The Thing That is Ruining RPGs 

Agreed I'm sick of the four options of Good, Bad, Sarcastic, More info. I miss the depth of the old masterclass RPGs

Falllout 1: A convulted web of dialogue options that could lead to any response depending on the person Fallout 4: Yes, Yes but I would like some background information, Yes but with attitude, Yes but not right now. I'll get to it later.

"I work at EA" Reputation: [Vilified] For your overwhelmingly monstrous behavior, you have become vilified by the community.

"Everytime you open mouth you risk losing a friend" yeah I remember being shot to death by the children of the cathedral for asking for pamphlets in Fallout 1.

Enclave here, why isn't your video feed working?

To think that games like Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and Arcanum had so much more complex morality than Modern Triple A Games. In VtMB, you had humanity, which affected your ability to control your character in more ways than just good or bad. There were so many factions to side with that weren't even good guys to begin with.

To me what kills modern RPGs is the oversimplification, laziness and quest for lower PG rating: Oversimplification - As if I have to even explain it. Games are made for casuals these days, they have absolutely no challange, no difficulty, everything is placed for user on a silver platter. I am a modder or Fallout 4, and I constantly get bombarded by fans to make my mods simpler, to explain how to do something they can take just 10 minutes ingame exploration to figure out... Or read mod description. I hear "Remove sunlight from vampirism" "Make is so that you don't have to drink blood as a vampire"... What kind'a resoponse is that?! It's of a user who's too lazy to be a vampire even when he wants to be a vampire. Gamers get too lazy so gaming companies oblige that, speaking of which Laziness - Lazy clientelle is signal to gaming companies to make sh..t lazilly. They could spend twice that much time to develop a deep and great game with plot turning on a dime with even simple choices... Why? If they can spend 1/4 of that time making a crappy linnear game where even the plot and whatever choice you have leads to the very same outcome. Sell it on steam for 50$ and work on 4 other games that would be worth more than one deep and well developed game. Maybe that's cause of development of RU-vidr gaming. People are so lazy they don't even have to play a game, thay can watch PewDiePie do it. So if half the people don't even buy the game they don't see the games faults, without even playing a game people see them as movies. Movies don't need plot choices, multiple spin-offs just linear story of its own. Lower PG rating - It relates somehow to this vid. Gaming companies wanna make $$$ and if they want $$$ they must sell their product in greater numbers. Wanna sell more copies of a game? Sell it to more people. Who buys more games? Kids. How do you sell more games to kids? Make games more moral, ethical, politically correct and all the other boring sh..t so that they aren't prohibited beneath age 18. So companies go for a lazy and less legallly risky choice and make games more goody goody,. Modern games don't give you the opportunity to play whoever you wanna be, but whoever is legal according to international gaming law to play, and this ruins the foundation of RPG playing. Which is to be able to play whoever you wanna damn be.

I remember so many times when faced with a difficult dialogue decision in Witcher 3, I had to just stop, get up, go to the kitchen, think it over, sometimes I'd even take a shower before deciding. That's because this game taught me very early in the plot just how much the decisions actually mattered.

The thing that ruined RPG is actually everything is too safe and positive. You can't roleplay an anti-hero or a villain.

One thing that helps knock people out of this is what they did in Pillars of Eternity, where most choices where a lot more grey with no clear "good" or "evil" choice. Some people don't like that aspect but it's an RPG worth checking out.

Note to self, play Fallout 1 and 2.

I loved Origins because I could sell my cousin to a rapist and be a racist asshole all before I completed the tutorial section of the game. Later on, I committed genocide on innocent mages and sold elves into slavery for a staff. In inquisition, I got none of that. A human noble is nice to every elf, you can't he mean to mages, blah blah blah. The worst thing I can do is punch Solas. Fuck.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is the best role play game I've ever played. I think it does all the things you say you want them to do.

When speaking about the dialogue wheel, the thing I have against it is the premade position of good-bad-humour choice. If that was mixed up every time and you had NO IDEA what was going to happen then you would think before you speak. Also if we take into consideration the recent RPGs I think Witcher 3 had a decent dialogue writing and choices.

