legend

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

To be clear, I have never once in my life understood giving media products numbered scores and am virtually incapable of coming up with a "top X" list because I can barely comprehend what that even means. You wanna talk apples to oranges, how the fuck am I supposed to choose whether Mass Effect 2 or Silent Hill 4 goes into the number 17 slot.

I can say my favorite game of all time has been Chrono Trigger for a long, long time, and that Resident Evil has probably snuck its way into being my favorite series overall, but trying to rank them is like gibberish to me. I get that some people find it fun but people taking shit like Meta or Opencritic seriously confounds me.

I think it's important to bear in mind that a game topping the aggregate ratings doesn't mean it's the best game ever made, it means... well, that it's the most highly rated game on aggregate! But a game can reach that position without actually being any reviewer's favorite game. Aggregation sites are all subject to the complexities of voting theory which is riddled with weird counter intuitive properties. So while topping the aggregate ratings is impressive, I do think it's important to remember precisely what that measure is and isn't  

26 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Do a lot of these older games get reviewed today? I don't really know how these sites work I guess may be part of the problem. 

I think reviews can be added from venues for older game and sometimes work there way into to the aggregate, but largely it's the reviews at the time it was released.

41 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I don’t disagree. When it comes to review aggregation though, I guess what I mean is that like Super Mario World, or let’s say a more recent game I guess like, I dunno, Mass Effect 2, are not reviewed in a context of “games will get better over time, so I have to factor that into this score.” If that makes sense. So while I agree with Xbob as well in that if you give 1,000 fandoms folks breath of the wild and a link to the past, I suppose most will say BOTW is amazing and not only is LTTP not as good it is actually a waste of their time; I think we just live in a time where we need to proclaim something one of the best ever or barely worth your time. 
 

So perhaps recency bias isn’t the right term. You see it in sports too. Every player is one of the best who has ever played or is trash. 

You're right, they're not reviewed that way. But I do think that because we continue to smooth rough edges in games, it makes it easier for someone to find fault in an older game even if it was great. And if it's easier for someone to find fault, it's harder to top the aggregate ratings since the more people that find faults the lower the aggregate. At some point I think we'll saturate on that regard, but I don't think we're there yet.

9 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

 

I like a lot of those games, but I do feel like we have insane recency bias these days. And be we I mean the internet I guess. 

There is some bias on opencritic because they only track "recentish" games for which scores can be crawled. Stuff from the 80s isn't going to make the list. Or if there are any instances, they're very few.

But that aside, while there are things about the game industry that have gotten worse (*cough* $20 "micro" transactions where the only thing micro is the content you get *cough*), on the whole games continue to get better and it is reasonable to expect that. Relatively speaking, games are a new medium, which means it takes time to learn what works and for the community hone the craft. Games are also *heavily* reliant on hardware, software tooling, and just "process" (e.g., voice acting/mocap studios, etc) to make the game, all of which improve through continual development. And on top of even that, more games are made as time goes on and it becomes more mainstream. That means there's more chances for the "best" to be on the more recent side than not.

So on the whole, I do think games have been getting better with time since their inception so I think it's appropriate for the "best" games to skew more recent.. And in this case, I don't think you can find a better RPG than BG3. You can find a small handful of ones that are maybe equally good in different ways, but not better, and BG3 excels in ways we haven't really seen with the closest being DOS2 (for obvious reasons).

3 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I appreciate it! Though I do wonder if at that point of multiple dice rolls it's functionally the same as a standard video game damage range. I mean I guess it is, just with less proficient characters getting worse ranges with lower ends. I would definitely prefer what you're proposing over just one big d20, though. I'm really interested in checking some mods out now.

Depends a bit on how the damage range is implemented. If it's implemented as a uniform distribution over a small range (i.e., the extremes are just as likely as the average) that does behave a little differently than multiple dice which progressively become less likely as you get further away from the average. The multiple die also allows for very rare events that either feel absolutely amazing for absolutely horrible  I think keeping some degree of those really rare events is usually fun -- it gives you something to talk about, especially in a social game -- and the nice thing about multiple die is its a natural consequence of the simple mechanic, rather than something that has to be hacked on. But your mileage may vary.

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

 

Mm. Yes. Quite. Indubitably. Gaussian distribution for normalized values. Quite indeed.

I mean, I could have said "bell curve" but then it would feel like I was just talking down to you  

8 minutes ago, Bacon said:

It's crazy how many people I see shitting on SE over their stance on turn-based FFs since BG3's success.

