What happened to immersion in RPGs?
>>3700783>2011lmao
>>3700783despite common origin imsims and rpgs eventually went their separate ways
>>3700783The directions you were given were dogshit and people were largely indistinguishable and having to bother every single cunt in a town to find one guy was not fun or enjoyable, it was tedious and the novelty of asking people in Daggerfall wore off very, very quickly.And god help you if the person you're looking for decides to go walkies. I once ran into Faendal at Half-Moon Mill. There's also the fact that if something changes in development, then the guy might change his location, name, or even existence.
The argument is always >people used to have more time, the world was slower paced!but that's not right. A lot of the systems in oblivion / skyrim are improvements, especially if it's not your first rpg. I think most franchises aren't creative or bold enough to do something interesting enough to grab my attention. Also the music for most games sucks these days.
>>3700857>the world was slower paced!The idea you could be reached at any time at all hours of the day on-demand only came about with the sharp rise of smartphones, probably 10-15 years ago.
It died, to thunderous applause
>>3700860that has nothing to do with the quality of the games. A good game sucks me in, i'll barely eat for hours. It still happens with modern games, and it happens when I go back to Morrowind too. If the game is interesting enough I'll put in the effort to read and pay attention naturally.
>>3700875it kinda does have to do with quest compasses, since people are trained by gps now. can they even follow verbal directions or read a map? tools become crutches, crutches weaken people.
>>3700877oblivion and skyrim compasses were still years before gps was super common in phones. iphone was 09
>>3700881the devs of bethshit had had them in their cars for quite a while by the time of oblibions
>>3700783>RPGs>discussion is always about TESHmm
Metaphor was very immersive. The world felt lived in.
>>3700887>tes image>muh immurshun>y people talk tes
>>3700783The demand for full voice acting killed the open world RPG.
>>3700857Too much bloat in new games. Just walking around in bg3 starts like a dozen quests automatically. Not going to read that at all.
>>3700897This is true, but improved text-to-speech will hopefully bring it back.
>>3700887kill yourself
>>3700783>mfw mandatory misleading instructions
>>3700969kek i remember booting up shadow of war, finishing the tutorial area and as soon as i got access to the first map (which was presumably a small part of the whole word) and saw 50 icons of all shapes and colors scattered everywhere, i closed and uninstalled the game. fuck that shit
>>3700897>>3701087>improved text-to-speech will hopefully bring it back."Dev studios were talented and capable of making good open world RPGs all this time, but voice acting"If only it were that simpleI will point out that Zelda games were incredibly successful with limited voice acting.
>>3701143I think anon meant that voice acting adds a cumbersome overhead to RPG development.Much of the information about a game's setting and quests comes from NPCs, and full voice acting severely limits what those NPCs can tell you.For one thing, it all has to be scripted well in advance of the recording session, which is itself expensive to arrange. Then it's a real headache if you need to change anything.Voice acting has become an overrated badge of merit for RPGs, such that developers are now reluctant to abandon it, even when it clearly holds them back.
>>3700783>the skyrim waypoint issueso turn it off, immersion restored.
>>3700783You know you can turn it off, right?>bShowQuestMarkers=0
>>3701184>>3701190pff, amateur hour. The fix for all Skyrim issues isuninstall.exe
>>3701184>>3701190Problem is, the game was designed with them and lost the verbal directions of Morrowind, so without the markers you’re reduced to metagaming and looking up the locations on UESP in another window or whatever.
>>3701146>voice acting adds a cumbersome overhead to RPG development.So does every other thing.Anyone is free to make low budget games, it's acceptable, but I'm still not seeing great RPGs being made.The great RPG revival brought us Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2, but nothing resembling Morrowind.Because no one is capable of making a game like Morrowind, with or without voice acting.
>>3701202>no one is capable of making a game like Morrowindlol, good. Get fucked Bethtard.
>>3701200Having places marked on your map would be a good compromise.
>>3700783you buy games to finish them as fast as possible, its a chore and you will pay to do it because its what you are supposed to dosteps to playing a game>buy the game>install the game>read a guide on how to beat the game>play the game and beat itfollow this simple guide to keep beating the games and you will be able to beat the games easily as long as you beat the game you got your moneys worth from when you bought ityou might buy a lot of games and cant beat them all, they go in a back log so you remember "i still haven't beaten all these games, better make time in my day to be sure i beat them all"plan to spend time beating games, ask the internet how you can beat them fast and how to be the most efficient game beater
>>3701275Oblivion and Skyrim do that. Oblivion you can play without quest markers
If a map shows the player's location, it's fucking casual handholding garbage.
