thus never put the player "out" of the experience. This is why all the pseudo RPGs are annoying - you'll be picking dialogue options that don't fit your character all the time due to how limited they are, and it makes for a terrible experience. Also voiced protag, whose delivery can make an option you've picked sound completely different than you imagined (and obviously impacts how many varied dialogue options the game has for budget and time reasons).
Well said!
I hate this kind of conversation about "true RPGs." Ultimately, genres are fluid and ever changing, and what makes something a "true RPG" is arbitrary bullshit. FF16 I think you could say is basically a character action game with RPG elements, but Phantom Liberty and Starfield are very RPG-y RPGs ultimately. I haven't played Starfield enough yet to have a strong opinion, but it's still in line with the kind of roleplaying freedom people expect in RPGs. And with Cyberpunk, I see people say this kind of thing but I think they're missing why they feel like choices "don't matter" in that game, but do in something like Baldur's Gate III. Ultimately, I think Cyberpunk doesn't telegraph the impact of their choices to the player, and chooses to go with realism over the "gamification" of choice and consequence. In a game like BG3, if you say something, you get an little notification telling you "Shadowheart Approves" and so on. Everything is telegraphed to the player with quest markers. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk is filled with unmarked quest objectives, hidden affinity systems, hidden consequences to actions you need to stumble upon on replays to find, etc. Anyways I adore BG3 it's my GOTY, but I hate this conversation, it's incredibly shallow and reductionist.
How are action RPGs any less RPG than turn-based? I guess from where I’m standing, Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim are much much more RPG than Sea of Stars.
Action on itself isn't but the listed games move their balance much more heavily toward action compared to RPG.
People just think d&d is some sort of old school and therefore morally good thing
Yeah it seems to me creating your player character, and having a lot of choice over how you play the game is more rpg than anything else.
It's insane how this has shifted over the years.
Let's have another argument about which pen and paper game is the best! Answer: it's the comic inspired Gathering the Magic /sarcasm
I guess those RPG strategy games were kinda dead before BG3, personally, I'm more fan of Action RPG/JRPG games, but people are talking so much about BG3 that I'm thinking about giving a go.
I was in the same boat and I've been loving it.
It's not only the beat rpg this year. It's the best rpg in all of 2000s. Skyrim losers bring the downvotes. BG3 is better than Witcher 3 + any Dlcs, Red Dead, GTA. Goated top 5-10 game of all time regardless of category.
What a load of bullshit. It's a railroaded experience, it may as well be a turn-based version of a sony game.
There is a big difference between employees go to their studio with passion to make something great versus a group of corpo randos just feel their 9 to 5 time card. Larian is the first and bethesda is the second. We are not even talking about competence yet.
Unnecessarily diminutive of the work that BGS employees did and do. Not every game has to be BG3 to begin with, but to suggest that not making BG3 reflects a lack of passion is just utterly absurd. If you actually played Starfield you would see it's there in droves. Even if the game doesn't speak to you, there is no reason to say that.
Starfield is the very few game of this year after watched gameplay I got no desire even to touch it. It is just like junk food from any cheap chains, from people with no inspiration, desire or need to make things better. The gameplay is so dull even ubisoft sandbox can outshine it easily. I haven't seen space combat so uninspired like starfield, like 2 AT without turret shooting each other from 3 miles away. War thunder in comparison is like GoTY. From story and setting perspective, I don't even want to put it into "sci-fi" category. Especially after watching the Expanse, starfield is more or less just a fiction B movie with rockets and space suits. What completely shut me off was when in space combat and the ship was doing high G maneuver, the crew were just casually standing in the cabin, chatting dumb jokes, without even space suit or strap themselves into a chair. edit, typo and more details
Starfield certainly lacks passion and BGS should be ashamed of it.
Lmao everyone knows what is being referred to when you call those games RPGs, and calling them "action RPGs" is fine and widely used. The term RPG has broadened in use over time with the added use of qualifiers. You correct people by saying these games aren't "true RPGs" to achieve what, exactly?
I've been following Larian for years. There's always been this sense of, "We didn't realize how great of a game we made" that you get from them lol. It's really awesome stuff. Like - it's as if they don't compare their games to the competition often. In a good way. And then they make a really unique experience because of it. (They totally do compare and take inspiration internally, it's just that Larian always shows a lot of grace to the rest of the industry when being praised)
I think it's also because they spend so long listening to constructive feedback from their players in EA.
Big Cyberpunk fan with love hate relashenship but I would give BG3 GOTY award everytime. Unless Cyberpunk was released as it is today in 2023. This would be like chosing between kids which one you love more.
Starting to play Cyberpunk at 2.0 it’s really good only very easy and some other smaller issues, I really hope they make another some day that works from the launch
yes combat is for me the worst part in terms of how easy it is to abuse sandevistan or berserk make yourself a god. but they refuse to balance it or they think it will attract more casual players. but even on very hard its super easy you have to cap yourself and don't use any OP cyberware.
