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Post by linksocarina on Mar 30, 2019 16:32:57 GMT
I don't watch TV anymore so I think I will be ok. But I can say this does depend on whether or not you believe objective quality exists in forms of pop culture and media. Objectively, for example, one of the best selling franchises of all time is Call of Duty, it routinely gets good scores, has millions of people playing them at a time, and is responsible for making FPS multiplayer more mainstream along with Halo. Is it objectively a good game by that metric? We can weigh merits to that but the only aspects that we can say are wholly objective; it runs, it got good scores from critics, its played a lot and so on, but that doesn't match the arguments by folks who are sick of the franchise for whatever subjective reason they think of. It's the same game every year, the story is terrible, its a cash grab by Activision, it stifles creativity; all again valid criticisms as much as is the popularity of what is effectively a "blue collar" game. We can say the same about any form of pop culture. Is legends of tomorrow really that bad? I know friends of mine who watch it religiously along with Flash and Supergirl because they find the narrative to be intriguing and the characters endearing. Are they really objectively bad in that way when they are well produced, possibly well acted and have a following that enjoys them? Objectivity is sort of a myth when it comes to subjective tastes in media I would argue. Objectivity only really comes into play in things like Moral Realism and discussing the ethics of one's life via philosophical discussion or scientific pursuits. When it comes to media the doors are wide open for arbitrary interpretation versus calculating logic, and with that, the abuse by others to prey upon folks as having the "objective truth" on their side. That would be true, if you took yourself to be the norm and everyone else the outlier. Take the MCU for example. Great actors, great directors, fantastic action flicks, high quality cinematography, incredible production values. I've seen films by Kim Ki Duk and Wong Kar Wai that put the MCU to shame ... in certain aspects. Are the movies necessarily better? No. It's a trade off, because there is no perfect film, but through innovation and creative vision, a smaller production can become a great film. Just as well, a huge production can become Suicide Squad. There are things that work and things that don't work. Critics around the world sat down with Anthem in their hands and independently came to the conclusion that what Anthem did, it did not execute as well as it should have and it was an obvious step back from previous Bioware games, even Mass Effect: Andromeda, in this case.
Now, you're gonna ask me about CoD. I don't know enough about CoD, because I don't play CoD. But the CoD people play CoD and maybe Madden/FIFA? I guess there's a overlap in those types of games. I assume. But just because I don't like these types of games, doesn't make them bad games. On the other hand, are CoD reviews a self-fulfilling prophecy? As in "are the people reviewing them biased"? Also, we know for a fact that some review outlets do indeed give out favourable reviews to games in exchange for advertisements, review copies, party invitations etc. Can Activision be doing that for CoD for all reviewers, every year? Maybe. At the same time, though, if you are bringing reviewers into question, you are implying that there is malevolence towards Bioware from reviewers. Which may also be true, but how many of them can drip vitriol towards Bioware to rate Anthem a 59% average on PC? I mean, if you do harbour such hate towards Bioware, mr. reviewer, please, show me where Bioware touched you, I want to know.
And because you mentioned the DC vs MCU argument earlier on and I mentioned Suicide Squad in a negative light, I had fun with Suicide Squad regardless, but it wasn't a great movie, Wonder Woman was fantastic, Aquaman was some of the most fun I've had in a movie in a while, can't wait to see Shazam and Henry Cavill in Man of Steel was simply inspirational to me. Mother fucker saved my life, to be honest. So know, I have no gripes towards either cinematic universe. I enjoy what I like, I can understand when something is bad, I do not let it bias my opinion and will concede to the faults of what I like regardless. However, if I see something is wrong, especially in something I like and want it to get better, you're goddamn right, I'm gonna bitch and moan and kick and scream about it. Especially if I can and have come up with a better way to do it.
But all of that is then creating a justification for belief no? For example, the "favorable reviews to games in exchanges for advertisements" is frankly bullshit as we have only one confirmed instance of that happening (Gerstmann) and a bunch of punditry claiming other examples. The rest is a misinformation that "party invitations = quid pro quo" which it is not. From experience I can tell you that to be the case. But let's entertain the idea for sake of argument. For one, then every game reviewed must come into question because critics are acting not out out of their own subjective tastes of what they are playing, but rather the subjective tastes of their bank accounts. If critics are "bought off" like that, then all critic scores are invalid as a metric of any form of objectivity that you were expressing. Conversely, if critics have a grudge against a studio like you say above, it's the same problem; personal passions of the brand over the quality of the product clouds judgement. This, however, doesn't stop the qualities from being judged subjectively. You are just changing the parameters as to how they can be judged into very narrow lenses in those examples. I agree with you that Call of Duty or FIFA or whatever are not bad games because you don't like them. I also can agree that we can concede faults in game, but is that also not subjectivity of what you believe personally in the game you play? That is individual choice. Hell if Anthem was reviewed with 9s and 10s and considered a GOTY candidate in its current or in some sort of more immaculate state, would that like or dislike really change for anyone in the moment right now? The only thing that is likely is the sides would be flipped, and the other would still be present. Hell, Inquisition is almost emblematic of that.
