The Gaming Den

What wRPG is regarded as having the best dating sim elements, mass effect? I always see that gas mask purple alien lady in memes.

Voss wrote:Story is also far more interesting than PoE, with the caveat that it's the usual Obsidian thing of 'you are super special for no reason, and if you're super lucky the last five minutes will explain why'

It never really explains why, but the missives hint that you are being set up by Kyros to win the rebellion, so that Kyros can fight you and increase their legend and get more magic powers.

Mass Effect is known for it, but I wouldn't say that it's good. It seems to operate under the assumption that your character has such a powerful sex-appeal that nobody is able to resist him/her.

You just have to talk to someone after every mission to unlock the possible romance options. You might have to choose the obvious good conversation option from time to time, but I'm not even sure.

However, it has some good NPCs and some nicely written scenes and dialogues, so from what I've seen the relationships (including friendships) don't feel too shallow.

I've heard good things about the dating options in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I haven't played it.

BG2. Viconia best girl.

You know, other than the obvious Bioware games I'm having trouble thinking of videogames with romances. And mechanically, basically all of the Bioware games are identical; hidden affection values you change through dialogue options and quest choices, plus some flag-based lockouts to commit you to a certain path (or fuck up that path). It's exactly as deep as the writing.

But let's see, you've got BG2, with the annoying fairy, the druid, and the drow cleric. Obviously you should pick the cleric, because being OP is sexy, and being evil is sexy, and drow clerics are both OP and evil.

Planescape Torment lets you romance Fall-From-Grace, right? Sure, why not. I don't think there were any others, but why would you need others when you have a reformed demon cleric.

Dragon Age Origins gives you Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan. Clearly, you should romance the one who can tear the cosmos asunder with her mind, and not the one who shoots a bow wut gud. But you could be forgiven for romancing Alistair. He is a sassy bitch and it's glorious.

Mass Effect 1 gives you two annoying humans and an alien. Captain Kirk that shit up.

Mass Effect 2 gives you... I remember the crazy one with psychic powers, and the not-crazy one who is kind of a dick, Garrus, and Tali (purple gasmask lady). I think I romanced the psychic powers, and presumably also the person they were attached to. My tastes in videogame romances are shallow, okay? If you can blow stuff up with your mind, we're cool.

OgreBattle wrote:What wRPG is regarded as having the best dating sim elements, mass effect? I always see that gas mask purple alien lady in memes.

Best? None. Bioware 'romance' elements involving badgering your chosen victim(s) lover(s) until they lose the will to resist you (and/or the game's climatic moment is on the horizon, which is honestly less creepy).

Though obviously a lot of japanese dating sims are even more creepy, but, well, Japan.

Voss wrote:Best? None. Bioware 'romance' elements involving badgering your chosen victim(s) lover(s) until they lose the will to resist you (and/or the game's climatic moment is on the horizon, which is honestly less creepy).

DSMatticus wrote:And mechanically, basically all of the Bioware games are identical; hidden affection values you change through dialogue options and quest choices, plus some flag-based lockouts to commit you to a certain path (or fuck up that path). It's exactly as deep as the writing.

Actually, BG2 romances are in fact different from all other bioware romances, in the first most meaningful reason, that you don't romance them by badgering them, they start all the conversations that are relevant whenever they decide they want to, and you respond to them. Also some of them you actually break the romance by being too forward, where every other bioware game it's basically impossible to break the romance if you don't want to, because getting the person you want is more important than any actual real structure to the person.

It's not much better, but it's slightly better than later ones, for all that is worth.

Also the writing is better because BG2 is better written than shitty Mass Effect writing on average.

The bad thing about BG2 romance is that all the options for female PCs are:

• Whiny fighter/cleric

Then again, the awesomeness of a Minsc and/or Edwin romance options with BG2 writing would have set the bar for RPG romancing so high that other games would be afraid to even compete.

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Is Tyranny alright? Things are rather hectic here right now, but I'm about to fail a Will Saving Throw vs Steam.
EDIT: Nvm, I tried reading the previous page and that worked.

Blade wrote: I've heard good things about the dating options in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I haven't played it.

All I know is that I was playing a female casteless dwarf rogue, and I was merely polite to everyone and they all got mad when I jumped into bed with the elf assassin. They insisted that I was leading them on. My female friends tell me that's actually pretty close to what it's like to actually be a woman.

Kaelik wrote:

Voss wrote:Best? None. Bioware 'romance' elements involving badgering your chosen victim(s) lover(s) until they lose the will to resist you (and/or the game's climatic moment is on the horizon, which is honestly less creepy).

DSMatticus wrote:And mechanically, basically all of the Bioware games are identical; hidden affection values you change through dialogue options and quest choices, plus some flag-based lockouts to commit you to a certain path (or fuck up that path). It's exactly as deep as the writing.

