Retail killed isometric!

 

One of the fun parts of prevalent social media platforms is the accessibility it gives us to those traditionally insulated 'knowledgeable' sectors of industry. Previously for insight on your favourite industry you would have to comb enthusiast magazines and pray someone says something passingly interesting- now you get a shower tweet ever other minute by a leading authority on your favourite industry just spilling the deepest darkest secrets that nobody thought would ever get out. It's gratifying for the layman who has no routes into the industry but claws fruitlessly at the door hoping for the tablescraps of those in the high table. Finally! Table scraps be landing! And I, for one, am very interested to hear the latest loose morsel slipping from the plate of Legendary Game Director Josh Sawyer! (Who'd have thought we'd get some tea from him?)

What he brought was a very interesting piece of insight into the decline of the Isometric RPG genre which occurred right after the success of two of the franchises biggest cheerleaders, more or less. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 brought the role playing freedom of Dungeons and Dragons to the video game landscape in a way that no one had quite done before, and it did so in a unique town-down 'isometric' view style that would soon catch on as the visual hallmark of mechanically complex and systematically robust RPGs- which would come to be later known under the moniker of 'CRPGs'. (Of course, the reason for this particular viewing angle was simply because that was the way the Infinity Engine ran games, and both original Baldur's Gate games, and the Icewind Dale games, ran on that engine.)

And yet that style of game started to drift away into the 2000's, until by the 2010's that style of game would be practically no more spurring on a resurgence of interest later into the decade with the rise of the Classic RPG that spawned such nostalgic gems as Pillars of Eternity, Tides of Numenera, Pathfinder Kingmaker and so on. Such also brought the return of the indepth and unabashedly complex roleplaying game, a niche that had become all but extinct in the watering down of the RPG genre to it's base components. It was the shifting tides of interest that spelled the death of the genre and a longer for more down to earth times that sparked it's renewal. Or so I once believed. With Josh Sawyer's testimony it might just seem the true culprit- is retail themselves!

Remember that there was a time when physical retailers held enormous power over the market of games sold. Those store fronts were the primary means through which publishers distributed games into the hands of players, and the war to win digital storefronts took many years to settle into any sort of popularity. Before the digital age we live in now, if a storefront simply refused to stock your game for any reason (say because you were refused a rating) then that was it, kaput- your game was a good as dead. But decisions such as that were not always made for such drastic scenarios as classification confusion. Sometimes the problem was just pure unfiltered idiocy on the part of the distributor. In fact, it was often as simple as bureaucracy.

Ask any retailer from around about that time and they'd probably recall that the falling interest in the genre is what led to poor sales, but Sawyer remembers things a little differently. Sawyer attributes the downfall of the genre largely to the influence of retailers on the industry and what he coins as "Vibes-based forecasting". Essentially we're talking about the kinds of systemic industry-effecting decisions that are decided on the wobbly whims of some spotty exec who feels his way to changing the face of gaming as we know it. Which isn't actually as insane of a prospect as it sounds when you take into account the industry that we're talking about here. (The industry of video games tends to eat it's own tail like that, we often find.)

Sawyer himself testifies to witnessing sales representatives "declare a genre/style/look was dead with zero supporting data" which would inspire them to start stocking less of that game, which means less available to the public so the game doesn't spread as far and less people become fans of the genre. Hence the self-fulfilling prophecy. And another Bioware Writer 'David Gaider' goes even further to claim that the sort of lop-sided way to view the future of the industry does no just end at the sales people. He proports a similar mindset that" creeps into dev teams- some things are simply declared dead or too old-fashioned, and there's no opposing this certainty up until someone else comes along and proves it's 100% untrue." I suspect that might draw to mind the way that Larian flipped the script on popular standards, making a numbers heavy RPG topdog once again.