I agree 100% that they should make FF turn-based again, but lumping FF and BG into the same "turn-based" category is just wrong. Like, Diablo and Kingdom Hearts are both ARPGs. Watermelon, bananas, and blueberries are all berries. That said, I would play the fuck of an FF with this kind of turn-based gameplay. I think it could work VERY well.

I agree. If you want to argue that FF turn-based is still viable and can be successful, I would point to Persona 5.

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I feel like most video games solved that ages ago with damage ranges. Eventually in most RPGs that have accuracy, you can choose to hit an accuracy cap and straight up stop missing barring some buffs/debuffs, and then it's all about damage ranges. And not these fucking silly damage ranges like "2-68 damage" (what the fuck?) but like, 48-70 damage. You always have a good baseline.

 

Also it's hard to believe I'm going to be doing any serious world saving when I miss a melee attack against a dude flat on his ass a foot in front of me. Kinda feels like this but less delightfully stupid:

 

Those big ranges are not actually bad. Big ranges happen when you have many dice rolls, but the benefit of many dice rolls is the low range (and high range) is virtually impossible. you get a Gaussian-like distribution. As a reference point consider that a regular Gaussian distribution for continuous values has some probability density across the entire range of real numbers from - infinity to + infinity, but in practice you're not going to see results bigger than 10 because the probability of extremes drops off exponentially.

That's why I said I'm not opposed to dice, but D20s are awful and multiple dice provides a much better game dynamic.

There is an argument that it's difficult to communicate that fact to players though.

Holy shit, it's only gone up with more reviews. It's now the highest rated game of all time on open critic:

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

I installed Divinity Original Sin 2 because I wanted to see how it compared based on my memory. I've always been a huge fan of DOS and DOS2. I totally forgot it wasn't accuracy based. Your shit just... hits. No attacks of opportunity, no spell slots, just every ability on a cooldown (minus certain special ones that require a rest I think) based on turns and used based on remaining action points.

In my mind, Baldur's Gate 3 was just an evolved version of DOS2, but going back, they share a similar skeleton but DOS2 is like a much more accessible (though certainly not fucking easy), arcade-y game, with much more powerful environmental effects. It's also way sillier.

 

 

2 minutes into the game and my mage is in a karate stance, bucket on his head as a makeshift helmet, doing battle against another man (both men on fire of course) after breaking him out of his cell.

 

I think I might be playing both games at once now. The environment shit in DOS2 is way more involved. Blast a puddle with a fireball to make steam to obscure the enemy's vision, zap the steam cloud with lightning to shock everyone inside, so much cool shit.

 

I'm really glad it still holds up, it's like both games branch in different directions, both really fun, and I'd love to see a DOS3 using what they learned from BG3. But keep the rolls for accuracy and shit to the D&D based games.

Also no spell slots means my mage can just always use his full arsenal as long as he has enough AP! Especially my favorite spell, one that teleports friend or foe alike to wherever I choose. (Not into bottomless pits of course, but definitely into hazards or in range of my melee party members.) I think while spell slots might make sense for a tabletop game, I feel like they hurt the combat in BG3, they're very limiting and encourage hoarding abilities instead of using a wide variety of them, which can make you play in a very stale way. AP requirement + cooldowns means when something's not ready yet, use something else, so you're always thinking on where to best lay the pain or build up AP.

 

Plus you get cool shit right off the bad like flinging an oily ass boulder and a multi-projectile flaming magic name.

 

On the other hand, the production values are of course dramatically lower, the characters less interesting, and while the combat is super fun, it does lack that feeling of extra depth until later on. You also get less non-destructive environmental interaction, though I do enjoy my telekinesis which allows me to move things regardless of weight thanks to my ENORMOUS BRAIN.

And of course, in both games you can fill your pockets with explosive barrels and throw them out when the time is right! 

Yeah the DOS2 mechanics are awesome and I absolutely want them to come back to the series. BG3's biggest "strict" improvement is that the engine lets them be more personal. *Much* better rendered people and you can pull the camera down low to feel more apart of the world. Perhaps motivated by that, they really focused more on the character stories and the world just feels better.

But while I like DnD a lot, there are a lot of gameplay decisions I'm not super fond of. D20s suck, but DnD will never remove them at this point because it's kind of a the face of the series. I'm not opposed to dice rolls, but multiple dice rolls (e.g., 3d6 or 2d10) leads to much more enjoyable RNG that feels like it makes more sense (because the distribution becomes more Gaussian). If your character is not proficient at something, they'll basically never make it, whereas a proficient character will make it regularly without much fuss.

I also finally got to watch it. Fantastic. This is shaping up to be one of the best superhero trilogies. Every aspect of it is good. The core narrative is good, the meta narrative around it, the art direction (my god this must have been a bitch to animate), the voice acting, the music. They are just crushing it with this series.

