Obsession with character sheets comes from the misapprehension that the R in RPG stands for “roll” and not “role” imo.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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Obsession with character sheets comes from pen and paper and a desire to simulate every aspect of the world. Without the tools to tweak your ability to interact with the system you can pretend to be a master thief, but unless the game reinforces that with its behaviour you're just pretending. Like you can pretend to be a vampire in Skyrim, sure, but it's more fun when you've actually got the curse and the game reinforces that.
Fundamentally a stat sheet is just a way to tell the game what your character is like in a way that it understands and can reinforce that's more granular than definition by class or by what skills you've used. And every game has one, whether you can see it and change it or not.
It's why "everyone" ends up as a stealth archer in Skyrim. Because stealth and ranged attacks are something every character would try to do, Skyrim's design means if you as much as try something it makes you better at it, even if you want to be a clumbsy barbarian.
Which ironically makes it so you can't just roleplay, you have to avoid trying anything that isn't what your character is best at. It means you can't hide from a patrol you can't handle, you have to just charge in and swing, because the game will change your character otherwise and you can't tell it not to.
When Elder Scrolls had a character sheet, you designated specific skills that would contribute to leveling. Stealth archers were only as common as the people who preferred that play style.
Archery did kinda suck in ES3 though. Point being, incidental play didn't sabotage your character authorship. Character sheets are great.
Well, there’s no reason why the DM couldn’t hold the character sheets and you only perceive that your character is good at certain things from your choices and their outcome in the scenario (but you could be wildly wrong). In real life you don’t know exactly how many charisma points you have.
True, but you do learn what you're good at and what you're not. You don't play as a child or teen still learning their place, though you could, but generally that's not what's done. People generally have a decent grasp on their capabilities, though they can surprise themselves it's rarely orders of magnitude out like it would not having a sheet.
Personally, I find that to be good news. I prefer ES's "just do the thing to get better at it" approach over arbitrary experience points to get better at whatever you decide to upgrade when you level up.
It also doesn't mean there won't be stats. The engine still depends on stats whether or not Bethesda makes UI for it or allows granular control of it. FO4's perks, for example, set various attribute and hidden skill points in the background to hard values because that's how the game handles the extra "power attacks" you can make. Instead of how it was displayed to the user in Oblivion, where you get these extra attacks at 25, 50, 75 and 100 points in a skill, you just upgrade the perk and it sets those values to the necessary milestone.
None of these simplifications stop it from being a good action adventure game. I think at this point if you still consider them to be RPGs first and not straight up action games, you're only setting yourself up for disappointment. They haven't been good RPGs since Oblivion first shifted the series to being more action-oriented.
I'd say the focus in Bethesda games has always been exploration and world building. I don't care too much about the roleplay system so long as exploration and looting feels good.
Just cancel this game or give it to larian studios already, I don't want elder scrolls 6 anymore
that sucks i was really wanting to play a new elder scrolls, but Dreamscape_ has spoken everyone 😔
Baldur's gate 3 characters aren't even that complicated. You pick stats at the start from a limited range of options, and then make very few choices when you level up. Some levels you don't pick anything at all. This ain't path of exile.
I got a mod for bg3 that gives you a feat every level and holy shit did that make it more interesting.
To WotC's credit, making character choice really shallow is probably why the game succeeded so well. A lot of people don't really want a lot of choices, especially when some are traps.
Hardest part was item management
Yeah, I quickly installed a Containers mod to deal with items. They automatically grab the items (based on how the item is tagged in the backend) so your inventory is just sorted into “melee weapons”, “jewelry”, “books”, etc… The only downside is that encumbrance can sneak up on you, because your inventory doesn’t look full when you open your character sheet. Luckily, sorting by weight still works, so you can see which containers are the heaviest and start with those.
Bag of holding mod is clutch imho
I’m curious what people are hoping for. When was the last time Bethesda made a good game? I would bet maybe 5% of ppl working on Skyrim are still there. It’s unlikely they will be able to correct course, and we’ll get a new Starfield
I thought Fallout 4 was good. As a first-person looter shooter. Shitty story-line and same problems as every game on the engine; but still great fun strictly as a shooter. Setting is on point, it's easy to get immersed in the world, all that. It just isn't a great role-playing game nor does it have a super compelling story after Kellogg's fight.
Even Fallout 76 is kinda good? Like if it wasn't for the whole multiplayer angle, it could have been a good Fallout 4-2.
Starfield is such an anamoly. It's technically (and by that I mean the tech itself) one of the best releases they've ever had. Shit runs smooth as butter even on unsupported hardware. But then the game itself is just... So boring. There's no life to the world like in every single one of their other games outside the major cities. Most of the universe is just empty, and even with the RNG POIs, because they are pre-made things that can just pop up anywhere, they have literally no environmental story-telling. And it also kinda feels like they lied about being sci-fi fans because every reference is as generic as possible. It's like someone who has never seen sci-fi in their life came up with everything in the game after a single night of barely paying attention to the top 10 sci-fi movies they found on a random BuzzFeed list.
My biggest gripe still is the planet that has an absolute embargo on it, ships stopping anyone from entering, a planet obliterated by the monsters, frozen over. You land, do the mission, and then right outside there's multiple POI with settlers just casually living, pirate bases just generically there. Like they couldn't even stop the POI's from spawning on the one planet that should have been abandoned.
Oi. Fallout 76 is good, at least now. It's basically just the zany-ness of fallout, with better enviro storytelling than fallout 4 and just pure fun. Nowhere near RPG, but it didn't aim to be an RPG from the beggining, just a fun multiplayer game.
it has the best map ever too
It’s insanely gorgeous
No. Nobody was asking for Fortnite 76. Single player is all I want out of Fallout and they failed us.
Fortnite 76
The only thing fortnite and fallout 76 have in common is shooting and building lol. Where comparing them is still a big stretch.
Also, a lot of people wanted coop fallout and while Fallout 76 isn't exactly a single-player turned coop, it has all the fun of coop and fallout.
Hell, people even wanted fallout multiplayer. Just fallout multiplayer. There's a reason multiplayer mod exists for New Vegas.
So yeah, sorry but load of bull.
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"Streamlining" has been their mantra since Oblivion. TES6 is going to be even more watered down than everything else, but also crammed full of useless things. I'm willing to bet they'll let you build a town. But the town will do nothing and won't have any impact at all in the game.
It will do something. It will be a resource sink for a while, and then it will become a resource faucet. Nothing more interesting than that.
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Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith explained that Larian’s success is an “exception” to the last decade of gaming trends, but one that shows a shift in desire from gamers.
There's been no shift, we've just been ignored and under-served for around two decades. But, sure, keep ignoring us.
It's what AAA companies do best!
You'd think the sensible business decision would be to see an under supplied gap in the market and fill it, but God-forbid they do something sensible.
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