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Post by jclosed on Mar 30, 2019 16:39:11 GMT
Why keep reading & posting in a "scepticism" thread when the concept of someone being sceptical about something you love gets you so butthurt? Yeah - I am wondering myself why they do that too...
I mean - The thread is very clearly marked as "Skepticism Thread", and the majority of posters here do not "contaminate" the more positive threads because they can use this single thread. So those who are skeptic about the game should be able to post here without being attacked, because there is more than enough room for those that want to sing and praise Anthem and Bioware. Are those people really that butthurt that they cannot bear even the slightest skepticism? If that's the case you could wonder if they maybe deep in their heart know that the skepticism is valid? Are they "fighting to keep up appearances"?
I wonder.....
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Mar 30, 2019 16:44:53 GMT
I mean - The thread is very clearly marked as "Skepticism Thread", and the majority of posters here do not "contaminate" the more positive threads because they can use this single thread. Sorry, but this is not true. Many in this thread are spreading the negativity all over the forum so they aren’t just keeping it in this thread like you say.
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Post by Qui-Gon GlenN7 on Mar 30, 2019 17:05:26 GMT
I mean - The thread is very clearly marked as "Skepticism Thread", and the majority of posters here do not "contaminate" the more positive threads because they can use this single thread. Sorry, but this is not true. Many in this thread are spreading the negativity all over the forum so they aren’t just keeping it in this thread like you say. I post in many threads. I do not post very often in the hug zones. It is a goddamn social discussion forum. Full stop.
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Post by cypherj on Mar 30, 2019 17:08:10 GMT
The Bioware is dead mantra came after they were acquired by EA, and obviously didn't manifest itself back then as every game was solid all the way up to DA2. But DA2 had pretty good writing, it was just a rushed project in other ways. The real drop off in writing quality came with ME3 - mainly the ending, and more recently with Andromeda. To me Andromeda shows a sharp drop in narrative quality. From what I've played of Anthem, the writing is even worse and now gameplay structure has suffered as well. As a concept it's not nearly as fleshed out as past titles and the leaked SP premise shows how lacking it is. So if we compare Anthem to the likes of ME1 or DA:O, I can't see anyone objectively saying they're even close. Whether it's EA or just Bioware themselves, they clearly are not the company they used to be. I just hope the next DA can get them on track again. Not really. The tone and theme changed dramatically in Mass Effect 2 from the first game. I think they tried to go more 'mainstream' to attract more players. Switching from details first story telling to drama first, as an article I read put it.
DA2 was ok story wise though, I agree, just rushed. I suspect they also cut intended content, making the last chapter more railroaded than originally intended. The marketing was cringy though Awesome button! Laidlaw said they were trying to attract COD numbers, I remember. Didn't quite work out unfortunately. DAI was even marketed to COD players via youtube content providers, even though I doubt your average COD fan would touch an RPG with a ten foot pole. Yeah, they tried to change direction and go after more casual, action-oriented gamers in DA2 and ME2. They pretty much streamlined the games in the same fashion. Then, in both ME3 and DA:I they tried to find some happy medium between the first two games in the respective series. Then they starting adding MP and Co-op to the games. They've been planning this change in direction for a while. With better quality obviously. I honestly blame the product management for ME:A and Anthem. Five and six years is enough time to make something better than what we got. If EA was standing over Bioware's shoulders micromanaging the development, which I highly doubt, I'd put the blame all on EA. But if Bioware had poor product management, and EA came in a said you've had enough time, we need to put this out, then Bioware is just as much to blame, if not more.
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Post by Iakus on Mar 30, 2019 17:11:27 GMT
Sorry, but this is not true. Many in this thread are spreading the negativity all over the forum so they aren’t just keeping it in this thread like you say. I post in many threads. I do not post very often in the hug zones. It is a goddamn social discussion forum. Full stop. Theory and practice are two different things...
