Greedfall

I'm enjoying playing a mage in Greedfall way more than I  ever did in DAI, that's for sure.

All these people saying Spiders is a rival of Bioware for a variety of reasons.

There is very little dialogue control of your very fixed personality Diplomatic protaganist. It's like, if you were locked into "Diplomatic Hawke" only with occasional Special (marked by star in DA2) dialogue options such as Charisma and Threaten as a way to resolve a long trunk of auto dialogue. This is usually what has set Bioware games apart from every other game that is within the same Genre.

Spiders does NOT have this. It has never had this. It DOES have things Bioware titles no longer seem to have, such as Charisma checks. multiple options of flirting that don't always go over well with your companions. Factions that matter to the end game.

Another thing that Bioware has that no other company can approach is continuity between titles (edit clarity: specifically continuity of player choice) in spite of the small to large decisions you are allowed to make. Spiders is not going to make a sequel to Greedfall- that's why it can have such different endings. Just like DAO had different endings when they had no clue they were starting a Franchise. And why some people are still grouching because Cullen didn't KAmikaze a tower come DA2/DAI or the Dalish didn't get their lands like their DAO slides said.

Spiders is NOT Bioware. And that's okay and gives them some freedom to be different and unique in other ways.

I am enjoying the title and could see myself playing at least one more time. But I'm only 16 hours in. It is worth the money I paid for it.

Who said GreedFall won't have a sequel? Spiders have made games in the same setting before (Technomancer is a prequel to Mars War Logs). But it might not be made by Spiders because Big Ben now owns them and it's unknown who owns the IP between Spiders and Focus. Maybe Focus will make a sequel if it is popular enough.

Also, it wouldn't be the first game to have various game endings and not let you import them in a sequel if they go that way.

Sure, but by the standards of a good game it lacks due to archaic design.

If were being objective to the games qualities, it's at best a 5 or 6 score. A passing C, maybe C+.

It really puts into perspective what we were ok with then, versus now in some ways. But as I said, it's likely going go get rated higher because it does scratch that nostalgic itch.

No microtransactions and live services And how dare they sell a full game, without the need to finish the story in paid DLCs? Outrage! Besides, story focused games are so mid 2000s, amirite? We need empty open worlds now, so we can pick as much elfroot as we can...and not much else.

Only recycled environment I've found so far is the Governors' halls in each city. Which is admittedly weird, and also disappointing considering how impressively distinct the settlements look otherwise. Like there's some kind of international Ikea standard for town halls and throne rooms.

I've also never been particularly interested in telling companion NPCs which boot fits on which foot. I always outfit them and develop their skills according to what I imagine their writers would have preferred anyway.

Aside from that your issues are either so vague that I have no idea what you're referring to, your complaint seems dead wrong to me, or I've never played an RPG that didn't have the same problem. 

It's clear that you're trying to make some kind of high-minded and dismissive observation about the genre, but you'll have to be more specific if you want anyone to take it seriously. Or just take a deep breath and say exactly what you find insufficient about the game to get it out of your system, like everyone else.

Who cares? I just wanna play games I like. In the end "objective analysis" really means very little when compared to personal preference. Mass Effect 1 would be considered a 5 or a 6 at best by mainstream "standards" today. Still prefer it to any of its successors. Every game has its pros and cons, its all a matter of those pros and cons lining up with what you want from the game. 

Plus, your posts seem to suggest that today's games lack serious flaws, and that players really shouldn't prefer games from ten years ago unless driven by nostalgia. 

Hey Syv, I don't want to sound critical or petty or whatever I just truly am trying to get an understanding that I appear to be missing but can you give me an example of the "true investigations" in the game.

I am just not sure what you (and others) mean as nothing so far has stood out as anything different to any other games I have played lately in that regard. In AC Odyssey there were many quests that I would consider were far superior in terms of having to investigate things in a quest and those particular quests being far superior in nearly every regard except for some perhaps in story quality.

I just did the ancient ruins quest and if that is an example, I would call finding a cog and repairing it to get through a gate then wandering a map with pre-marked magnifying glass markers not a true investigation quest. I just really get the sense people are over hyping some of the stuff in this game and justifying it through a prism of it's a "AA" game.

Again using Odyssey as a basis, the interactions with some of the main NPC's such as Phoibe, Sokrates, Herodutus, Barnabas etc. by the end of the game I genuinely felt for those characters and theirs fates often left me quite emotional. I get nothing like that (yet) from any of the NPC's in this game.

Maybe I have become jaded or cynical or something but for me whilst I have started enjoying the game more, I feel like I am missing something compared to others comments about it.

I like how you assume archaic means it's only a negative...

I'm a bit busy but real quick on progression as an example, by level 16 I had 4 charisma thanks to 3 points in the attributes, plus 1 from a Cape. For most of the game now it is impossible for me to fail charisma checks, which in turn makes intuition or playing on the loyalty of the companions a pointless choice for quest design.

The system gives you a scattered bit of points but it is pretty easy to game thanks to how the internal mechanics work. Finding extra skill points on each map is a massive advantage for example, the skill system is also exploitable via the respawning enemies, which is something bioware rarely did. Its fluid enough where you can if you want, grind all the way to level 99 before doing the main quests which a decked out character.

I've also found that vigor and lockpicking are less important abilities compared to science and charisma, which with the crafting system and the abundance of resources available from Harvesting enemies and mushrooms you can make potions up the wazoo for nit only money, but for use to tackle enemies and bosses.

The progression is frankly broken by being virtually non existant because the main plot stands still. The game loses all challenge by level 16 for me. The only time I died has been the arena challenge so far.

That is just one example of what I mean.

Moreso dismissive of the hype people employ, over the hypocrisy we have over the deficiencies if the genre.

My review will be much more detailed when I write it, suffice to say the complaints I have are mechanical and pacing overall and it drags the game down. This is a spider's game 100% in that regard though.

Thankfully it's the first spiders game where I feel the passion behind the project. They finally got me there, it's why I'll rate it highly.

Well, generally speaking, people don't use the term "archaic" as a compliment 

RE: your charisma example.  There are checks where even with a maxxed-out charisma, success isn't a certainty.  You'd have been better off pointing out you can save scum such attempts if one were so inclined.  In addition, by maxxing your charisma early, you are missing out on vigor, which can get you to areas otherwise difficult to access, lockpicking for extra loot, intuition for other dialogue checks, etc.  

If someone seriously wants to grind all the way to level 99, I say they are welcome to it.  Most of us would probably rather experience the story.  

I haven't used lockpicking or vigor much, but I have found areas I couldn't access due to lack of vigor and have had to find alternate routes.  Also, while I put a single point in science, I find myself not using it much once I started getting healing abilities, but that's just because of my preferred spec.  

I'm not sure what you mean by the story stands still.  Are you saying there should be more timed quests?  

I feel loved by all.