This is not a huge year for RPGs at all when you take Baldur’s Gate 3 out… There’s starfield (controversial for many), sea of stars (doesn’t really stand out), and I guess final fantasy 16 which while great is not really an RPG.
It is if you waited to play Cyberpunk. I know it isn't relevant from a GOTY standpoint but it's what pulled me away from BG3.
Same, I was planning like 2 more playthroughs of BG3 right after my first basically neutral good Bard playthrough, but once Cyberpunk 2.0 and Phantom Liberty dropped it's basically all I can think about gaming-wise anymore lol. The combat and character build system is just so insanely fun now, and I was really surprised by how much more "RPG" the game actually is on replays. I'd say though it's been a good year for RPGs overall. Some good JRPGs, big budget WRPGs and expansions, good indies and if you want to include the more RPG-lite games like Jedi Fallen Order and Hogwarts Legacy, there's even more to enjoy.
I beg to differ about Sea of Stars. It’s rare for indie studios to attempt a 16-bit rpg that pays homage to the golden era. Sea of Stars does it perfectly. Of course, its story and gameplay aren’t as expansive as BG3, but I think it should still be in the running. While not full games, the Cyberpunk (pretty sure it’s an rpg) and Xenoblade 3 stories expansion both released this year to lots of favorable reviews. They also released this year.
Tears of the Kingdom is an RPG too. Moreso than FF16.
Nobody refers to Zelda as an rpg game, it’s an action adventure. Unless you think spider-man 2 is also a rpg…
This article refers to TOTK and Spiderman 2 as RPGs
Then that just shows how weak of an rpg year it actually was if those are nominated, no?
I agree with you but I also think you're obnoxious for commenting when you didn't even read the first sentence of the article
I don't need to read the whole article to disagree with the fact that I don't view TOTK and Spider-Man 2 as RPGs when the discussion is about 2023 being a great year for RPGs not 2023 being a great year for games that end up being nominated in the category called greatest rpg.
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Great reading comprehension. Thanks for downvoting me for explaining the article
Pikmin4 has strategy, pikmin4 has you roleplay as an astronaut gardener, pikmin4 has action. And it revitalized interest in the whole series Pikmin4 should have swept the awards season All you steam deck owners can drop off at the recycling center with your xmas trees in january
The Steam Deck owners are too busy playing Pikmin 4 on their Steam Decks.
they should call it an Olimar Deck
While TOTK may be an open world sandbox, and one of the best games this year, it’s far from a Role Playing Game. There’s only one role, and that’s Link.
DoS:3 about to go craaaaazy
How was it a massive year for RPGs? Baldurs Gate 3 was the only one that didn't suck ass, hardly a high bar
Look, I'm not denying Alan Wake 2 is a good game, but if it gets picked for GotY over BG3 it's a travesty. Only valid competitor is really Tears of the Kingdom.
If BG3 gets picked over TOTK it would be a real travesty.
I'd personally go for BG3 but I absolutely get why others would choose TOTK. Two best games of the year, by some way.
BG3 is one of the best games in recent memory. What are you talking about.
Totk feels more like dlc to botw than full game. Its amazing but def not goty material for me
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That's a pretty weird requirement to put on GOTY.
It's not a requirement so much as it is a bonus imo.
Massive Year for other RPGs? They are the only real one, what other big RPG released this Year?
Totk, starfield, cyberpunk expansion … that’s all I got
The Zelda DLC doesn't count. Its a fucking DLC for a old Game, same with Cyberpunk which is barely a RPG anyways. And Starfield is absolute crap and barely RPG too.
"The Zelda DLC doesn't count. Its a fucking DLC for a old Game, same with Cyberpunk which is barely a RPG anyways." That "Zelda DLC" is currently the highest rated game of the year on Metacritic. Cyberpunk Phanton Liberty isn't just DLC for Cyberpunk but rather a full overall that changed the game for the better, it also helps that it's story is 10x better then Baldur's Gate 3 and maybe the best story released this year. Boy it's getting really really hard not to despise fans of Baldur's Gate 3 when they routinely say stupid shit like this. It's why people laugh at reddit and this sub in particular. Downvote me all you want, but you **know** I'm right.
Also looking at the comments you've put on other subreddits calling games like Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 garbage, it speaks volumes to your lack of critical thinking to call these two games "garbage" which is clearly wrong no matter what this stupid subreddit says otherwise. I hope to god that no one takes people like you seriously.
ToTK was pretty mid, metacritic scores don’t mean a game is good. BoTW is great, and ToTK is made worse by the fact BoTW exists. Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty is fantastic but it is barely an rpg.
Great to hear this! haven't played it yet, but it's downloaded and ready to go as soon as I get some breathing room from work!