And as I alluded to earlier, this kind of nepotistic and unintelligent design has been heard of before in discourse around the industry. The very state of Ubisoft, who's condition we cruelly mock like the satyr stumming his lute at the garish and unseemly, is very much due to the machinations of one Serge Hascoët- a man who's deeds I reference often but who's name I don't think has even darkened this blog before. Not because of some paranoia of receiving a ghostly visitation, I just can't stand to think of the man. (And that's a confusing name to remember anyway.) He was essentially a vibes-based Ubisoft producer who greenlit games based entirely on his extremely narrow tastes which ended up Pidgeon-holing all of Ubisoft franchise games into being watered down clones of one another. Ever wonder how every Ubisoft game started getting drones in the same couples of years, a trend that has stuck around to this day? Look at Serge!

Which I suppose begs to question what is the lesson to be learned from all of this, years on from the fact? (Except for the Ubisoft thing- they are very much yet to prove they've learned anything since the departure of Serge and Valhalla followed by Mirage is not exactly putting the most reassuring step forward.) I think the lesson is that following the whims of 'the market' is often a fools-game when we're talking about gaming, and more than not it robs genuine opportunity for the limp pursual of being the next big superstar. Of course, by it's very nature any video game development is an investment not in where the industry is today but rather where you think it might in a few years time- but there has to be some room for artistic standard in there too. Because clearly pure business mindedness leads to ruin just as surely as pure blindless would.

I Hate: Disengagement attacks

 You're not going anywhere!

It has been so very long since I've added another entry to this oft-ignored little series of mine, and that has come from a merciful lack of mechanics and routines from the world of gaming that I can blanket say that I hate. Which is a good thing. There's also the shade in all of this that I don't exactly like thinking of the negative when there's so much of it already mixed in with the positive, and so I usually go out of my way to talk about positive things that I like. That being said, sometime things can't be avoided and I end up coming back around here anyway, talking about another thing that I cannot stand with every screaming fibre in this decaying body. Disengagement attacks. And saying that right now, I'm betting that the most common reaction is: what the heck even is that? So unfortunately this has to come with an explanation too.

During my exploration into Classic RPGs over the course of this year, I've become very familiar with the ins and outs of the heart of role playing games, and seen the techniques that have come to define this genre and the differences between it's subcategories. And trust me when I say, those modern RPGs that Bioware put out every blue moon, which are copied by some other developers here and there, have nothing on the absolute brain melting insanity of the CRPGs. Learning the benefits of turn-based RPGs and real time action is just the beginning, and picking a preference becomes muddy when you happen upon games like Pathfinder and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire; which offers both. (I typically go for real time for those games, for no other reason then the fact these games were built for huge ungainly encounters that would take actual hours in turnbased.) And that is how I've learned of things like Disengagement attacks.

This is a mechanic which exists more in real time then in turn based games, but that's because they have a very similar but slightly different mechanic known as 'attack of opportunity'. If you think about the way how in X-Com, to use a popular example, uses a mechanic known as 'overwatch' to put your character on alert so that they can take an automatic, low accuracy, shot on a target the second that they move on their turn, we're essentially looking at a mechanic like that. For turn based games you get an attack of opportunity every time an enemy walks past your engagement range and it mirrors a mechanic present in DnD tabletop. But to explain exactly what 'disengagement' is, I'm afraid I have to dig a little deeper into how live action games treat this thing called 'engagement'.

So 'Engagement' is the solution to the problem of 'how do you deal with who's attacking who when you're dealing with huge fights'? Live action combat typically has most of the team on the player's end operated by AI, simply because the player doesn't really have the desire to micromanage everything until the later stages of the games in question where that becomes absolutely necessary. And so Engagement pairs up attackers with defenders in the way that let's the AI know "This is who I'm attacking, so this is where my attention needs to be." From this it should be pretty clear what Disengagement attacks are. When someone who is paired up moves out of the range of attack, the attacker is granted a free attack upon them when their back is turned. Striking in the back like a coward would. Although some games, like Pathfinder, take that a little further and have disengagement hit on anyone who moves out of range, even if that person was positioned behind the reactor and moved whilst they were busy. (Those are some straight supernatural reflexes) 