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Post by SirSourpuss on Mar 30, 2019 17:20:43 GMT
But all of that is then creating a justification for belief no? For example, the "favorable reviews to games in exchanges for advertisements" is frankly bullshit as we have only one confirmed instance of that happening (Gerstmann) and a bunch of punditry claiming other examples. The rest is a misinformation that "party invitations = quid pro quo" which it is not. From experience I can tell you that to be the case. But let's entertain the idea for sake of argument. For one, then every game reviewed must come into question because critics are acting not out out of their own subjective tastes of what they are playing, but rather the subjective tastes of their bank accounts. If critics are "bought off" like that, then all critic scores are invalid as a metric of any form of objectivity that you were expressing. Conversely, if critics have a grudge against a studio like you say above, it's the same problem; personal passions of the brand over the quality of the product clouds judgement. This, however, doesn't stop the qualities from being judged subjectively. You are just changing the parameters as to how they can be judged into very narrow lenses in those examples. I agree with you that Call of Duty or FIFA or whatever are not bad games because you don't like them. I also can agree that we can concede faults in game, but is that also not subjectivity of what you believe personally in the game you play? That is individual choice. Hell if Anthem was reviewed with 9s and 10s and considered a GOTY candidate in its current or in some sort of more immaculate state, would that like or dislike really change for anyone in the moment right now? The only thing that is likely is the sides would be flipped, and the other would still be present. Hell, Inquisition is almost emblematic of that. If I made it sound like I implied all gaming reviews for CoD or FIFA or Madden etc. are bought, that was not my intention. In fact, I am on the opposite spectrum, I do believe that these games, for what they are trying to do, are good. This has nothing to do with the games' success. I'd argue that they are made to appeal to the widest demographics possible, but that doesn't prevent them from being well made. And there is a series of factors that make them good for what they are. Whether you or I agree with it, CoD hits the spot, it nails it in the head and then some. Or so it seems to me, from the outside looking in. The problem here lies with considering oneself as the mean, by which everything is judged. And it is true that not everyone can be impartial and not everyone is the proper fit to review a game. I cannot review a CoD, because I don't know what makes a good shooter. But I played ME1-3 and Andromeda, shooters every one of them and had more fun with some of them than the others. It's not that I don't or won't play a shooter, but I want something more than a regular shooter will offer. But that's not a very good shooter then, is it? You'd think one would play a shooter to shoot things, right? I play Bioware games because they offer more than a video game experience. I think that's what everyone plays them for and what they expect. But if the experience isn't up to snuff, then yeah, there are better shooters out there.
Like I said before, you can have an artsy film that's good and a blockbuster movie that's good. Doesn't mean these two movies share much in common, but can both be good at offering different experiences. Or a low budget action film that provides what a blockbuster action flick does, but with a twist and it transcends its status. In all cases, though, you need to have an understanding of the medium, to be able to consume and judge based on merits. While true objectivity can't be reached, that is impossible, trying to be as impartial as possible is part of the job of being a reviewer. Because regardless of your subjective taste, there are other people that are going to look to you, to know if those $60 are worth spending on that title. And to me and you, maybe $60 isn't a problem? But to someone else is.
I'd say that a lot of Bioware games have been getting favourable reviews over the past decade that aren't representative of the product's quality and Alhanna Pearce, if I recall, made a very good point about why, something to the extent of "I know Bioware fans are very passionate about their games and I am scared to say something negative" when talking about Andromeda. I'm not saying that every reviewer out there gave Bioware games a good score because of fear, but since DA2, Bioware game reviews have been getting a lot more polarizing and I think that dissent is getting bigger and bigger, because Bioware seems committed to a course that a lot of people don't like it and a lot more people are becoming vocal about it. Honestly, I believe that, if Inquisition was released today, instead of Anthem, it wouldn't be received as favourably. That's speculation, on my part. And if Anthem had come out to 9/10 and 10/10 reviews, we'd probably be playing a very different game and maybe I wouldn't be here having this discussion with you.
But I really like and appreciate discussing this with you. I think this discussion has been an eye opener for me and I'll need some time to contemplate on it, as well as rest. I've been here all day. Thank you for taking your time of day to address me and have this very civil, constructive and fruitful conversation with me.
