Maybe I'm just too autistic for them now, but to me it seems like all the focus is on characters, personalities, relationships. It's kind of boring to me. I don't really care about companions or whatever, I want an interesting world and adventure. But it's like everyone nowadays just cares about your companions personalities. Modern RPGs have too much character focused dialogue
That's essentially the divide between Mass Effect 1/2 and Dragon Age 1/2. And it was tragic to witness.
No one gives a shit about the hundreds of soulless dungeon crawlers that were aborted into existence, and yet baldurs gate is still remembered fondly to this day.
People have always liked those games.
Fair but theres a balance, i still play kenshi for the random rookie meatgrinder and crook to boss progression. Rpgs so attached to characters you know they can’t die outside of cutscenes are boring
the most memorable thing about bg was party banter in its sequel. the biggest complaint about icewind dale was not having this stuff because those games used full custom party.
literally its been this way since practically the extreamly very start anon
hell even in bg1 some of the most memorable moments is the very little companion content that exists like recruitment quests and conflicts
icewind dale was the best though
just play Fromslop then
Fromslop has carried the industry for the past 15 years.
Seems like the mainstream public prefer the social simulator more than builds and combat.
The issue is not more focus on characters, the issue is that people who are in charge of world building are hacks, and also their idea for interesting companions is lacking too.
You can have both rich and captivating lore and setting, and also have characters that you want to talk to
How do I f*k the dead elf?
I haven't played a crpg since neverwinter. Is it less about "how should we overcome this problem?" and more "how I feel about this problem"?
It further went from "how I feel about this problem" to "how I feel about this scenery" for vast majority of character interactions.
It infuriates me when an RPG prioritizes companions over the protagonist roleplaying and story. Dragon Age Inquisition gave the player the shitiest character creator in existence with the worst face texture options and haristyles while your companions walked around with super unique models and armors looking like supermodel.
The focus of ROLEPLAYING GAMES should be ROLEPLAYING, the fact that the protagonist is an afterthought in so many RPGs because the devs just want to shove their OCs all over the place having sex with each other is beyond embarrassing.
But sadly, they sell, since A SHITLOAD of gamersa re sad friendless incels. So giving them fictional friends and a fictional romance is a sure way to make them enjoy the game.
>Dragon Age Inqueersition
>rpg
that "game" was a single player mmo filled with trash quests and such dull combat that the whole gayme just felt like a chore. still was somehow goty lmao
the reason why everyone loves elder scrolls is because they're basically solo RPGs. but people arent ready for this conversation
It's less pronounced on Pathfinder games because you can get your own dudes as soon as you leave the tutorial area. BG3 though doesn't give you that option and you're forced to use the dev's OC which defeats the entire point of hireling system.
BG3 has hirelings available nearly right off the bat, you moron.
In any case, choosing to not use the characters doesn't add the focus back onto the the world and adventure. The problem is development priority, not there being characters.
>BG3 has hirelings available nearly right off the bat
You can't change their appearance, races, or voices, only their class which proper companions already do, therefore the hirelings not my own dudes, it's the dev's dudes.
Run a second pirated copy, run a multiplayer game and join with 3 different characters for the rest of your party, then reload in singleplayer so you can play all 4 :^)
You could also just play the first 2.
>just exploit the multiplayer bro
Not a proper fix.
Mass Effect 2 effect
Fellowship of the Ring had interesting companions/relationships and a grand adventure, that’s the model fantasy games should emulate.
Op is a fricking moron and has never played a crpg older than 2009
It seems like nowadays gamers want to feel like they're part of some epic story that will always influence the world and its events. What happened to just adventuring in a world?
>But it's like everyone nowadays just cares about your companions personalities
Can you name one? Most RPGs today have SHIT companions that are super shallow and DSG/ESG focused.
Game of Thrones has quite literally ruined the entire fantasy genre and turned an entire fricking subset of literature into a glorified soap opera.
Come home western man.
This is literally the reason I'm liking BG3. There's still the same amount of intra-party interaction as any other modern party based RPG, but there's way, way more focus put into the environments, environmental interaction and world npcs than most RPGs.
It's the first RPG in a long time that feels like they actually put effort into what you find instead of just who you are.
Yeah, agreed. WRPGs and CRPGs are way too obsessed with romance. It's been a thing for a long time, but Mass Effect 2 was the first time I really noticed where it felt like it was such a focus it detracted from the rest of the game (i.e. if you don't frick a companion you don't get their whole story, and 90% of the game is focused on gathering your party and their companion quests). It's fine to have a nice focus on characters and their personalities because the party is important, but a lot of modern WRPGs feel like they focus on it at the expense of everything else and it's ALL about the relationships. It kind of feels like it caters to the "tumblr" audience or whatever.
That said, there are some games that are fine about it despite kind of having some focus on it. Usually because the companions are actually good, which isn't true for most of the games that obsess over them. I think DA:O is a good example, where its companions are just fun and the game still heavily focuses on the overarching story and your character's role in it.
What I liked about DA:O is the same thing I didn't like about ME2. Both games, you get to know characters better by talking to them in between missions. But the characters in ME2 rarely ever have even a modicum of development DURING the missions. In DA:O all the memorable moments with characters are DURING the missions, they gave them all unique dialogue and reactions and opinions. The first time I played blind back in the day I happened to bring Sten to the snow temple cult place and he challenged me to a fight, that shit is fricking kino
No idea why you posted PF as being too character focuses when it's easily one of the more autistic CRPG. It's no AoD but it's still way more technical than DA or ME
OP is clearly not talking about technical complexity.
Well I have no other way to interpret it that isn't total gibberish.
Are you companions not a window into the world to help sell the adventure?
Unless OP is talking about stuff like Might and magic which is no BS, no character. all murder then I don't really get what he's on about.
He's talking about games like Fallout 1/2 where your alone most of the time and the game was focused on your solo adventure.
You clearly just wouldn't get it.
A game that focuses on its world and on adventure is just not the same as a world that focuses on its characters. It doesn't feel the same, and that feeling is the whole reason people come to RPGs in the first place. It's not the mechanics, it's not the party members, it's the sense of adventure.
Yes, it's the reason all modern DnD/Fantasy CRPGs are lame. They're all party based shit that push companions on you. Solo RPGs are the best.
BioWare gave up on writing good stories and hired Tumblr writers to design games around waifus, the rest of the industry followed
Play UnderRail or if you've played it already wait for Infusion
RPG=ROLEPLAY games
They're literally supposed to be character focused
i don't really understand the whole draw when it comes to relationships/romance in games
Taylor-made gay shit for a gay audience.
I'm going back for another nice round of Dragon Age. Screw this gay shit.