"I work for EA" You're mispronouncing "THE DEVIL"

My favourite role play was, the Idiot/Low Intelligence playthrough in New Vegas.

This is like... a summary of the shower thoughts I had this morning.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Dialog wheel needs to go away. When it comes to Dragon Age, just bring back what was seen in the Origins, which is still the best by far Dragon Age game.

This is why I love Sten. When I try be nice to him, he ignores me, dismisses me and gives me nothing. Only until I learn to get on his level and push back at him, and treat him like crap he starts to respect me. Sten is a great character as a perfect example of dynamic choices.

They're working on algorithms that can take a voice and have it voice act instead of a person. This is similar to how vocaloid works I hope we get to using this technology for games to cut down on cost one day.

Nice to know that actual gamers work at EA. I always thought it was run by corporate slaves and fatcats. This was a terrific video, and I'm definitely looking forward to more of your content. However, I doubt many AAA developers would be willing to part with voice actors, especially for main characters. Perhaps, an automated voice system could replace secondary npc's. For example, a game could take place in the future where a bunch of robots have Microsoft Sam as their voicebox.

personally, I think it is the mainstreaming of gaming that is driving down the quality of RPGs. instead of being a niche market and making RPGs for their base, developers are listening to - and targeting - the new influx of customers (aka, 'average' consumers, casual and semi-casual players). those folks are most impressed with things like vibrant colors, lots of action, and storylines which will allow them to play for half an hour then go out to dinner and forget about it for a week.

"I work at EA" Oh. I'm so sorry.

i think Witcher 3 did this well compared to the dog shit we got in F4......

Just a side note: from Gecko's power plant terminal in Fallout 2 you can call Enclave, but not in Navarro, but on the oil rig base. And the officer doesn't call 'an airstrike', he calls a vertibird assault team, which in vanilla Fallout 2 results in absolutely nothing, and Killap's Restoration Project adds a sequence with a special encounter outside Gecko where player meets this aforementioned assault team. But never the dialog with the Enclave officer results in Gecko Power Plant's destruction, but it could be triggered by using specific options in that terminal.

I agree but I can think of alot of other things killing rpg's Things like "streamlining". You start a franchise with immersive worlds and depth of gameplay....then they "streamline" things. Take out customization...remove stats...cut down on the choices of abilities and options. Even take out whole play-styles. Look at Dragon Age. Origins had a wealth of choice. You could choose what stats to use, did you want to be a mage with high health...you could do that. DFid you want to be a wise warrior...you could do that. You had a wealth of spells and abilities you could use and choose from. Then they started to chip away at that...stats were removed....abilities and spells were cut down to almost nothing...even armor sets were reduced to barbie doll mechanics that made everything you wear look like a slightly different version of the same basic outfit. They even took out the ability to play as a healer/support mage. They took spells from a huge list of spells down to fire/ice/lightning. Mass Effect went from a world that made sense to a world that was about booty strings. In Mass Effect one everyone wore armor because it was a fricken war. Mass Effect 2 and 3 made people wear skin tight gloves and strings to a firefight. Another thing killing rpg's is the constant gearing towards the casual crowd. Simplifying games to appeal to people who dont play games. Look at mmorpg's. Before WoW (the game i blame for ruining the genre) mmorpgs had depth and great mechanics. The games took time and effort. People could play for years and not see end game content and they didnt care. After wow and its simplified gameplay, it became a rush to end game. Games were "beatable" in a week or so with players rushing to max level bypassing most of the games content...just to complain theres nothing to do. Death means nothing in mmorpgs now, compared to when death was actually feared and meant something. Not to mention greed and laziness by the developers. Nowadays developers would rather make an ok game that appeals to everyone...rather than a great game that appeals to a set core of gamers but is remembered for years to come as a great game. Then of course you have gamers of today that will accept any ol crap they are given if its by a developer they like, that will do mental gymnastics to try and justify making great games limited and how thats a good thing because the developers said so. Gamers that cant be bothered to do anything for more than 5 mins without getting the silver spoon shoved up their backsides. When talking about DA once and how it was overly simplified I actually had somebody tell me they couldnt be bothered to mess with stats because it took them away from blowing something up for that split second. That it made them think too much. No lie...they actually said this. /facepalm Games today are like an ocean at sunset...they look amazing...but when you walk out into the water...you find out they are as shallow as a puddle. Games before by todays standard may have looked more like a barrel of toxic bubbling ooze...but once you jumped in you realized how deep they were and how involved in them you were.