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Post by aglomeracja on Mar 30, 2019 17:21:12 GMT
Yeah, some people do that and that has been the case since I remember. The main difference about gaming today and gaming 20 years ago is that now it's driven by multi-billion dollar companies which are solely focused on searching for new ways to milk gamers out of their money and 20 years ago it was driven by small studios filled with passionate people trying to make a good game. No one is rooting for EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc. and no one is forgiving them their mistakes, because they aren't underdogs you can cheer for and their business practices are increasingly repulsive. People are rooting for small/indie studios, because they are the opposite. Quality is still significant. If the product is really good and customers are treated fairly, then the amount of people defending the product is higher and the opposite is true for critics of said product. Why the hell would anyone search for nuance in case of Justin Biebers phenomenon is beyond me though... I teach for a living, I look for nuance in everything . In all seriousness, why is it that people also reject the small/indie studios because of the games they choose to make? For every game that breaks through like Braid, we have others who are reviled liked Gone Home? Isn't part of that debate the subjectivity of quality which cannot be officially defined? Small and indie games are great but that entire ecosystem suffers from problems that affect their side of the industry. A "good" product is hard to really gague when ten or so products look just like it along a digital store. And worse, a good product is not always "good" in the eyes of critics or the general public. You rightly point out people will defend them, but that defense means nothing if we follow their products as just an objective quality of its systems as others have argued as well. It also doesn't matter much due to subjective opinion. Ultimately its the self that can make those judgements, which is kind of a theme I am trying to argue here. It shouldn't really matter what others think about the product, from a gameplay standpoint, an intellectual one, a design one, and so on. Having something to say about that product is completely valid in all of those categories, but again, it is taken way too far in the grand scheme of it all. Those defenders or detractors become "the other" and must be wrong or blasphemous because of the "truth" you know, of the "hobby" you defend. Also, let's not look at the past so fondly. 20 years ago those corporations were still around. Profit and consumerism in a large scale industry has always been the impetus for what games get developed. Hell, Nintendo practically had a vice grip on the industry for a decade simply by forcing quality control; and development teams were creating games based on tie-ins and with gimmicks since the 1980s for PC and Console. It's also fallacy to presume that those who work now at EA, Activision or so on do not have passion in making a good game. And yet the most ironic thing is these companies are giving their customers what they want, treating them as fairly as possible too regardless of what folks actually say. Why is the service model popular ultimately? Sure it generates money for the publishers, but clearly there is also demand and one of the failings of consumerism is that we tend to buy trivial things because it feeds that demand. What determines it to be better or worse quality than a linear game or an open world one, an RPG or a FPS? Or hybrid-style games like most of BioWare's catalogue. Maybe I am just looking for something that's not there ultimately... People are tribal, that should be obvious for everyone who read some history, for instance. There are always some people who take it to another level and they are a majority here, because hardly anyone else is interested in talking about Anthem (at least on BSN). We have maybe 20 people in those sub forums, and even fewer are posting regularly, so the sample is very "specific".
1980's weren't 20 years ago, probably worth pointing out You're right that shady practices have existed since the very beginning, but such games were usually quickly developed to ride a bit on borrowed hyped and that's it. Those games also weren't flag products of famous studios...
I'm sure there's plenty of talented and passionate people in those shitty companies, but they are busy trying to make money for their bosses and not crating quality content. That's certainly my estimation of what happened to Bioware recently at least, but it doesn't have anything to do with GAAS system. It's just they aparently aren't good at making huge open world games or looter shooters, but they went for what was popular at the time over what they could actually do well.
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Post by Qui-Gon GlenN7 on Mar 30, 2019 18:11:09 GMT
I post in many threads. I do not post very often in the hug zones. It is a goddamn social discussion forum. Full stop. Theory and practice are two different things... Well, what can I say to that?
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 30, 2019 18:16:48 GMT
I disagree again. Subjective taste is insignificant compared to Objective Quality. Subjective taste is a crutch to excuse poor quality. And I feel you. Do you know what my favourite TV show out there is right now? DC's Legends of Tomorrow. It is utter garbage and I love it. In fact, I love it just because of how garbage it is. It's Citadel DLC's level of cheese, that got cranked up to eleven and from there to twenty two. Don't watch legends of tomorrow. Is your usage of "utter garbage" useful? If you tell me that you think a show is "utter garbage," what am I supposed to learn from that? My takeaway was that LoT doesn't adhere to some arbitrary standards of quality -- "arbitrary" because they aren't really standards, since violating them doesn't make the show bad by any useful metric. To tie this back to the game discussion, genres don't strike me as being useful prescriptive constructs. We draw a bandbox around certain games and name the bandbox, but that doesn't tell us very much about the individual games, or how a new game should be designed. I suppose the bandbox might be useful for marketing, but that's it. (Not that I'd know anything about marketing; in another tab I've got a compilation of DAI cinematic trailers open, all but two of which I've never seen until today.)
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Post by lennybusker on Mar 30, 2019 19:23:22 GMT
I mean - The thread is very clearly marked as "Skepticism Thread", and the majority of posters here do not "contaminate" the more positive threads because they can use this single thread. Sorry, but this is not true. Many in this thread are spreading the negativity all over the forum so they aren’t just keeping it in this thread like you say. Why shouldn't we be allowed to post about our opinion in other threads rather than being relegated to this fucking ghetto so as to not upset people who are too sensitive?
