Larian = Decline. OwlCat = Incline.

[Reinhardt]

Seriously. Compare.

 

[Mortmal]

Vampires are always cool. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, in animes like Hellsing, in TSR's D&D(Strahd and Barovia), even a very dumbed down action game called skyrim did amazing with the vampire lord DLC. Only Beamdog and Larian managed to make vampirism so awful...

Seriously. Compare.

img - Skyrim vampire & Larian vampire

Vampires is the coolest form of undeath. How bad someone needs to be to pick the coolest form of undeath and make ... Astarion?? How? There are so many amazing vampires in pop culture to take as inspiration. To not say that I've a bias towards western media, look to Dio Brando and Alucard from Hellsing. Two anime vampires which are far more vampire than Astarion can ever be in his dreams.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

The only Larian game I have ever played is Divine Divinity so in good faith I cannot talk about their recent work. Owlcat on other hand does not face this restriction from me. Both of Owlcat's games are steps in the right direction in recreating the Infinity Engine games but they, like other modern devs, focus too hard on the superficial elements of the games they are recreating. Owlcat has recreated the surface level components such as real time combat, romances, trash encounters, and recruitable companions found throughout the game world. However when it comes to level design, desire to explore, and encounter design Owlcat has a long ways to go. I cannot think of anything Owlcat has designed that is anywhere near the quality of Durlag's Tower or has the variety in locales you would see in Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate. Wrath does improve upon but some things such as level design can only be carried so far by knowledge, talent plays a major part in it. Alushinyrra in Wrath has to be the best location from an artistic standpoint that Owlcat has designed yet it is limited by their inability to create good encounters.

I won't claim to be an expert in encounter design in RPGs but if most of your games encounters are the same enemies I was fighting 30 hours ago just with different names I think there is a problem. Can you imagine in Baldur's Gate if instead of the mercenary group at the Bhaal Temple entrance it was just another pack of Gnolls but with higher tier equipment? Reusing enemies isn't inherently a problem as long as you still introduce new enemies. Where is the sense of progression if all you fight is Schirs, Balors, and Babaus with slightly different names and stats? This also ties into Owlcat's inability to encourage exploration. Exploration is a desire to uncover new knowledge when traversing an unknown area. In both Pathfinder games what do you expect to find when entering a new location? More Schirs and Glabrezu? It takes more work for seemingly less work but Owlcat needs to focus more on area specific enemies in their next game. It goes a long way to make the world feel bigger thus more realistic.

When it comes to realism in games I don't particularly care as it tends to run in the way of making a fun game. With that said suspension of disbelief can only go so far. In Kingmaker for what good reason would the king's court allow him to venture out into the wild, making himself viable to get killed, and throw the entire realm into disarray? A king hiring adventures to explore tombs and defeat ultra powerful threats is a staple elements of the entire RPG genre. Kingmaker would not be improved by keeping the player from dungeon diving and fighting enemies but it just doesn't make sense. In Baldur's Gate the player starts out as an orphan struggling to make sense of the dangerous world around them and it is through your deeds that this orphan turns into someone of note. Even then all you are is an adventurer so whatever actions undertaken by the player still makes sense from a logic point of view. Planescape and Icewind Dale also share these qualities of nothing to something while also maintaining the basic logic of why just you are performing the actions that occurring throughout the game. Wrath runs into a similar problem as Kingmaker in this regard but less so. Owlcats desire to maintain gimmicks in their games does nothing but ruin immersion and divert resources away from other areas.

Owlcat's games are step in the right direction for the RPG genre but there are still some issues keeping them from being on the same level as the Infinity Engine games they obviously want to be compared to.

 

[Ontopoly]

Jesus, what pitiful attempts at shit-talking. Made you look dumber than those you are insulting. I'll say you should let Meredoth do the talking, he has been upping up his game lately and had a few nice comebacks.

As apposed to the greatest type of shit-talking: Just calling someone else's shit-talking bad

 

[rusty_shackleford]

steps in the right direction in recreating the Infinity Engine games

why would someone want to do this

 

[Trippy]

Underrail

My unique critique towards underrail is the existence of Cooldowns. The game is amazing but would be better without it.

This isn't a shit post, as I'm actually curious. Why do you feel so? I get a lot of the Codex criticisms, but I don't entirely grok why cooldowns are such a hated mechanic. It just seems a way of giving tools to the player while delimiting their ability to 'spam' those tools. Is it that it gates player agency in favor of Sawyerian 'balance?' What would an ideal alternative be in something like Underrail?

 

[Denim Destroyer]

steps in the right direction in recreating the Infinity Engine games

why would someone want to do this

They are better than most modern RPGs by virtue of being original and not something older. Ideally developers would be inspired by games that had more interactivity with a large focus on player freedom however the closest thing to that in a modern game are the Ultima inspired indie games like Lurking and Realms of Antiquity. Since we don't live in an ideal world we must deal with people only looking towards the Infinity Engine games for inspiration in their derivative indie clones.