Okay, is everyone caught up, we all know what today's lesson is about? Good. Now I hate disengagement attacks, and I'm talking with a burning fiery world ending passion do I hate these goddamn disengagement attacks. And this is a very weird one for me, because in a battered, twisted little way I squint my eyes and actually kind of see the rough justification for why this mechanic has to exist and the role they have to fulfil in the overall grand scheme of CRPGs, but I can't come around to liking them. Or even begrudgingly accepting them. They are the devil to me and my gorges froths at the very idea of co-existing in this plane of existence with them. Each and everytime I see that crimson red disengagement number stat number pop up I wince at the cheap shot, and a large part of that comes from the very real fact that I only ever see the attack used against me, and that establishes the 'unfair treatment' complex right there.

Because you see, disengagement is something that only ever hit you if the the victim moves away of their own accord, which funnily enough is something that the AI never does. Sure you can use some powerful magic to knock them out of range, but that won't trigger it, meaning it really is a rule for thee but not for me. Even when you charge ranged archers in these games, something which makes them practically unable to hit you unless they're fitted with somesort of point-blank perk, (Which practically no one ever takes because Archers aren't supposed to be in Melee range most of the time anyeway) they'll rather spend their last moments desperately trying to bring down one of your companions in the back row as you chop them to pieces rather than try to save themselves by retreating. I have never seen a disengagement hit against an AI opponent, and why would it when most AI have the job of 'Swarm the arse and that's our entire plan'.  

The idea is that with this mechanic, the player won't run circles around the enemy in a way they feasible could do without these systems. So it's basically a balancing tool to make sure you play fair, but when you're dealing with a game and spongey human DM logic gives away to the cold, hard, unthinking iron of machine decision making, it can't help but feel as though these are systems designed to box you in. Imagine you're a delicate rouge doing stealth damage to a giant Treant Owlbear whilst your much hardier team members, and several ranks of summons, distract the thing. A Human DM might think the giant mindless monster would attack the horde in front of it, but the AI says "Well, the easiest to kill opponent is the thief behind me so I'm just going to do a three sixty on the spot and get to town." You see the turn, but what can you do about it? If you try to move your rouge he'll get a full-power blow on you anyway, so you're just sort of incentivised to stand there and get pummelled because RNG says this isn't in the cards for you today.

It's a bizarre issue, and one that I don't think can be adequately explained unless you're familiar with these sorts of games and the way that they play for yourself. I mean I could moan about things like how Pathfinder has a feat specifically for escaping engagement safely, but because you only have limited feat options in a playthrough you'd have to be insane to take it over actual class benefiting choices; but would that really mean anything to a non CRPG player? And again, I feel bad for being incensed at all, given the fact that a lot of these games have systems in place for disengagement play, such as spells for combat movement and feats for sneaking out of engagement, but they seem like bandaids on a searing wound of a badly made system to me. Only turn based RPGs handle attacks of opportunity with any class, because encounters need to be designed to consider such systems and the way the player handles them. But given as how I'm almost definitely in the minority of this little grip of mine, I know that the next time I see an enemy one shot me with it's back turned, whilst attacking someone else, because of engagement, I'm going to be only one in the world huffing and rolling my eyes.

RPG Class systems: Old Versus New

 Gemini Classes 

The world of Role Playing Games is so very simple when you first approach them; it's all about just jumping into a game where you pretend to be someone else. Heck, with a view on the genre that simple one might call any game an RPG. But then you realise that it more has to do with 'making' the person you're playing as, whether that be from the ground-up as a character or merely through selecting the way they evolve as the story progresses. Then you start to learn that RPG-fans really care about levelling trees, and having unlockable skills and abilities. Oh, they also like the game to have some heft to them, and not be your prototypical 5 hours and done fest. You'll also see that they really care about story choices, multiple endings and replayability. Then there's the various different types of RPGs, from modern, to classic, to Sandbox, to action adventure, to squad based. And then somewhere along the line it stops being fun and becomes intimidating again when you realise that there are decidedly too many types of RPGs out there in the world. That's why I like to sanitize everything down into small digestible nuggets for myself, and thus why today I want to talk about RPG classes.