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Post by Pounce de León on Mar 30, 2019 20:05:08 GMT
I mean - The thread is very clearly marked as "Skepticism Thread", and the majority of posters here do not "contaminate" the more positive threads because they can use this single thread. Sorry, but this is not true. Many in this thread are spreading the negativity all over the forum so they aren’t just keeping it in this thread like you say. I feel you doint quite get the purpose of the scepticism or hype thread. They are not to contain the fanboys and critics within - they are to provide a safe echo chamber from critics and white knights from outside.
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Post by akots on Mar 30, 2019 20:13:03 GMT
Why keep reading & posting in a "scepticism" thread when the concept of someone being sceptical about something you love gets you so butthurt? Well, you got to post somewhere and this seems to be the only thread in the Anthem subforum that actually gets any reads. All the rest is pretty much a barren wasteland.
Interesting, I'm quick quoting Kenny as of 5 hours ago and it showed up as something from almost 3 years ago.
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Post by river82 on Mar 30, 2019 21:33:57 GMT
To tie this back to the game discussion, genres don't strike me as being useful prescriptive constructs. We draw a bandbox around certain games and name the bandbox, but that doesn't tell us very much about the individual games, or how a new game should be designed. I suppose the bandbox might be useful for marketing, but that's it. (Not that I'd know anything about marketing; in another tab I've got a compilation of DAI cinematic trailers open, all but two of which I've never seen until today.) Genres are not for creators. Genres are for the consumer. It should be made into a big, flashing, neon sign. Creators are sometimes surprised at what category their stuff are filed under, but I don't think they should care ... unless that category has less potential customers and therefore affecting sales. Genres are for the consumer and incredibly useful for the consumer, delivering to that consumer a bunch of information in one word that helps the busy person quickly navigate through a sea of games. Adventure game? Story, exploration, puzzles. Action? Focus on combat. RPG? Focus on character based combat. Open world? Lots of exploration. Urban fantasy? Magic in a modern world. High fantasy? Completely different world + magic. Romance? Focus on romance. Mystery? Let's solve a crime. And because everything is digital these days we can look stuff up by concept. Alternate history for ... alternate takes on history. Time travel. Travel to alternate worlds and etc. It's so a busy consumer who has a 9-7 job doesn't have to read through thousands of games, books, shows to try and find stuff that interests them. It's so the consumer, who knows what they're looking for, can quickly reduce the list of stuff to search through to a manageable level. I know what I like, and I'm not going to surf through 20,000 books to find what I like. So if I can break down that number through tags or genres, then that's what I'll do. But sometimes creators will get into their head that they can break down certain genres for ... God knows what reason actually. I remember when "To the Moon" was released, an indie game where all the game journalists and creators were like "this game shows us that RPGs don't need a combat system. We are forwarding the genre, taking it to places nobody else has". And I was looking at all these snake oil salesmen masquerading as journalists thinking "you moronic, sons of bitches. You're peddling an ordinary adventure game as a groundbreaking RPG for what frikken purpose?" And these pretentious creators who all want to break down genres (often poorly) for "art" don't seem to care that genres aren't for them, and so breaking down these genres will likely just annoy a great deal of people. I guess that's like a graduation ceremony for an "artsy artist", you're not considered one unless you annoy the fuck out of all of humanity. I've avoided the game and anybody to do with that game and its promotion *looks at certain "journalists"* ever since, because I don't like that kind of deception. But creating bog standard examples of ... things is much safer than just creating a game filled with cool stuff and letting the market decide how to categorise it. "Oh, looter shooters are popular, let's create one of those, there's a guaranteed audience base for it. The thing about creating for standard genres is that standard genres will come with standard expectations. Take Anthem for example, they created pretty much a bog standard looter shooter ... with flying crap. Bog standard looter shooters tend to come with expectations for loot. Anthem hasn't met those expectations. Queue backlash. However when they created Baldur's Gate, nobody had ever done a top down RPG before, who knew if there was a market for that. Jade Empire is not a bog-standard anything. So genres are for consumers, but I often feel that people who want to create a safe game/show/movie will go to a genre with a guaranteed consumer base and try and check some boxes.
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 30, 2019 23:12:01 GMT
Actually, you've managed to make "To the Moon" sound like it's worth looking into.
What's the actual case against genre hybrids? Doing them just to flout convention may not be a good strategy, but I'd figure that's true both for following conventions and for breaking them.
I'm a nonfan of CRPGs being so combat-focused compared to PnP RPGs, so policing that genre boundary doesn't strike me as useful.
As for Anthem failing to execute its genre properly, looks to me like the reason that 's a problem is because the game actually isn't anything but a looter shooter. There's nothing else to do.
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Sartoz on Mar 30, 2019 23:45:48 GMT
Snip Five and six years is enough time to make something better than what we got. Snip
This is where I give Bio some slack.