 

[Cryomancer]

Why do you feel so? I get a lot of the Codex criticisms, but I don't entirely grok why cooldowns are such a hated mechanic. It just seems a way of giving tools to the player while delimiting their ability to 'spam' those tools

Because makes NO SENSE. Is like DOS2 armor mechanics. Makes no sense.

Imagine that I prepare 3 molotov cocktails. I can throw the 3 in a row. There are no artificial timer prohibiting me from using it. Cooldowns also lead to a sameness "spam the same rotation over and over" which essentially kills the immersion and transform the RPG in a rhythm game.

' What would an ideal alternative be in something like Underrail?

Psionics are supposed to be dangerous in UR lore. Make using then risky, like for eg, fire psionics raising the body temperature quickly and if he spams then, he can run the risk of suffering a internal combustion. Grenades? Makes it rarer. Is a post apocalyptic world. things like grenades should't be common.

------------------

Anyway, as Fedora Master said in other thread

Fact is: These people are wasting money on coomer shit but can't even implement the simplest cantrip right. Priorities.

Larian can't even make firebolt right. But motion capturing sex scenes...

 

[Ontopoly]

Larian can't even make firebolt right. But motion capturing sex scenes...

It's not that they can't. It's that they don't want to. larians decline has never been in their technical abilities but in the underlying philosophy leading to every one of their decisions. It's an incompetence of a completely different kind.

 

[Reinhardt]

Why do you feel so?

Because Victor wants to pew-pew but with cooldowns he can only pew..........pew..........pew...........

 

[Atlet]

I'm still not sure why cooldowns are inherently that bad.

 

[Atchodas]

Ideally developers would be inspired by games that had more interactivity with a large focus on player freedom

Thats exactly what BG3 is about.

 

[Anonona]

As apposed to the greatest type of shit-talking: Just calling someone else's shit-talking bad

I was not shit-talking, just pointing out facts. I mean, just look how long it took you to come with this "amazing" comeback. Besides, seems like Larian has you covered in the "female" department, just the kind of woman you like, with cellulitis and everything!

Spoiler

I'm still not sure why cooldowns are inherently that bad.

Well, I don't personally hate them, but there are quite a lot of reasons why they are disliked so much. As Meredoth said already, because usually there is no limit to the number of times you can do a skill/cast a spell, many games end up becoming little more than stiff optimal rotations with little variations. Look at modern tab-targeting combat like WoW or FF XIV. While they have a bit of choice if you want to optimize to the fullest, the core issue remains. Other systems have the problem of players spamming their best skills to win, but CDs fall on the same problem with rotations; it is pretty much the same issue but with unnecessary complexity added.

Another problem is that usually many games that use cooldowns also have simplified resource management. For example, D:OS 2 let you heal by using sleeping bags to "rest" after each combat and all your CD recharge after a fight. While it is true that objects like scroll, arrows, potions and such are consumables, it still cheapens the "dungeon crawling" experience. You don't have to worry about mana or HP, you will always be at full strength each fight. Furthermore, by having unlimited access to your skills, just making you wait a few turns, it also makes using big skills "cheap", as you will get them back sooner or later if you stall the fight enough, taking away the gravitas of decision making.

Other just consider other approaches to achieve the same result but without the arbitrary limitations of cooldowns. For example, I read many arguments in favor of using a classic mana systems, which limits the number of times you can use certain skill by how much mana these skills consume while allowing you to freely use each skill when you want all the while still making sense in how spell casting works. Also, with the added benefit of adding an element of resource management just like the Vancian system.

But I think one of the most significant reasons is that the great majority of games that have cooldowns are usually mediocre to bad or at least are not well liked in the Codex. For many codexers there is no cooldown based RPG at the level of the classics like BG 1-2, Fallout, ToEE, PT, etc. Either games considered mediocre/divisive like Dragon Age and D:OS 1-2, or straight up shit like Diablo III or any MMO. There may be one or two exceptions, like Underrail, but by large if you see so many RPGs with cooldowns being worse than what came before logically cooldowns may have something to do with that.

I think these may be the main points of criticism I read, although there may be more.

 

[Reinhardt]

For many codexers there is no cooldown based RPG at the level of the classics like Disco with Furries

fixed for you

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The problem isn't cooldowns, the problem is cooldowns used for everything when there are more elegant ways to solve the problem without a major game/narrative separation.
Potion/consumable cooldown? -> toxicity, sickness, tolerance, withdrawal
Spell cooldown? -> Precious reagents, detrimental effects from repeated usage, fatigue, long cast times, resource(mana or what have you) cost increases the more times it's used without resting
Weapon rapid fire? -> overheating, increased change of jam/malfunction, more frequent reloads, more ammunition used overall, reduced accuracy

Rather than just slapping a cooldown on an ability, think about why it's so useful that someone (in a fantastical-realistic scenario) would want to spam it, and what would prevent them from doing so.

 

[Reinhardt]

think about why it's so useful that someone (in a fantastical-realistic scenario) would want to spam it, and what would prevent them from doing so.

cooldowns. simple and elegant.

 

[Cryomancer]

Thats exactly what BG3 is about.

No, BG3 is about gay sex scenes motion captured, hours in a single encounter vs hp inflated goblins with slow animations, single summon limits, lv 4 archdruids, barrelmancy to do fire damage enough to kill a fire dragon(...)

can only pew..........pew..........pew...........