>>3700783Skyrim is nearly 14 years old
>>3701328Long live the king of RPGs. I bet it's going to take another 10 years for some game to take the crown.
>>3701331Enjoy the wait. :)
>>3701331It's not even the king of Bethesda RPGs.
>>3700783Normalfags happened. Same with everything else about vidya that has gotten worse over times.
>>3700783Normies got into video games. They don't want to think about what they're playing or spend any more time on it than they have to, they just want to be part of the thing that's currently being discussed and advertised.
>>3700783The group of people who want to be immersed in a setting and challenged within those boundaries are getting smaller while the group of people who want to have the game suck their dick and call them a good boy for pressing x is getting bigger
I need (You)s. Should I start another TES thread or just say something stupid in this one?
>>3701755The anti-bethesda schizo thread is still up, try that one
>>3701770meds
>>3701770>anti-bethesda schizowym, shizo? Bethesda is shit, deal with it. They had the golden sandbox RPG formula, exclusively, and absolutely fumbled it. Depending on who you ask, with TES4, 5, FO3, 4, or 76. But today everyone agrees they have gone to shit.
>>3700857>people used to have more time, the world was slower paced!>but that's not right.No, it is. The damage smartphones have done to the human psyche has been swift and immeasurable. And on top of that, it's normalized. The current generation literally has no idea what it feels like to not be connected to everyone and everything at literally every moment. The ability to feel unconnected and unaccountable to anyone greatly affects how invested people will become in video games.>>3700875>A good game sucks me in, i'll barely eat for hours. It still happens with modern games, and it happens when I go back to Morrowind tooThe difference is that most people won't be like that. Even if they ARE sucked into a good game for hours, it will only be because that game keeps giving them objectives. Not because they're willing to spend hours searching for an NPC.Normies get sucked into social media for hours. That doesn't mean it's a particularly deep investment. It's literally just the surface level of their brain searching for dopamine hits. Same thing goes for modern games.
>>3701809>it will only be because that game keeps giving them objectives. Not because they're willing to spend hours searching for an NPC.This. Modern game interfaces are basically becoming designed more and more like smartphones; constantly waving little objective lists in your face. It's not nearly the same experience as exploring a game world of your own volition, even if you expect to find or accomplish just one thing, or even nothing at all.
>>3700783Reading it's not fun
>>3701137no luck finding them guars, eh?
>>3702957Felt off when I found them because the instructions were accurate, yes, but the previous instructions where about following roads. When I was told to go south west to the coast I followed the roads south west to the coast but that's wrong. You're actually meant to face south west from the one who gave the directions and walk straight over the hills to find the target.Found them on my own eventually but switching from following roads to precision directions is weird.
>>3700783Game developer is too rigid and streamlined today for Immersive Sims Games. Most beloved Immersive Sims were potatoes until very late in development when they changed fundamental things. You cannot do that today.
>>3702969no, it's that everyone is using middleware to make games. le immersive sims require actually being able to code.
>game with directions for every one of the 400 quests has 3 of them with poor directions>see, this is why we need quest markers!
>>3700783The average midwit is now so stupid they cannot comprehend basic storytelling techniques and are generally borderline illiterate in some way.
>>3703078I want to believe that, because it would make me feel smarter than most people!
>>3703142You should believe it. My wife and my aunt are both high school teachers. There are kids graduating these days who can barely read, never mind being able to actually process and analyze the information. People are more stupid than ever, and the system doesn't have the time, manpower, or money to spend on teaching kids that don't want to learn or dealing with parents that don't care, so they're just pushing them through so they become societey's problem. The worst part is that I live in Massachusetts, which is allegedly one of the most well-educated states in the country. If that's true, then kids elsewhere must just be literal stumps.Not sure if the crisis is hitting other countries, but young Americans are so stupid right now, it's insane. And these kids are the biggest demographic for video games. If you make a game that requires actual reading and critical thinking skills, you're alienating over half your potential buyers right out of the gate. Why do you think the "yellow paint" controversey is a thing? Developers don't WANT to do it, but they playtest the games and realize they have no choice, because the average "gamer" today cannot read and cannot think.
>>3703159>There are kids graduating these days who can barely readGrim. Here kids are reading a second language in school before they're 10 years old.
>>3700793Immersive Sims are born from a failed attempt to add real time elements to RPGs but more and more people ask for more RPG elements to be removed. A lot of the older immersive sims had some kind of compromise mechanic to stop it from devolving into pure action.