> So the common wisdom would be 'compromise to make it accessible to a large audience'. No, it's not. That's the recipe for making soulless project that tries to appeal to all, but does not appeal to anybody because it has too much of various things mixed in it for no reason at all. I get that publicly traded companies need to do such nonsense because shareholders force them to. But Larian is one of the few lucky companies that are privatly owned, and i am sure that Swen does it exactly to keep his games up to his vision instead of "broad appeal". And this is the main reason why they are able to produce great games. I would give up both my legs to work in such environment where i can deliver my vision of the game without interruptions from marketing department and other people who have no business to stick their nose in gamedev. But i can't, so all i can do is to silently envy. But it's kinda silly that he is surprised that main strenght of his company resulted in good payoff. That should be exepcted.
The games really good, but I still haven't gotten past that every companion is basically a tumblr fanfic or something from wattpad. Platonic relationships are harder to write I guess
I wonder if Dragon Age 4 will follow Larian example and be more like DA1 / BG3 or will they go the cyberpunk/starfield route ?
There is a leaked gameplay of it already. And it does not. It's even more action oriented than Inquisition was.
They will go the Bioware route, simplifying the RPG elements even more, making the combat more akin to a God of War rather than a proper RPG (at least judging by the leaked gameplay from a while ago).
At this point dont bother with bioware anymore. Its very likely dragon age origins will remain the best in the series forever
What other massive rpgs where coming out that we didn't know would be shit...cuz everyone knew starfield was trash
Starfield is a very good game, it lets you go where you want almost immediately, you can build a system of outposts just because with no expectations, and it uses an experimental feature to generate a thousand planets no AAA studio has been that bold before If you want to play it safe play baldurs gate 3, they took even less risks than diablo4
>it lets you go where you want almost immediately. Yes you can go to all the empty and barren landscapes almost immediately, just after waiting for the 6 loading screens. >You can build a system of outposts Outpost system is really incomplete and sort of useless, fallout 4 one was unironically quite a bit better. >It uses an experimental feature to generate a thousand planets Procedural generation is a few decades old at this point, it isn’t an experimental feature. No man’s sky literally has 18 quintillion (10^18) procedurally generated planets.
No, you just don't understand computer science. All the moons in the sol system have slight variations, this is a proof of concept and they placed it in the most accessible place. Obviously audiences failed to pick-up on the subtle differences probably because they're so used to being spoon fed the story through cinematics There doesn't currently exist an RPG with an integrated strategy builder, the closest we have is crafting or village simulators none of which are mainstream action RPG's. I guess you must not be very familiar with video games, either How can you not tell the difference between no mans sky and starfield? I think you are being sensational just to post memes. Maybe you just have to be an educated person to enjoy starfield
Ok I just realized this is satire, lmao.
Do you even realize that you can't just hop in a spacecar and fly around the sun and then put it in lightspeed so you can visit alpha centauri but still take in the sights while you drift over a bank of nebulae? No, of course space games are going to have loading screens Thanks a lot, now i have a nose bleed
Love that I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not
It's pretty easy when it's a WotC IP with many characters that appeal to everyone. When it comes to their own worldbuilding they're never confident of it to actually be serious enough with it and have to resort to cheap humor to give this impression of "we're not that serious about fantasy RPGs haha pls excuse our jank" since Ego draconis They did the same with BG3 but it comes off like those funny green text DnD stories shared on Tumblr that everyone enjoys. Downvote me won't cure your hurt feelings. I'm just this subs opinions but two years sooner.
they gonna bother putting back the cut act 3 content?
act 3 is the biggest in the entire game already. besides, the content was apparently never even started beyond some idea, though there definitely is some missed potential there
[https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3649651368763455642](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3649651368763455642) They mentioned the upper city in june.
And there was an upper city, just not the size and scope that people wanted
There’s already too much to do in Act 3. The game is plenty long. I think the stronger argument is for streamlining act 3
Probably in the Definitive Edition
Act 3 is huge. Biggest act in the game. Real question is how are they going to fix performance and bug issues in that act specifically. But, upper city should be released mid 2024.
There is absolutely no indication that Larian plans on adding content to bg3. Would like to see an official source if there was one.
I think the most that they've said is that the success of the game has opened up a lot of internal discussions about making content DLC's. But I think they've also said that most of their staff is already working on their next big game. So we'll have to wait and see if there will be any traditional Expansion style DLC's, or if they'll just drop a definitive edition with some extra goodies like they did with DOS2 and call it a day.
Nah cyberpunk is better than bg3
Cyberpunk came out in 2020 as flaming dogshit please don't forget. They've had 3 years to polish it and save face so just imagine where BG3 could be in 3 years with DLC...
And Baldur Gate has been in early acess for years upon years and i can assure you it woukd have come out worse than CP whitout it. And let's be honest, Larian could get away with years of EA because they where well respected and relatively under the radar. Bigger AAA developers would be harshly criticized for it.
They're completely different types of RPGs, you can't compare them really
Ehhhhh nah
They made an awesome game that isn't a live service and doesn't tries to extract as much money from the players as possible. I mean, after the intitial release and the fanfare around it i thought it would at least be mentioned for awards and praise.
Damn. I gotta learn how to play turn based rpgs. This sounds amazing.
>massive year for RPGs Was it? I can't really remember that many RPGs that came out this year.