Bio's original game design was base on loot boxes and the very first trailer clearly shows this. A change in direction took place after the Disney grind kerfuffle. That is not five years ago.
That change took a toll. The studio now had to find a way to sell vanity items. It could be one of the reasons why the loot is such a problem. Bio has yet to figure out how to sell the stuff and in quantity and price. plus, It may be Bio is using code intended for loot box drops....
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Post by Lazarillo on Mar 31, 2019 0:38:59 GMT
This is where I give Bio some slack. Bio's original game design was base on loot boxes and the very first trailer clearly shows this. A change in direction took place after the Disney grind kerfuffle. That is not five years ago. I'm not sure I feel kind enough to "give them some slack" if the original business model was based off a loot box model, just because, well, screw loot boxes. "They suddenly had to change gears because they realized people weren't going to put up with that crap" just creates the problem of realizing they spent five years creating a lootbox store.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by cypherj on Mar 31, 2019 0:50:35 GMT
Snip Five and six years is enough time to make something better than what we got. Snip
This is where I give Bio some slack.
Bio's original game design was base on loot boxes and the very first trailer clearly shows this. A change in direction took place after the Disney grind kerfuffle. That is not five years ago.
That change took a toll. The studio now had to find a way to sell vanity items. It could be one of the reasons why the loot is such a problem. Bio has yet to figure out how to sell the stuff and in quantity and price. plus, It may be Bio is using code intended for loot box drops....
So, we're cutting them slack for poor product management and incompetence?
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Post by river82 on Mar 31, 2019 2:12:55 GMT
Actually, you've managed to make "To the Moon" sound like it's worth looking into. What's the actual case against genre hybrids? Doing them just to flout convention may not be a good strategy, but I'd figure that's true both for following conventions and for breaking them. I'm a nonfan of CRPGs being so combat-focused compared to PnP RPGs, so policing that genre boundary doesn't strike me as useful. As for Anthem failing to execute its genre properly, looks to me like the reason that 's a problem is because the game actually isn't anything but a looter shooter. There's nothing else to do. You're assumption is incorrect making you ask the wrong question. "To the Moon" isn't a genre hybrid, it's an out and out adventure game. What's the case against marketing an adventure game as an RPG? Deceiving the consumer. CRPGs history and origin stems from character based combat systems. Because of the way genres evolved PnP RPGs would possibly be categorised as something other than an RPG if ported to computers. Case in point, the Sims isn't an RPG, it's a sim game. EDIT: If you don't make this distinction Tiger Woods golf would be an RPG, NBA 2k would be an RPG, Madden would be an RPG. This goes against people's understanding of the genre. You may be unhappy with that distinction, but that's how people recognise games and therefore people would find it useful in sorting which games they're looking for. They won't want to look up RPGs and be bombarded with various sports games and sims. A looter shooter will succeed if it has a good loot system. Diablo 3 fixed everything about the game not by providing people with other things to do, but with the introduction of the loot 2.0 system.
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Post by river82 on Mar 31, 2019 2:28:49 GMT
There was a talk on youtube by the Diablo 3 director, later summarised on a Reddit thread, about how they fixed the game after their poor initial reception. Thought it might be worth noting how their problems are similar to Anthems problems. I'll paste the reddit summary and the video here: - Diablo III came out with really bad reviews, entire team felt down. They didnt it let it beat them and rallied up for a redeeming expansion; the success of Reaper of Souls(RoS).
-Their beta was too short, didnt want to show too much of the story, so it was more like a demo, limited to level 15 only, didnt get representative feedback on looting, and didnt find many bugs and crashes (system 37 errors *shivers*). For the RoS, they allowed beta players all the way through except final boss. Got better feedback, found and fixed many, many bugs. Cleanest and smoothest Blizzard release to date.
-Dev spent 104 hours to get first legendary, for a class he didnt play, with stats that didnt matter.
-Game wanted to put players into the game as soon as possible, but players spent more time in the auction house, menus, or google searching for farms, mission combinations or for exploits in order to find items, players would rather go destroy vases than fight mobs because the amount of work that would go into killing a mob and getting a drop wasnt worth it.
-Items of higher quality were at times not clearly statistically better than items of lower quality, even the devs themselves had a 45 minutes talk on whether a yellow or blue item was better for the player and at the end they even couldnt figure it out, and players couldnt be expected to be able to do this. Getting upgrades didnt always feel good.
- Devs thought randomness would the main way of keeping people playing, they didnt realize that randomness is a mechanism for replayability, rather than the main focus. "We ended up sacrificing fun at the expense of randomness". Some drops were tuned to not drop in years, and it even had a random roll attached to it.