Not truth. If you could use a very limited amount of grenades cuz they are incredible rare but could use then without cooldowns, would be much better.

And cooldowns is like nuke 1, nuke 2, filler 1, filler 2 (...), filler N, nuke N ad ethernum.

But you are right in one point. I love firearms and magic in gaming in general.

-----

Anyway, the hate which PF:WoTR is receiving is simple. The game is not good as Kingmaker. Is clearly inferior to PF:KM in most aspects(except character building), but PF:WoTR still better than any Larian game. And yes, it includes Divine Divinity. The best Larian game. TBH I"m re playing PFKM in Unfair as a Thassilonian Specialist(Necromancer) and having way more fun than PF:WoTR. The beginning of the game, was extremely brutal but at the same time, fun. Makes me appreciate much more the power earned when I got into late chapter 2(I'm ch 3 now)

 

[Reinhardt]

but PF:WoTR still better than any Larian game

Wotr is boring and the more i play the more bored i become. They managed to make game about crusades and demon chopping boring - it's an achievement.

 

[oscar]

Both studios products pretty reliably have some consistently huge flaws but I've probably gotten more enjoyment out of Owlcat. Both studios have made their share of baffling design decisions that seem to stop their games falling short of greatness (or even consistent fun). Also neither can write a compelling plot to save their lives.

 

[Trippy]

Why do you feel so? I get a lot of the Codex criticisms, but I don't entirely grok why cooldowns are such a hated mechanic. It just seems a way of giving tools to the player while delimiting their ability to 'spam' those tools

Cooldowns also lead to a sameness "spam the same rotation over and over" which essentially kills the immersion and transform the RPG in a rhythm game.

Aha, now this I get. It enforces a periodicity on the player, and thus you're at the mercy of the game's systems instead of the other way around.

 

[Thonius]

I've said it before in this very forum and I'll say it again loud and clear.

Swen Vincke is the greatest Belgian to ever grace the face of the Earth.

This is an indisputable claim.

Greatest Belgian? What a hilariously low benchmark you got here.

 

[Thonius]

The problem isn't cooldowns, the problem is cooldowns used for everything when there are more elegant ways to solve the problem without a major game/narrative separation.
Potion/consumable cooldown? -> toxicity, sickness, tolerance, withdrawal
Spell cooldown? -> Precious reagents, detrimental effects from repeated usage, fatigue, long cast times, resource(mana or what have you) cost increases the more times it's used without resting
Weapon rapid fire? -> overheating, increased change of jam/malfunction, more frequent reloads, more ammunition used overall, reduced accuracy

Rather than just slapping a cooldown on an ability, think about why it's so useful that someone (in a fantastical-realistic scenario) would want to spam it, and what would prevent them from doing so.

Dos got cooldowns btw, overall what you wrote is just cooldowns WITH extra steps, sure they can add negative effects but at its core, it's what it is.

I second this. I was on chapter 4 and was like "why can't my dudes hit that guy? it's just a Vrock. Oh, my bad it's a Mythin Vrock Asassin, that explains it". Not to mention one of the high level foes is the Babau Warrior. Were the Babau I was fighting in chapter 1 tourists or something?

Man, I hate that crap, it's like the same shit with loot in many games EXTRA FIRE DEALING LADIES PISTOL OF EPIC DMG - in the green text so you know it's special for about 4 minutes till you find the next loot.

No, BG3 is about gay sex scenes motion captured, hours in a single encounter vs hp inflated goblins with slow animations, single summon limits, lv 4 archdruids, barrelmancy to do fire damage enough to kill a fire dragon(...)

Don't be nice to faggots, at least one problem is solved! Still, bg3 got some nice reactivity, alternative ways to do the quest, and out-of-combat spell usage and they toned down on retardo loot system.
Shame it's attached to DnD5 and larian's "hilarious" and "deep" writing.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Don't be nice to faggots, at least one problem is solved! Still, bg3 got some nice reactivity, alternative ways to do the quest, and out-of-combat spell usage and they toned down on retardo loot system

And most importantly, it has...

Spoiler

Playable Duergar.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

overall what you wrote is just cooldowns WITH extra steps

and? Most of cRPGs can be considered "extra steps" that could be simplified -- and when done, tends makes a worse cRPG overall.
verisimilitude is at the heart of the genre, blindly copy-pasting nu-XCOM mechanics is decline embodied.

 

[Thonius]

overall what you wrote is just cooldowns WITH extra steps

and? Most of cRPGs can be considered "extra steps" that could be simplified -- and when done, tends makes a worse cRPG overall.
verisimilitude is at the heart of the genre, blindly copy-pasting nu-XCOM mechanics is decline embodied.

I'm not at disagreement with you here. I'm just saying that it's an abstraction, cool down represents fatigue after doing X. Lazy devs just offload that bit on your imagination maybe?
Also I think most devs don't bother with affection system instead of cooldowns , because it's hard to balance it and easy to abuse or perhaps it's connected to ai
, since you know enemy can just unload on your party at every encounter.