In fallout 1 or 2 (I can't remember I played them both to death) I got the jinxed perk and raised my luck to 10. I equiped myself with a spear and everyone would jam their guns, critically failing and screwing themselves over as I stab them in the groins. I would be the wise man that brought justice with the cyclone of bad luck that followed me. Next I played a charisma character with the sfall mod, which turned fallout 2 into XCOM essentially. I was utterly weak with 1 strength and measly 4 endurance, but I had the ability to max out other points and get companions to complete strength and endurance checks, and to defend me as I leveled up everything BUT combat skills. THAT is role playing, to have such a specific playstyle and way of handling situations, then to have differing grey choices to mold your character. Today games make you do things a specific way, which is fine but many are calling them RPG's when they really aren't. Skyrim if you know it well, can be played in many ways, such as allowing you to play as an equilibrium mage or an illusion assassin. Also many dungeons have good stories, like the hag raven one where you take back her tower and she is your companion for the dungeon, revealing secrets and wreaking havok. Although i'd say that about 10% of the game is boring quests, which thankfully can be ignored for the most part.

I like living with the consequences of my choices in these games. I'm edgy that way. I don't always need happy endings.

"I work at EA" holy shit! hi!

Nice analysis. I am replaying Morrowind and one thing that I miss in newer games is pissing off people and taking sides with the choices you make. I mean, in Morrowind you can join numerous factions BUT this will affect how the people and the other factions like you. Sometimes even you can screw up your advancement in one of your chosen factions if you aren't careful. (For ex. Fighters and Thieves guilds hate each other and if you join both, you will have to choose wich one you want to continue advancing at some point because some quests imply killing people inside those guilds)

We need a final solution to the casual gamer problem. Bring back RPG's for people with above room temperature IQ pls.

I'm in development of my own RPG, and I find this very inspiring! I love to write and script, so I like getting rid of the voice acting middle men. (except for sections that need extra dramatic ambience) This way I can focus on creating an intriguing and in depth dialogue system. Right now I'm trying to combine old school RPGs branching method with JRPGs dating simulator personality charts, and applying more in depth personalities (or at least I'm adding more personality parameters like emotional values or happiness, sadness, anger, and jealousy) to NPCs. This way your actions can have a cumulative affect on NPCs giving them the illusion of memory! ;D I really appreciate efficient programming methods like this that utterly mutilate the unnecessary components that weigh a game or system down, as I'd much rather have a polished and finished piece of heArt then a pretty looking hot mess. Besides, visual aesthetics and a fitting artistic theme are vastly more important then poly count.

It's good to see a video like this, as I totally agree RPG's have been a little lack-luster as of late. Most old games, would punish you simply for making a small mistake. You know? Just like real life. Then you got some games that have been released, where you CAN'T EVEN DIE.