>>3701204Correct response.>>3701358It isn't even an RPG.>>3701780I really can't see how they could get out of the hole that they dug themselves into.
>>3703159people have always been this dumb, idiot. literacy was pushed simply to get people to more easily consume propaganda from the elite.
>>3703204>It isn't even an RPG
>>3701200>verbal directions of Morrowindwhich was dumb because the existence of maps.
>>3703159it's not a young thing, i watch my dad play battlefield and it's flashing LOW AMMO PRESS SQUARE TO RELOAD in the middle of the screen for like 5 minutes while he has 2 rounds in a magazine. then he has to fight somebody and immediately has to reload and says WHAT WHY AM I JUST SUDDENLY OUT OF AMMO. i ask "you didn't see the giant low ammo warning?" and he says I DON'T PLAY GAMES TO READ WHY DO THEY MAKE THESE SO COMPLICATED
>>3705901>an older stupid person exists, so clearly that means young people aren't actually getting dumberThanks for proving my point, dummy.
>>3705901>backseat bitch has something to sayShocker. Maybe cut your dad some slack
>>3700860If you were playing on your computer you could be reached via a phone just as well...
>>3705905>more retards have a 24/7 microphone to spew their shit, so other retards feel they are in good company and follow suitlife is confusing to you slightly above average intellects
>>3700783I genuinely despise RPG autists because they have such terrible game design instincts. Morrowind's quest directions add nothing to the game. I think there's a single quest where the journal is actually a puzzle, the rest may as well be alt-tabbing into a game guide. It's literally just "head in this direction to this place and talk to this person." You could use the same justification to demand players calculate DPS values by hand. What skill is the game testing? That you can follow rote instructions? How is that a game? Just give the player a quest marker at that point.Notice how exploration-based games like Metroidvanias never give the player quest markers but they also never give the player written instructions either. They make it deliberately unclear how to find the next objective, because figuring that out IS the game. RPG autists always insist on tedious busywork that doesn't actually add any challenge.
>>3706483>quest directions add nothing to the gameIt's good when they reference landmarks or something, so you're paying attention to the world instead of maps and markers.>add any challenge.Challenge is not the point. It isn't challenging in metroidvanias either.
>>3700783zoomers have fried brains
>>3706483I fucking know. And they should just add a "teleport to quest marker" option because walking is tedious busywork. Actually the open worlds should be removed. Just make it teleporting between quest areas. Actually just make a quest hallway with every quest in the game one after the other. I hate walking around in games it's just tedious busywork. God anon we should make a game.
>>3706503>>3706518Navigating around the world is fun because at any point you can stop what you're doing and trek over to some intriguing landmark in the distance. It's a very cohesive, intuitive experience. The Morrowind journal actively detracts from that because quest directions are all relative to the quest's starting location. It actively incentivizes beelining each quest as soon as you receive it instead of organic exploration.
>>3706525That might be the most insignificant nitpick I have ever heard in my entire life. And not only that, but it's barely even true, a shit ton of Morrowind's quests will tell you to directions that start in places you didn't get the quest from, like other cities.
>>3706525>The Morrowind journal actively detracts from that because quest directions are all relative to the quest's starting location. It actively incentivizes beelining each quest as soon as you receive it instead of organic exploration.Not in my experience. You might be a brainlet.
>>3706531>>3706532I hate RPG fags so much because you shits so obviously never actually play any other game genres and thus have zero clue what good design even looks like.
>>3706549Oh no please don't be mad
>>3700783Nothing, you're just looking for it in the wrong places: both Gothic and Morrowind were niche titles made by niche studios, why do you expect AAA blockbusters to resemble them?>>3700842>bad directions>hard to recognize NPCs>NPCs wandering in odd placesGood points>if something changes during development...Not this one, separating everything into neat boxes that can be combined in arbitrary ways (and outsourced each to a different horde of jeets) is a big part of why big budget vidya is failing to reach sales expectations as of lately.Cohesion matters, arguably even more than polish.