Or rather, I want to talk about the contrast between typical RPG classes and these adaptive-type classes that once were ubiquitous, but are slightly waning in popularity as Classic RPGs slowly become the rage again. This conversation is one sparked by the recently unveiled The Wayward Realms, which I was quite hopeful for whilst simultaneously being decidedly critical against, and one of the points of contention that I merely touched on back there was the class system. It goes a little like this, The Wayward Realms hails from the creators of TES 1 and 2, and therefore they played into their own lineage by touting how 'Classic RPGs' were at the heart of this project. So they say out of the shadows, it would seem, because when push comes to shove it's clear that their game is leaning towards having no class systems, at least not in the traditional sense. Now classes are some of the most fundamental building blocks of Classic role playing games, thus I gawked a little when I saw this, and it got me thinking about the drawback and drawtos of classes in general.

But first, let me explain the difference between the class systems that I mentioned. Traditional RPGs have a 'fixed' class system whereupon when you start the game you get to choose the 'class' of the character you play as, typically variations upon the core three of: Mage, Warrior and Rogue. Choosing this class informs the way you play the game, what weapons you wield what armour you don, and how you approach each and every encounter. A Warrior might consider martial ways to lock down a room full of enemies, whilst a rogue might see which shadows they can exploit to sneak around. A mage might try to use wide-range spells to slowdown a room of enemies at once, whilst a warrior might try to find a way to funnel them so he doesn't have to deal with too many at once. It's a system typically hand-in-hand with hard rules, (I.E. certain gear and tools you simply can't use if you're not the correct class) but the benefit comes in the fact that it feeds beautifully into replayability as when these classes are handled well it can feel like you're playing a completely different game.

What I've chosen to coin as 'adaptive' class systems are something of a modern invention and a direct rejection of the 'ruleset' of old. These are systems where you aren't asked to pick a class, because your character will fall into the role best suited for them as the game goes on. It's more natural, encourages the character to experiment more and tells the player 'no' as little as possible. You could be a warrior who decides they need to pick up a wand and cast some spells for a specific mission, there are no barriers to hold you back. The big draw is that skills and abilities might be made with a certain class in mind, but they're available to be learnt by anyone, theoretically making it possible for a player to 'make their own class', as these games are fond of marketing.

Obviously, for casual players and early game in general this sort of class system is perfect as it's nowhere near as punishing to mistakes. However, the big problem is that by the endgame most every single character is playing roughly the same, because by the very nature of making all abilities available to every class, you're usually not making these abilities transformative enough to change the way the game plays. So a full powered hero rogue is pretty much on the same playing field as a wizard would be. (Usually wearing the heavy armour and wielding the most powerful sword, because nothing is telling you to wear those robes or pick up that shortsword) There are exceptions of course, games that handle the balance exceptionally well, as well as players who just buy into the roleplay enough to hardlimit themselves. But such games just don't usually lend themselves as naturally into that desire for replayability, which in some people's eyes is the most important draw to RPGs as a genre.

So then why was it ever decided that the old Class system needed to be replaced anyway? (Aside from just to change things up for varieties sake, I mean.) Well the key reason would seem to be because the perception that specific classes limit roleplaying, due to the way that they give you confines within which you must operate rather than allow you to be as wacky as you want to. Defenders will say that levelling systems live off of their min maxing anyway, thus there's no need for restrictions that only muddy the waters. And isn't there a sort of purity in a world where the ultimate hero always ends up with the same capabilities?  These sorts of systems have worked fine in the Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex , The Witcher and the countless other 'freeform' RPGs out there, so what's the problem?