couple of random thoughts. 1. the evil (or asshat) story/dialogue choices should make the game objectives easy, whereas the moral and ethical choices should make the gameplay and objectives more difficult. To me, the fact that this is rarely the case in these games makes the wheel even worse - it just becomes an arbitrary ending-unlocking mechanic. You pointed out a very true thing about real life in which you can't predict all the consequences of your words and actions - what is equally true, is that being a good/virtuous person is MUCH harder than being a selfish, immoral person. Both of these facts are missing from modern rpg's which is what makes them feel flat. 2. goodie vs baddie choice spread shouldnt be viewed as choices for an individual, it should be viewed as choices for a group (the customers). in other words, you're free to make all the "fun" evil and/or asshat choices you want, while i'm free to play in a way which you consider boring (goodie two-shoes). It boils down to play style preference, and imo it hurts game design if one's aim is to design their goodie/baddie choice tree for the sake of people who want to play the game multiple times to get each outcome. 3. I agree that different responses should be programmed for each choice, and it sucks that it's rare nowadays, but I never even considered that this doesnt happen as much because of voice acting! Makes a lot of sense to me now. 4. RPGs with dialogue wheels should probably be called "Wheel-P-G's". Im a nobody though, so that probably won't stick 5. RPG's about pirates should be called "Aar-P-G's". After typing all this I just realized this video is 2 years old, so odds are no one will even read this XD

A text to speech engine with enough voice and tone options could actually fix this issue and save a lot of money on voice acting.

The Shepard situation IS LIKE real life. A soldier in the military is to do what they are told, and are rarely apprised to any real reasons behind the orders. Only the upper echelons of military intelligence knows the reasons behind orders. This should give the player a semblance of real life aggravation of not being important enough to know.

I'm really surprised your channel is so small. This and your Morrowind vs Skyrim video are seriously good content. Thats all i'v seen from you, don't know if you have more, but right after i sub im gunna check. Thanks man.

I disagree that the "dialogue wheel" is the issue. The issue is the "fully voiced protagonist", as that means that every possible statement needs to have recordings from the voice actor. More dialogue, more voice, more payment to the voice actors. Mute (or mostly mute, minus incidental dialogue - see DA:O) protagonists don't have this issue. When every line is text, you can produce a dozen phrases and pick whichever you want. With voiced, your dialogue follows a prerecorded series of set phrases - the dialogue wheel is merely a symptom of voice acting. By the same token, the higher the fidelity/detail of a game, the more noticable - and thus less acceptible - repeated elements are. That's why worlds start to feel smaller and smaller in scope. Walk from one end of highly detailed Skyrim in an hour, or take real-world weeks to trek across the copy-pasted sprawl of Daggerfall? In summary, the higher the detail, the lower the amount of voice. Mo' pixels, mo' problems. If we want to have a true level of choice, we need to sacrifice elements that have become commonplace in modern gaming, particularly the voiced protagonist.

I want to offend people. I'm offended if no one is offended.

That speech at the end.. So inspiring.. Brought a tear to my shiny face 😢😂

Damn! Just bought the classic Fallout games and you spoiled me a few bits. Well, I suppose it's my fault anyways, should have expected it... Anyways, about the video, YES. "RPG" choices nowadays are just too polarized. That character I'm playing is just not me...

It is really a lack of character depth. In order for games to avoid confusing the new player, devs remove the lore from the characters. Characters will only do or say things that make sense to everyone else and the player can understand.

"I work at EA." CYA lol (RIP Westwood Studios)

This and your video on More is Less are why I'm subbing to your channel. Really great content, please keep making it!

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't care that much about dialogue choices in RPGs either way. I'm more interested in having a world I can inhabit in a believable way, Morrowind-style. That game's dialogue system was basically a wiki, but I never felt constrained in my ability to roleplay a character. Dialogue was so abstracted that I could imagine my character's specific responses pretty much any way I liked, and there were so many different factions and ways to make a living that I could easily roleplay a ruthlessly pragmatic Telvanni wizard or a pious Redoran/Temple traditionalist or an opportunistic thief just through my moment-to-moment choices. The game didn't let me outright express those attitudes in _words_, but it also never got in the way or railroaded me towards one of them. That said, I do enjoy the old style of choice-focused RPG a lot more than the modern "press this button to be a sarcastic dick" kind. They're more about actual risk and conflict than just facilitating self-expression (which seems to be the focus of your modern Dragon Ages and Mass Effects, and why those give the player tools to stay on the track they want).

The only thing that separates games from movies is CHOICE. choice is what makes games games!

I love this analysis, it's the most well-thought-through study on Bloodborne I've seen. Keep making these.