Actually, BG2 romances are in fact different from all other bioware romances, in the first most meaningful reason, that you don't romance them by badgering them, they start all the conversations that are relevant whenever they decide they want to, and you respond to them. Also some of them you actually break the romance by being too forward, where every other bioware game it's basically impossible to break the romance if you don't want to, because getting the person you want is more important than any actual real structure to the person.

It's not much better, but it's slightly better than later ones, for all that is worth.

Also the writing is better because BG2 is better written than shitty Mass Effect writing on average.

True. I barely consider BG2 a Bioware game anymore. The modern iteration of Bioware has a completely different philosophy and approach to gameplay, story and characters that it isn't worth judging them based on BG 1 or 2, which I'd consider their pinnacle by a wide margin.

nockermensch wrote:The bad thing about BG2 romance is that all the options for female PCs are:

improved remarkably by Beamdog with the Enhanced Edition. It adds the following:

• A bad-natured Blackguard (half-orc IIRC?), who is quite forward about things and a bit of a dick, and his personal questline involves either betraying his patron or picking a fight with a rival patron, and also going to Celestia and picking a fight with basically everyone, including a Silver Dragon tag-team.
• A lesbian vampire rogue. On the downside, she's just a kitless single-classed Rogue, but on the plus side, being a vampire just about makes up for all of that and makes her pretty good in combat. Also the whole "lesbian" thing. Her personal quests (including the discovery of who she is in the first place) are pretty decent. As for the actual romance, she's flirty and teases a bit and it doesn't involve you being a terrible person.

Now don't get me wrong, using voodoo magic to get the original non-Enhanced running on a modern PC, then applying various fan-patches, does give you a lot more actual gameplay (and you don't have to deal with the fucking Wild Mage NPC). And some even better magic items you can get made/boosted/combined. But most of the Enhanced NPCs are quite solid, and if you're in it for the romance, then Enhanced is the way to go.

Which Baldur's Gate has a mentally broken dewinged elf waif in need of a strong man to protect her, that's my jam

OgreBattle wrote:Which Baldur's Gate has a mentally broken dewinged elf waif in need of a strong man to protect her, that's my jam

That's BG II. Though mentally broken is stretching it, she was raised by a kindly adopted father and sheltered, and then suddenly exposed to the cruel monstrous world through dewingifying. PTSD and in need of help adapting to the cruel world sure, but I wouldn't say mentally broken.

I have to say, while Obsidian is by far my most favorite RPG developer, they absolutely suck at exposition. Pillars of Eternity had barely readable text where terms like Glartharfan are dumped at you with no explanation, and Tyranny invented that whole hyperlink thing which, while neat, makes dialogue look like wikipedia articles.

DSMatticus wrote:But you could be forgiven for romancing Alistair. He is a sassy bitch and it's glorious.

Especially since in the early-to-mid game Alistair isn't even that much worse of an archer than Leliana. None of the NPCs have a particularly impressive archery setup to start off with and without primo dlc gear or a min-maxed build you can expect a lot of your dps to go down the toilet due to plain old misses. With a stupidly convoluted setup you can get Leliana to eventually lap the other NPCs in archery damage but until that day comes you can seriously just have Al combine Precise Strikes with a single Talent point in Rapid Shot and do comparable ranged damage in addition to the sword 'n' board shit he's already invested in.

*As an archer you get the accuracy boost but not the crit chance increase, but you don't care because Rapid Shots doesn't allow standard crits anyway.

I honestly never noticed Leliana's DPS. I don't play at the highest difficulty levels already, and I've been told that most of the game isn't that hard even on the hardest difficulty so I honestly never pay much attention to my companions other than setting their AI to heal their own damn selves. With her it's "get all 4 ranks in disarm traps/open locks then have her tag along".

Longes wrote: Tyranny invented that whole hyperlink thing which, while neat, makes dialogue look like wikipedia articles.

Given Tyranny is the first time I've ever played this kind of gameplay, or RPG of this sort (closest is turn-based with like Dead State), but I don't see Dialogue looking like Wikipedia or whatever being a problem? It seems to get the job done of imparting information, and being able to remind you of that information constantly, so a net win no?

As it's the first time I've played this kind of thing, I fell into the trap of making a trash character. Javelin as Main, and Lightning magic as my secondary (latter is good I've heard at least, & pumped lore, but not enough Athletics). Since I'm still stupid early in the game (like I haven't gotten past commander at knifepoint early), I'm probably just gonna redo all my choices real quick.

According to Voss, and a guide or two, I should probably do Sword + Shield for early game stun, or do 2-handed, and then of course Lightning Magic because it also does interrupts.

Then not worry about Quickness as a stat? it seemed like something that controls your cooldowns, where everything from a basic attack (as I'm understanding) is on a timer or cooldown, it would be pretty paramount to have that?