>>3706549Says the quest marker fag
>>3706483>Morrowind's quest directions add nothing to the gamethey add quests. a quest is innately goal oriented request from some person. it's like when your mom says "go buy this from this store" and gives you directions. there are things to do that aren't quests as well.>Notice how exploration-based games like Metroidvanias never give the player quest markers but they also never give the player written instructions eithergo to place you saw previously and use new item/skill isn't hard to figure out
>>3700783The problem is, outside a dozen recognizable landmarks, Skyrim is by large hard to remember at all. Sure, you might've memorized Blind Cliff Cave or some shit's location after three playthroughs, but a new player would end up finding another half a dozen different games with far too similar layouts.The smaller and less open the world, it's more reasonable to expect people to get around without quest markers. On Skyrim? You could end up finding another four other caves before finding the one you want.
>>3706838>The problem is, outside a dozen recognizable landmarks, Skyrim is by large hard to remember at all..And why would you need to remember them?
>>3706844Because if you don't have fucking quest markers, you need an easy way to figure out where things are. And that is usually landmarks.
>>3706851eh, maybe if the game had no player icon on the map. Or no map at all.
>>3706851Do you perhaps mean map markers on the map, not quest markers
>>3706860Except that in Skyrim map markers only appear after you've gone to the place at least once.
>>3706869So?
>>3706869what the fuck are you onit even has different compass markers for visited and unvisited locations
>>3706869>>3706889These are both true statements. This is an unusually pedantic and autistic argument, even for /vrpg/
>>3700783It died and the world's collective IQ along with it
>>3700783Immersion just means you're deeply involved in the game. It's more along the lines that Bethesda has opted for quest markers ever since Oblivion instead of well written directions and letting the player explore the world for themselves. >>3701137The misleading instructions in the case of Morrowind are due to the quest instructions being written in an earlier build. In later builds often quest objects and were moved while Bethesda didn't update the quest instructions.
>>3700783Honestly it would have been cool if Morrowind didnt tell you the name of the dungeon at the door.Imagine doing some bullshit ancestor crypt only to find out you are at the wrong place.
>>3707832i think tombs are the one thing that should be labelled.
>>3700783It changed to require less active from the player himself over time, and instead changes the focus on reactive effort. Immersion no longer requires the player to do things like take notes, write things down, and do puzzles out of the game. (Though I would argue that those things are usually due to a failing of the game to properly give the player the tools to do so WITHIN the game itself.) Instead, it focuses on character choice and reactivity, letting the player immerse themselves into a role.
>>3708047>Immersion no longer requires the player to do things like take notes, write things down, and do puzzles out of the game.You never had to do this in Morrowind either.
>>3700783its not immersion anon its content stop using meaningless meme words they cut out content to make development cheaper or replace it with something more "marketable/profitable" like graphicsmaking hi quality games is expensive and beth is cheapest scummiest bitch on the planet when it comes to that
>>3710961>cut out content to make development cheaper>beth is cheapest scummiest bitch on the planetThat's a retarded thing to say about a studio that has made the most detailed and open worlds. Even with Morrowind they went out of their way to make every interior accessible with objects you can pick up.
>>3701137Morrowind works way better now rather than 2002 because you can crank up view distance on a modern GPU to be able to see further than your outstretched hands. In 2002 if the instructions weren't correct to the nearest 3 degrees of deflection you'd never find the target.
>>3711070Yes, contemporaneous high end PCs struggled to run it well even for years after release due to its jank engine. However imo, it cheapens the effect to completely max out the view distance, you can see all the way across the island and it somewhat reduces the atmosphere and makes the world feel as small as it actually is. As a compromise, I tend to just set it to the max of the original slider, not what MGE XL is capable of.
>>3700783What happened is that the industry peaked between the 90s and early 2000s. Past the golden age, eveyone started to target clients with lower standards as the developing costs skyrocketed compared to the past, meaning a lot of things needed to be simplified to put more funds in graphics and smoother gameplay.
>>3709415It was advisable in the original version, as the journal wasn't hyperlinked. It was just an ever-expanding slab of text that wasn't indexed, and couldn't be searched. Thankfully a patch fixed it, and the finished journal was excellent.
>>3711428Iirc tribunal added that feature
>>3711428Meh, if you manage to make a mess of your journal, you're somehow retarded and not playing immersively anyway. I never had to use the added journal features.Like what, does someone run around collecting all the quests before they start working on them in random order?
>>3711015they cut out content anon content that matters for the type of game TES was trying to be content that matters for RPGs. From morrowind to skyrim they kept cutting content moving to cheaper and cheaper out sourced labor, doing bare minimum upkeep on their tooling/engines, outsourcing everything to 3rd parties. Thats how the company was run since daggerfall all their games were buggy POS at launch and remained as such for a long time they did bare minimum every time all they had to boast about was hand placed trees or whatever no quality no value.