"I work at EA" I am expecting microtransactions and a required season pass if you wanna subscribe.

This is why I really liked Tyranny.

Okay, you are now my new favourite youtuber. The only thing I would say you could improve is your background music. Try choosing more music similar to video game music. I'm sure it will help.

same with FE Fate Conquest when I played it last year. Oh... how I wanted to be a ruthless leader, but instead my character is just a naive revolutionary with stock-holme sydrome. Sometimes games just need let you Lelouch your way though them. If possible.

I really enjoy your perspectives, as you are able to cogently explain what's been bothering me about games the last decade or so. You've got a new subscriber, sir!

The Thing That is Ruining RPGs (Ft. Lil Jon) I wonder if we'll ever see a truly outstanding AAA RPG again. DA:O was one of the last, IMO. I just don't think there's any big company brave enough to create a AAA project these days without feeling the need to voice all their characters. It's probably a matter of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." I mean, from a strict RPG standpoint, Fallout 4 was pretty depressing, especially when you compare it to Fallout 1 or even New Vegas; but still, you can't argue with the sales. People need to start voting with their wallets-- make the corporate bigwigs care badly enough to make real RPGs again.

one of the best dialog systems I've seen in an RPG would be the one in Alpha Protocol where no matter which option you pick there is an unexpected consequence of what you had the main protagonist say to a person though the game itself gets over looked because of the bugs in the game when it came out but when I played the game it was mostly bug free

This is exactly why I love playing kingdom come: deliverance. Dialog is effect by so many things it’s almost impossible to know how they react

Great vid. Been thinking about this sort of thing ever since Yanick Roy was looking for Mass Effect feedback around the time of Andromeda's early dev, and I bitched him out about the dialogue wheel (and Paragon/Renegade always being in the same spots, letting the player autopilot). After that it started sticking in my craw regularly, leading me to eventually conclude that text-only is the only resource-viable way to allow proper roleplaying. You're a lot more eloquent about it, though. I agree with basically all of this vid, especially the dilution of the term RPG.

Agreeeeeeeeeeeeeed! More or less. I thought the dialog i ME 1 was great, the game great (as an immersive action game with solid RPG elements), in ME 2 I thought the dialog was sometimes really good, but the choices were often rubbish. Less good game overall despite combat fluidity improvement. Let's not talk about ME 3. I've tried to play it twice. Maybe got halfway through. Exactly the same with DA: Inquisition. Most things are pointless and it's all about fetchquests and MMO-gather-quests. Booooooring. The last games are not role-playing games. They are MMO:s for single players. Such a shame with so much potential and some really good parts. Edit: Lol, and look at Skyrim and Oblivion. Or Fallout 4. RUBBISH!

Love the channel,well reasoned dialogue from someone who understands what makes a game tick in ways I could never describe... How about a Diablo 2 vs Diablo 3 vid? or compare Deus Ex 1 with the admittedly great Mankind Divided...

love these videos. I'm writing a script and summary for a game right now and you and Mark Browns videos are a great source of all the things a developer should include and avoid when designing a game.

I got more into choosing evil or neutral options in New Vegas and intentionally going out of my way to find weird ways to play the game. This led me down a rabbit hole of other games and found that I would rather have dialogue boxes than voiced characters in order to get more options out of a game. Currently I’m playing Elite Dangerous and I started out as an explorer, moving to smuggler for easy profits, moving into trader for more consistent profits, making independent factions like me but always asking for credits, helping others when I feel like it will benefit me or destroying them and stealing their stuff when I think I can get away with it, and moving on once their economic boom runs out or pissing off the ruling faction to find another boom system. It makes you feel like you’re a small part of this wider galaxy full of other people with their own agendas.

When I play a RPG for the first time I play as I would have done if it was real. Then after that I play with evil morals if the game is interessting enough to do so.

Pengu here :) This video kinda made me realize how "casual" I really am when it comes to RPGs. I really have to take my time for one real RPG... Bought Shadowrun: Hong Kong a few days ago and going do dig into it on the next occasion. As for now it's kinda hard for me to appreciate real immersion... For example I ALWAYS reload, if one of my soldiers die in XCOM. I just can't stand it :_D Freakin casual me!