-Less loot in general, more higher quality drops, less "trash". (by far the biggest factor on their hindsight recollection).
- Once they "ported" to console, they found that submitting the player though menus was tiresome, the less time spent in menus and more in game the better. Mobs dont need to be tougher or weaker based on zone, they must give the player reasons to kill them and gain the loot that allows them to kill them faster, so more playing, less non-playing.
- Fantasy is what brings the player, efficiency is what keeps them. Difficulty matters not, as long as it doesnt get in the way of efficiency, players want to do stronger faster more, and will get there even if they have to exploit, so dont let the players ruin the fun to themselves.
-They added delta values on item's random rolls (one of the most important stat changes, it shows how high or low those stats can get, players were highly happy about it since allowed to know how good/bad an item was at all), breaking down of stats and sets based on difficulty, with green arrows for upgrades, red for downgrades, and keep primary stats and secondary stats separated, highlight legendary or sets effects to show their importance.
-Shower players with loot; its better to farm for slight upgrade, than farm for the item to drop at all. Allow players to reroll and give them easily accessible options to change things at expense of mats.
-Trading robs players of hours of gameplay, trading removed, gave each player the means to get the loot they actually wanted, people logged in more hours despite having all the loot they wanted, because they knew they it was now very possible to get upgrades on their own, friends could get together during new seasons and farm knowing that they could get all the items eventually.
-Philosophy changed from "efficiency over fantasy" (players want to be more efficient even if it means not playing the fantasy of the game) to "fantasy over efficiency" (players played the game how they wanted and didnt need to be efficient because they would get what they wanted eventually without much thought; they showered them with more legendaries, "Game changing legendaries - lots of them", very important was that they were game breaking and were given often for the fantasy feel).www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/aueehg/diablo_3_dev_insight_on_how_loot_20_philosophy/
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Post by Pounce de León on Mar 31, 2019 6:57:16 GMT
There was a talk on youtube by the Diablo 3 director, later summarised on a Reddit thread, about how they fixed the game after their poor initial reception. Thought it might be worth noting how their problems are similar to Anthems problems. I'll paste the reddit summary and the video here: - Diablo III came out with really bad reviews, entire team felt down. They didnt it let it beat them and rallied up for a redeeming expansion; the success of Reaper of Souls(RoS).
-Their beta was too short, didnt want to show too much of the story, so it was more like a demo, limited to level 15 only, didnt get representative feedback on looting, and didnt find many bugs and crashes (system 37 errors *shivers*). For the RoS, they allowed beta players all the way through except final boss. Got better feedback, found and fixed many, many bugs. Cleanest and smoothest Blizzard release to date.
-Dev spent 104 hours to get first legendary, for a class he didnt play, with stats that didnt matter.
-Game wanted to put players into the game as soon as possible, but players spent more time in the auction house, menus, or google searching for farms, mission combinations or for exploits in order to find items, players would rather go destroy vases than fight mobs because the amount of work that would go into killing a mob and getting a drop wasnt worth it.
-Items of higher quality were at times not clearly statistically better than items of lower quality, even the devs themselves had a 45 minutes talk on whether a yellow or blue item was better for the player and at the end they even couldnt figure it out, and players couldnt be expected to be able to do this. Getting upgrades didnt always feel good.
- Devs thought randomness would the main way of keeping people playing, they didnt realize that randomness is a mechanism for replayability, rather than the main focus. "We ended up sacrificing fun at the expense of randomness". Some drops were tuned to not drop in years, and it even had a random roll attached to it.
-Less loot in general, more higher quality drops, less "trash". (by far the biggest factor on their hindsight recollection).
- Once they "ported" to console, they found that submitting the player though menus was tiresome, the less time spent in menus and more in game the better. Mobs dont need to be tougher or weaker based on zone, they must give the player reasons to kill them and gain the loot that allows them to kill them faster, so more playing, less non-playing.
- Fantasy is what brings the player, efficiency is what keeps them. Difficulty matters not, as long as it doesnt get in the way of efficiency, players want to do stronger faster more, and will get there even if they have to exploit, so dont let the players ruin the fun to themselves.
-They added delta values on item's random rolls (one of the most important stat changes, it shows how high or low those stats can get, players were highly happy about it since allowed to know how good/bad an item was at all), breaking down of stats and sets based on difficulty, with green arrows for upgrades, red for downgrades, and keep primary stats and secondary stats separated, highlight legendary or sets effects to show their importance.
-Shower players with loot; its better to farm for slight upgrade, than farm for the item to drop at all. Allow players to reroll and give them easily accessible options to change things at expense of mats.