A response which I understand, yet will push back on anyway. Because as with many aspects of art, I don't see 'limitations', I see 'guidelines' in the traditional class systems. Of course there are many ways to screw it up so that classes are boring and uninteresting to level up, at the end of the day it all comes down to the skills of the designers afterall; but for the vast majority of the RPGs I've played, I find the experience of mastering a class a lot more interesting than just maxing out all the skill trees for my Fallout character. That's because within a class is inbuilt a role, and mastering that role in gameplay means coming to terms with, and understanding, the tools at your disposal and working with them. Being a top rogue doesn't have to mean you can hide really well, it can mean you're a master of locking down a battlefield with traps, or isolating enemies and hitting them with punishing sneak attacks, or perhaps you're just a poison fiend. Operating within the guidelines forces you to use the limitations within your hands and sometimes get creative, rather than just to default for the strongest weapon you can find which kills things the fastest. Sure, that tactic is what the Warrior class will go for anyway, but the very fact that other classes have different goals epitomises the class variety that I don't feel from free-form adaptive classes. 

So there is a compromise to be made somewhere along the line, this much is obvious, because hard-line class systems really belong more with Classic RPGs and free-form systems belong with modern RPGs. (Until Avowed comes along and changes that power dynamic entirely.) I like to think there's space for specific class systems that allows for equipment, at the very least, to be worn by all classes, because in that there's a lot of 'Adaptive' potential without sacrificing the uniqueness of class abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Let the specific disadvantages of wearing a heavy piece of armour have an effect (beyond just cancelling out spells altogether) in order to allow players to come up with their solutions and draw their own lines in the sand. Maybe heavy armour increases spell cast time, but if someone wants to play as a heavy battle mage this suits them just fine. I just maintain that old school classes have yet to run their course and we'd be foolish to leave them behind completely; and The Wayward Realms needs to get on board with actual real classes. (At least that's my two cents on the issue)

The Great CRPG struggle

 Infinity or Divinity?

It's safe to say that I've fallen into a bit of a genre landslide of late, something I tend to do every now and then and absolutely the reason why I haven't gone back to my Xcom challenge of late. (I'm looking at this like training, okay? I know that doesn't make sense but neither did the stupid challenge anyway.) Ever since I started played Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity back at the end of 2020, I've had this itch at the back of my neck for more goodness of, what I'm learning to be, the CRPG variety. Now CRPG, for the uninitiated, means 'Classic Role Playing Game', and it's typically used to refer to those RPGs where stats, classes and choices are very much an important factor of the world, as usually are the factors of the game being isometric with party-based strategy. Of course, having said that when I type 'CRPG' into Google the search engine chucks up Skyrim on the results page, which is wrong. Skyrim has neither a party system, classes or stats. Not any Elder Scrolls game really fits into that mould. Think, instead, of classic Fallout and you'll be closer on the mark.

CRPGs are perhaps some of the most lauded and venerated role playing games that there are, born in a time before every game started throwing a basic progression levelling system into their game and calling it an 'RPG system'. (No Ubisoft, you can't join the club.) They go back to the days of gaming royalty, back to Baldur's Gate, a game that I've actually only recently started playing for the very first time. (Feel free to rip me apart all you want, veterans, at least I've got around to it eventually.) And I've found myself totally in love with the genre these past few months, to the point of obsession. Coinciding nicely with my recent interest in D&D, CRPGs are starting to line up my library to the point where I'm actually growing worried that I'm going to run out of them, because despite their notorious length, their number isn't inexhaustible. I'm already got the Shadowrun games, the old-school Fallouts, Wasteland 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2, Pillars of Eternity 1 and Deadfire, Planescape Torment and Tide of Numenera, Tyranny, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale and Pathfinder Kingmaker as well as many others I'm sure I'm forgetting. (I know about Solasta too, but I'm undecided on if I want to pull the trigger) That's pretty much all the big ones, I'm going to have to start scrapping the barrel unless I work off this obsession soon.

But I find myself in plenty of company in the meanwhile because plenty of gamers flock to these sorts of games and will continue to in the future for their shared love of challenging but rewarding RPG titles. Yet, even within that shared love there lies a little derision and division among the ranks, and this wasn't something that I'd become aware of until I was swept up with and was actively following Baldur's Gate 3. You see, BG3 isn't being developed by the same team as 1 and 2 (obviously, those games were years ago, that team has moved on entirely) but by Larian, creators of Divinity. This is all well and good for they totally created a masterpiece in Divinity Original Sin 2 and if anyone has the scope and ambition to take Baldur's Gate 3 and turn it into the most high-quality production CRPG of all time, it's Larian. (And they seem well on the way to doing just that.) But in doing so Larian took their style of CRPG and transported it onto Baldur's Gate, rather than using what is known as the 'Infinity' style, which has caused a little derision amidst fans.