THIS VIDEO. My first time watching you man, and I'm subscribing. You really speak the truth.

Excellent analysis, good sir. I hope some game developers watch this and take note. Hell even if developers take dialogue of the character as a monologue approach, like FFX then let you decide. That would be an improvement over the dialogue wheel.

Witcher was Nice tho.

Voice acting is killing RPG. I've been saying that for years. When you have to strip down as much as you can the dialogue because every line costs a liver to put into the game, the amount of text goes away fast. And RPG lives and dies by amount of text. You don't make a grey, complex, alive world with as few lines as possible. You need to write as much as you possibly can. Which makes voice acting the single worse thing that's happened to the RPG experience in recent years. That, and making games just for the money of course (as opposed to making them because you want to make them, see Arkham Asylum the masterpiece, vs the rest of the saga, the money grabbers). But that's true of everything, even though the RPG genre is very particular because of the sheer amount of care and depth it needs to make the worlds believable and enjoyable. The comparison of Morrowind vs Skyrim ilustrates all this better than any other pair of games I believe. For all the money that was put into it, all the new technology, Skyrim feels empty where Morrowind feels alive.

even when I play a "good guy" as I usually do, there is always a treak of evil or neutral, I like to look at the options and choose what fits, sometimes I choose 1 thing because I know the outcome, but only for some specific events that hurt me too much when I tried the other options, either in game or emotionally. edit: In games, I usually try to help a bunch of people, and try to do as much content as I can, but sometimes helping some people takes too much effort or is too costly, and sometimes I need to steal that item, or do a bad thing for the greater good.

Great video(s)! You make solid points with constructive arguing and that's half way to a good analysis in my book. Would like to hear what you have to say about the RPG virtues and sins of a "classic" I found only recently and that I feel is quite unique in it's aproach: Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines! Mainly curious because haven't seen it mentioned in any (haven't watched them all, I admit) of your RPG related videos.

...is this guy secretly Big Money Salvia Erik from Internet Comment Etiquette? Because they sound pretty much identical.

Options keep going down. A lot of people said that Mass Effect 3 Was Great, it only had a bad Ending. I felt like Mass effect 3 was rather bland/boring. The lack of choices was one thing, but the linearity of it was mind blowing. WHAT? OK.

Just stumbled onto this video, and while I get what you're saying, I think you sort of work yourself into your own resolution. Paying voice actors takes a toll on budget, and we've got plenty of indie and old school examples that show what dredging the dev/freebie talent pool can do. Stepping back into the realm of text RPG's also creates fan backlash, despite (with good scripts) creating a more diverse experience. You'd also damage large set pieces and impact of choices being shown. As each play style diverges into different paths, the scope of the game creeps. Cutting those moments back to still-image flash movies or text repercussions feels cheap to gamers who've come to expect more pomp and flare for the $$ they siphon into the industry. The other option is a possibly awkward reconvergence to a linear path, or omit the illusion of impactful choice to drive a wholly scripted story. None of these are bad fixes, just ones that still leave gaping holes in what we want. That being said, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the intention (not really the execution) of Andromeda's more personality based wheel mechanic. A step in the right direction, or still too constricting? I definitely agree that bits of lore, stat checks, play style/builds, and explore/question dialogue option should add something to your experience. It'll help create more unique experiences and overall, isn't much of an added bugger. Experimented with re-recording lines with different emotional inflection/intention, and that small nuance can buy a new experience. As lines are often mutli-take efforts, it'd likely add only pennies to the budget. Nailing down a solid script and working scenes with face-to-face interaction during reading will also help lines match dialogue, or rewrite text options to better mirror the voiced response.

I can't help but be reminded of the few tricky choices available in a game like Lisa the Painful RPG, especially since they were constructed with the problems of black-white (and gray) dialogue options in mind.