-Trading robs players of hours of gameplay, trading removed, gave each player the means to get the loot they actually wanted, people logged in more hours despite having all the loot they wanted, because they knew they it was now very possible to get upgrades on their own, friends could get together during new seasons and farm knowing that they could get all the items eventually.
-Philosophy changed from "efficiency over fantasy" (players want to be more efficient even if it means not playing the fantasy of the game) to "fantasy over efficiency" (players played the game how they wanted and didnt need to be efficient because they would get what they wanted eventually without much thought; they showered them with more legendaries, "Game changing legendaries - lots of them", very important was that they were game breaking and were given often for the fantasy feel).www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/aueehg/diablo_3_dev_insight_on_how_loot_20_philosophy/All good and well, but my impression is that Anthem's player scaling actually stands in the way.
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Post by jclosed on Mar 31, 2019 9:16:10 GMT
Well - I hate to say it, but I just saw the Borderlands 3 promotion video. I am afraid Anthem will get a tough competition. You could say Anthem is not comparable with Borderlands gametype-wise, but as far as I am concerned they are very much in the same ball park (looter shooter with multiplayer components).
And about the story? Let's be fair. Borderland's story was always silly and fluffy, but for some reason it's much more entertaining than Anthem's "story". Apart from that I think Borderlands gets the whole Looting and Shooting stuff on a level far above Anthem. And Borderlands has absolutely nailed single player stuff, while Anthem.... Yeah.. Well... Duhhh...
In my eyes this proves that, for instance, the beautiful graphics from Anthem is just not enough to compensate for the bad stuff (bad single player and terrible loot stuff). I was very exited for Anthem until I learned it would be multiplayer (but still had hope single player would be good), but the "nail in the coffin" was the GAS part. When I heard that last thing I got the feeling Anthem would be an incomplete game at launch and GAS would be used as smokescreen to hide that incompleteness by promising things would be added later. And I turned out to be right in that respect. Also my fear of bad single player content turned out to be right on the mark. But why? If you look at Borderlands they got multiplayer AND single player both nailed. I was hoping Anthem could be doing the same thing, but that proved to be a big disappointment.
Sorry for the rant. I just had to get that off my chest. I promise I will behave from now on... Maybe...
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Post by alanc9 on Mar 31, 2019 16:34:51 GMT
Actually, you've managed to make "To the Moon" sound like it's worth looking into. What's the actual case against genre hybrids? Doing them just to flout convention may not be a good strategy, but I'd figure that's true both for following conventions and for breaking them. I'm a nonfan of CRPGs being so combat-focused compared to PnP RPGs, so policing that genre boundary doesn't strike me as useful. As for Anthem failing to execute its genre properly, looks to me like the reason that 's a problem is because the game actually isn't anything but a looter shooter. There's nothing else to do. You're assumption is incorrect making you ask the wrong question. "To the Moon" isn't a genre hybrid, it's an out and out adventure game. What's the case against marketing an adventure game as an RPG? Deceiving the consumer. CRPGs history and origin stems from character based combat systems. Because of the way genres evolved PnP RPGs would possibly be categorised as something other than an RPG if ported to computers. Case in point, the Sims isn't an RPG, it's a sim game. EDIT: If you don't make this distinction Tiger Woods golf would be an RPG, NBA 2k would be an RPG, Madden would be an RPG. This goes against people's understanding of the genre. You may be unhappy with that distinction, but that's how people recognise games and therefore people would find it useful in sorting which games they're looking for. They won't want to look up RPGs and be bombarded with various sports games and sims. A looter shooter will succeed if it has a good loot system. Diablo 3 fixed everything about the game not by providing people with other things to do, but with the introduction of the loot 2.0 system. Well, that wasn't really my question in the first place. Telling me a game's genre is like telling me a TV show's genre. It's a data point, but not a very useful one. (Even assuming a show is classifiable. Villanelle's hilarious, but does that make Killing Eve a black comedy like Barry? What the hell is The OA?) Honestly, I'd be happy with The Sims being filed as an RPG if we didn't have so much control over the whole game-world.
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Post by river82 on Mar 31, 2019 21:17:26 GMT
Well, that wasn't really my question in the first place. Telling me a game's genre is like telling me a TV show's genre. It's a data point, but not a very useful one. We can always do a little exercise to see how useful or not useful genres are to the consumer. For example, imagine you are a reader and you have a list of 50,000 books in front of you, or a pile of 50,000 books in front of you. You want to read a book about an alternate take on history featuring 1920-1950 technology (dieselpunk). Without the use of genres or tags, how would you find these books?
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Post by alanc9 on Apr 1, 2019 1:52:46 GMT
You're baking your preferred search tactic into the question.
My question is "which book should I read next,"
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