'Infinity' is in reference to the engine used for Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, thus games that take after the style of gameplay those titles made popular are typically referred to under that moniker. (Even though I doubt modern CRPGs are running around with a two decade old engine in the trunk.) Essentially the difference, and thus the friction, is thus: Infinity CRPGs feature large parties, usually 6 members, and have full action gameplay to them, whilst Divinity and it's like are turn-based affairs and are thus generally slower paced. Despite sharing the same overall genre, this division splits hearts and minds down the middle and even sparked some genuine anger towards Larian for their decision away from what Baldur's Gate originally stood for. As one who has had a chance to dabble a lot in both, I have love for both side and thus I want to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of both.

For the Infinity style we're talking game like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny and the original Baldur's Gate titles, and the gameplay to be expected is real-time and dynamic. But don't think that with the 'real time' some strategy is lost, these games come with a pause button so that you stop everything and give individual orders because of how overwhelming some fights can be. This style works well with letting the player at large fights without clogging things down too much, managing huge parties, and really embodying that sense of the powerful party of adventures who can steam roll over tribes of Gnolls that try to get in their way. Although on the flipside this style of gameplay tends to mostly lose all tactics in positioning besides the utterly basic, micromanaging party members can feel like babysitting when fights get hairy and not everybody is doing what you want and encounter planning rarely feels like it gets even a fraction of the attention that the other half of this genre does.  

The Divinity style encompasses games like Wasteland, Shadowrun and, of course, Original Sin, and it caters to turn-based combat with initiative orders and infinite thinking down time between every action. Tactical planning is at the heart of every encounter, and typically placing everyone in the exact right position can be the difference between putting up a good fight and being steamrolled. Spells and abilities only even factor in after positioning. These games can be hardcore like that. This style works great for games with a plethora of skills and items to use for each encounter because you have plenty of time to consider and weigh up the benefits each time it's your go. Also, some of the encounter planning can be really indepth and factor in how each encounter can be uniquely challenging. (at least for the best of this genre's offerings) However, this style of CRPG can go from slow to tortuous depending on how many enemies and allies are involved in the fight. (Fallout 1 has this one fight between two large factions where you'll literally be sitting a full minute between every turn.) Additionally, it's not really worth the time of having those small enemies clumps chucked at you in order to make you feel good as you crush them, and so you don't get throwaway stomp fodder like you do in Infinity style games.

Picking a preference between these two styles is as subjective as it gets, because in my opinion they both have their charm and their place in the CRPG field. Yet if you hung me over a spit and forced me to pick I'd ultimately land with the Divinity style of game simply because I cherish both the time to really 'solve' each and every encounter like a puzzle master (see my Hitman coverage for explanation on why I adore that) and Original Sin demonstrated what a masterpiece experience it can be to have an entire game full of thoughtful encounter placements, I never felt tuned off by the amount of fights I was having and honestly felt excited for the next. Additionally, my love for this genre coincided with my recent interest in D&D, and if we're talking about the style of CRPG that most closely replicates that tabletop goodness than it has to be Divinity style, no competition. 

Of course there are no right answers in a debate like this, and I'd wager fans will continue to fight over and debate the pros and cons for as long as CRPGs are being made, though as long as neither side is totally dismissive of the other I think it all makes for healthy discourse for a great genre of games. I've always felt that Roleplaying needs that hard edge of tough which really makes the player break things down to the basics in order to squeeze out a victory, and that's something both types of CRPG manage with gusto. May the industry never run out of this new golden age of CRPGs for the foreseeable future, as I still feel like we're missing some decent modern Sci-fi offerings. (I can just imagine the opportunities there.)