1) Dragon age origins (Played more than 12 times on "nightmare difficulty", tried different classes and specs) 2) Dragon age 2 (Played 3 or more times just to finish the game from different class perspectives on "normal" and only once on "nightmare") 3) Dragon age 3 (Played half through the game, got bored, never played it since)

Really nice video! I was surprised to see that you are a small channel. The video was very well put together. I have to agree with you...I couldn't force myself to beat dragons age: inquisition, it was too boring. I'm craving a true, character choice RPG, but there aren't many modern games like that. its disappointing.

First time I ever played fallout 3 I was blown away by how deep the dialogue was in the game, actually having conversations with characters rather than watching them in a cutscene made them feel more real and alive even. How Lucas Sims would get angry, happy, weirded out and confused by what you could say to him really made the world feel alive as characters had emotions and their own histories that you could only find out through exploring the dialogue options. Some characters could get so offended that they instantly hate you and won't even talk to you. In multiple play throughs I found myself making different friends in the game that were once assholes on my first play through and vice versa. Now in more recent games the dialogue is brushed to the side for more action and tbh when I first played fallout 3 (which was my first RPG) I did find the dialogue boring at first, I did feel like it slowed the game down and because I was used to shooters I would rush through dialogue at first but then it dawned on me that I could twist the narrative in anyway I chose, I could be a spoilt person, a quiet weirdo, a shy person who let's others push him around, a cowardly villain or a confident hero, a confident villain who killed and took what he wanted without mercy, a two faced thief or a spy getting information out of enemy fractions by pretending to be on there side. When I played fallout 3 and new vegas the actions I made were one's that I would make in real life as the combat was hard and I always tried to get away without causing any violence. Now in game's its all action and little story to please the masses and the players that aren't used to RPG's like I was before I played Fallout 3.

I'm glad youtube recommended this to me after sifting through 10 year old oblivion videos on youtube. Seriously though thank you for being honest and intellectual, if people like you speak out you give your company the good light it needs

"full disclosure, I work at EA." You need Jesus.

Your friend likes to stick to the safe choices? I'm usually like that too. Then I played LISA. It fucked with my head but at the end of it I was able to appreciate how fucked up things were. To a certain degree this is just a response to consumer demand. There are a lot of people like your friend who will just savescum until they get the result they want, myself included. (I think of these people as "tumblr gamers" because this is a common thing among the tumblrina-types.) Specifically with modern RPG games, this means they care more about immersing themselves in the world as opposed to the narrative. This means they need to make sure their decisions wind up creating a world-state that is (or that they think will be) the most fun for them, i.e. the most "safe." This attitude is most obvious when it come to companions; these people usually want to make sure that everyone is some sort of big happy family (or harem, in some cases) and as such will always try to stay away from the choice that their favorite characters may react badly to, even in cases where they would have wanted to roleplay otherwise. Many times when I replay an RPG I make my roleplaying decisions based on which character(s) I want to like me or experience backstory for, etc as opposed to which game narrative I think would be the most interesting to experience. The whole "romancable companion" gameplay feature has done a lot to encourage this kind of play style and so is definitely one of the causes of this phenomena. There's a massive irony here that as the whole "divergent narrative" and "choice and consequence" feature has gotten more mainstream appeal through the last 10-ish years the RPG genre, which was literally built on the concepts of diverging narrative and choice and consequence, has been steadily getting more and more bland and homgenized. Also, I guess this two-year old video got recommended by youtube's algorithm because of all those Fallout 76 videos I watched. How relevant.

I'd love to hear you talk about Kingdoms of Amalur reckoning, and how its anti used games policy made it lesser known and hurt it in the long run, yet it's still a super fun and unique rpg with an amazing combat system

There is a great sketch by Door Monster about dialogue wheel.

Strat, You work at EA?

jrpg are doing just fine to me, but I haven't played a western one in awhile simply because the quality of rpgs went down.

I try to roleplay a dashing rogue type of character where he’s no saint but he’s also got a heart of gold and willing to help for the right price

Nice analysis, what are your thoughts on the Witcher 3 and there use of dialogue?