1 minute ago, Fizzzzle said:

Are there penalties for long rests? I'm assuming maybe there are time sensitive quests or something? I got the achievement for doing 5 long rests in a single playthrough like barely into the game and part of my brain went "uh-oh."

There has been at least one instance where something was time sensitive for me, but it was pointed out. Otherwise no, other than the fact that if you want the benefits a long rest (ability regen like spell slots, and I *think* regaining short rest options), you need to consume camp supplies, which are a finite, though generally plentiful resource.

Just now, best3444 said:

Fuck. The only way I know how to take a picture is with my phone but isn't there a better way?

There's the share button, but your phone is fine  

Just now, best3444 said:

 

I tried buying vehicles to fit the specs I need but it never works. I'm fuckin stupid.  😒 

Take a picture of what it's showing you and share it here. 

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

I appreciate this person acknowledged that Monk feels better in this than typical 5e, but I think Monk should be higher rated than this. based on my playthrough thus far. First, you *must* get the mobile feat, which lets you hit someone, and then run away avoiding opp attacks *and* it lets you run really far. So much of BG3 is based around character positioning and the Monk is so fucking good at this. You can basically hit someone and run so far away that they can't reach you again.

And if a ranged character targets you, you an to catch the arrow mid flight and throw it back at them.

Finally, if you play Dark Urge, you're given at some point a cape that turns you invisible upon killing an enemy, which synergizes with this class so fucking well.

34 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

It keeps saying I don't have the correct specs to race. I look everywhere to change that and can't find how to do it. I feel pathetic. 

You'll need to look at the requirements and either tune a car to meet them, or potentially buy a car that meets them.

11 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

Just spent like an hour and a half working my way through a massive battle in the under dark. My hunch is my honor as a paladin made it a helluva lot harder than it could have been. Took everything I had and a ton of cheesing. 

It's not cheesing when the game actively encourages you "cheese"!

Also, I've heard somewhere that no one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses.

2 hours ago, Firewithin said:

is there no limit to how many times gale asks for items to consume?

It's 3. Just 3  

I do sympathize with that feeling though. 3 is not a big number but it feels so bad having to destroy magic items even when there are crappy throw away items you can easily justify destroying. They really tap into the gamer horde panic feeling.

I *finally* finished act 1 and made it to level 7 before "finishing" it. This game does a good job scattering cool loot. 

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

You could say the same thing about the "real" "random" rolls! You should know better than anyone it's all fake randnomness!

It’s possible to have shitty RNG but you kind of have to work for it this days with how easy it is to come by RNG. “Real” randomness doesn’t exist in the overwhelming majority of things we consider random in reality either unless you’re working on quantum systems. Randomness is mostly a model for uncertainty from partial information and so applying it to properly coded RNG is just as valid as anything in life!

39 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

 

I might feel better about it if I knew exactly how they calculated it. 

I decided to turn off Karmic dice. D20s kind of suck so I get why they would try to do something to make them feel better, but removing conditional independence from rolls kind of blows. "Well this attack won't be great because the last one was" feels wrong. I don't want to have to be thinking about things like that.

Also, I had been wearing the purple pajamas, but I think there was a bug in the patch or something because they disappeared from my person. But I didn't know that until I went for a long rest and an argument broke out between two characters. I came running in stark naked to play diplomat.

It ultimately was for the best  

8 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Baldur's Gate 3 - Community Update #23: Here's To You - Steam News

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

---

Hello, everyone! During the launch weekend, you played a combined 1225 years of Baldur’s Gate 3 – almost as long as it took to make it. And 368 of you managed to finish it within that 3-day weekend. We salute you. We’re about to enter the second weekend of launch, and thanks to you, it’s looking like it might be a big one.

 

 

 

 

 

You'd know, I'd say I feel bad for Laezel being the least common origins pick and Githyanki being the least common race, but she'd just tell me to eat shit and that she doesn't want my sympathy. Then she would try to fuck me randomly, and then put a knife to my throat.

1 minute ago, stepee said:

 

Im curious if it’s because you..didn’t like ER?

Yes, but it's not just that I dislike it. There are lots of games I don't like and that's okay because we all like different things. But normally I can understand why people like other things. With Elden Ring, I have a very hard time understanding how people look past a number game design flaws. Or rather, I could maybe see looking past them, but tempering the praise as a result. Instead people hail it as the best game ever made. 

But I'll leave it at that for this thread  

I'll be so glad for completely unjustifiable reasons if this rates higher than Elden Ring in the end