Loved DA:O to bits, multiple play throughs. DA2 was OK but clearly a rushed development. DA:I was boring as fuck. Loved ME1, ME2 was ok. ME3 pissed me off so much it killed the franchise for me. Enjoyed Fallout 3. Fallout 4 was boring as fuck. Definitely agree that they need to get rid of the good/sarcastic/evil dialog choices that have little relation to what your character actually says. Fully voiced protagonists also need to go.

The thing that is ruining RPGs is Bethesda.

About different approach to role-playing, it's just about what you enjoy in the game. You're the Explorer, you prefer good designed systems, which can produce numerous outcomes to the situation. Your friend is a Plot guy. He wants to have ideal plot, and it is never just as simple as "good ending", it is aesthetic choice of having every event come together thematically, emotionally. I'm, for example, immersion guy. I want to live in the word of a game, behave as I would in a real world and accept all the consequences of my actions without reloading. So there is three absolutely different ways of playing, and all of them are called with the same word "role-playing", which is really confusing.

The remake of Tactics Ogre did something interesting with this: there are major moral choices that you can take throughout the game that change things significantly. Now, when you finish the game, you unlock a menu that lets you go back to specific points in the timeline to change your choices and see what happens then. It's no longer about simply making important choice,s but about the entire tree of possibilities that can arise from these choices. I wish more games did that.

1:00 that was my reaction in the desert too. At that time I quit DA:I and never touched it again. Its fucking boring and feels like work.

Fallout 4 may have been the worst game in the franchise, but one thing it did right is removing the level cap. I utterly despise level caps, unless they are set so high you cannot reach them without ridiculous levels of grinding. The first mod I always install in RPG games, if such a mod exists and is applicable, is one that removes the level cap.

great video. great analysis. Fallout is one of my favourite games too, for exactly the things you covered.

When I first played DA:O everyone hated me but Liliana, it was awesome. Id be fine with the dialogue wheel if it said exactly what you were going to say, but there was no hint as to how that thing was going to be taken.

The near silent Warden of Dragon Age Origins always felt like they had more of a personality than Hawke or the Inquisitor. I could tell Alistair I loved him and not only 'hear' that dialogue but also put my own take on why it was being said. Did the Cousland Warden truly love him or was she saying it to make a play for the Throne. That's why I think I can go back and play Origins again and gain but get bored after the opening in DAII. As to Inquisition I find it near unplayable, I can't bring myself to get far beyond the opening area.

Oh, and mass effects are not roleplaying games, they're interactive stories with gameplay elements.

Really good video, I very much agree with you. Something else to keep in mind tho is that meaningful choices don't have to be just in dialogue, they can also be in the players actions. Take the original Deus Ex for example. In Deus Ex, there are a pretty good ammount of dialogue choices, but most of the roleplaying comes from how you choose to complete missions, stuff like that. Basically every action you take, (who you kill, who you don't kill, the paths you take through the levels, whether you complete a quest successfully or not) they all have an effect on the outcome, and how people treat you. Not only that, but every mission is crafted to have many different outcomes, and they aren't just "good or bad". The choices you can make in Deus Ex are nuanced and are based on the values that you personally hold. It's by far the most realistic RPG I have ever played.

Beautiful work man.

Correction: Everyone you work with is basically a replaceable, disposable human component of the Worst Corporation in the World. Devolver Digital's E3 Press Conference was holding up a mirror and saying "This is you. This is what you look like to normal people." If anything is ruining Video Games harder than bad mechanics, it's bad business practices. Quit. Go Indie.

So basically EA/Bioware... LMAO

I totally agree. I also work in games and I was surprised to hear from the writers of side quests in an RPG that they were limited to around 150 words per quest due to budget constraints of voice acting.

OMG yes. I tend to go with what seems best and screw the consequences. I loved Telltale's The Wolf Among Us--It gave me such a visceral emotional reaction that I looked at the options and went with my feelings. I was so angry at so many of the characters that I just didn't care! If I wanted to follow a strict path I'd play a game that doesn't give me choices.