My stance on the hyperlinks is that it's a half-decent work around for a problem that they created for themselves. Truly clumsy expository dialogue is hardly any better but as a rule of thumb it should give you pause as a developer that you're even considering a nesting glossary in anything but the reference docs.

I can sympathize with Tyranny's devs on that one, though. When writing dialogue for regular prose stories I very regularly have characters breeze by proper nouns that they would know and which the audience wouldn't, and expect people to just figure stuff out based on context. When GMing, I do the same thing and answer any questions the players ask me OOC about what's up. In both cases, it helps the world seem more alive and the dialogue feel more natural. Nobody's going to go tapping on the fourth wall to explain things to the audience.

In a video game, you don't have a GM to ask questions of when you're confused, but you're also required to pick dialogue options and thus can't just coast by on context for most of the first act while you familiarize yourself with the world. Hyperlinks serve as a stand-in for asking the GM "wait, what's an Archon, exactly?" They're also convenient for "I took two weeks off the game, who's Graven Ashe again?"

Aryxbez wrote:

Longes wrote: Tyranny invented that whole hyperlink thing which, while neat, makes dialogue look like wikipedia articles.

Given Tyranny is the first time I've ever played this kind of gameplay, or RPG of this sort (closest is turn-based with like Dead State), but I don't see Dialogue looking like Wikipedia or whatever being a problem? It seems to get the job done of imparting information, and being able to remind you of that information constantly, so a net win no?

As it's the first time I've played this kind of thing, I fell into the trap of making a trash character. Javelin as Main, and Lightning magic as my secondary (latter is good I've heard at least, & pumped lore, but not enough Athletics). Since I'm still stupid early in the game (like I haven't gotten past commander at knifepoint early), I'm probably just gonna redo all my choices real quick.

According to Voss, and a guide or two, I should probably do Sword + Shield for early game stun, or do 2-handed, and then of course Lightning Magic because it also does interrupts.

Then not worry about Quickness as a stat? it seemed like something that controls your cooldowns, where everything from a basic attack (as I'm understanding) is on a timer or cooldown, it would be pretty paramount to have that?

Not really. Quickness changes cooldowns by 3% per point, you really have to go in pretty hard to even notice a meaningful reduction in cooldowns. Cleave, for example has a 30 second cooldown. At 14 Quickness, you're at just under 27 seconds. At 18 quickness, you're at 22.8 seconds, and you're burning the hell out of stats that actually matter to do that. I'm not even sure why you'd fucking care. Given that you can get a giant pile of abilities as you level (or with spells, you just have to find more cores), you can quickly overwhelm your quickbar... so... yeah. Stun attack +lightning touch +ranged lightning is flat better than any amount of quickness you care to have, and the game basically hands you that in the first couple areas. Plus the illusion pit for a knockdown.

Longes wrote:I have to say, while Obsidian is by far my most favorite RPG developer, they absolutely suck at exposition. Pillars of Eternity had barely readable text where terms like Glartharfan are dumped at you with no explanation, and Tyranny invented that whole hyperlink thing which, while neat, makes dialogue look like wikipedia articles.

The 'hyperlink' thing isn't a recent invention. Having color coded keywords (or in the beginning, just plain text) you could look up or focus on is an artifact of early video games. It's just been buried under the rise of bioware and bethesda's friendly/sarcastic/asshole dialogue wheels.

You're essentially marvelling at/bitching about the early Ultimas and fucking Zork in a more user-friendly format.

Even basic heavy armor provides flat damage reduction in Obsidian's system so jacking up your base damage is super important even for nominally "fast" attackers like dual wielders.

Voss wrote:The 'hyperlink' thing isn't a recent invention. Having color coded keywords (or in the beginning, just plain text) you could look up or focus on is an artifact of early video games. It's just been buried under the rise of bioware and bethesda's friendly/sarcastic/asshole dialogue wheels.

You're essentially marvelling at/bitching about the early Ultimas and fucking Zork in a more user-friendly format.

In Zork and Ultimas the keywords were options to continue dialogue, not wiki articles about the setting.

Longes wrote:

Voss wrote:The 'hyperlink' thing isn't a recent invention. Having color coded keywords (or in the beginning, just plain text) you could look up or focus on is an artifact of early video games. It's just been buried under the rise of bioware and bethesda's friendly/sarcastic/asshole dialogue wheels.

You're essentially marvelling at/bitching about the early Ultimas and fucking Zork in a more user-friendly format.

In Zork and Ultimas the keywords were options to continue dialogue, not wiki articles about the setting.

If by 'continue' you mean 'spew infodump' and then you get back on track, then yeah.

Ultima IV could involve 500 pages on the philosophical underpinnings of truth, love and courage (and how, for example, sodomizing love with truth somehow spawns Justice), or you can just get to the point and ask about the relevant runes and mantras and get on with the fucking game.

Alternately you can spend a fifteen minutes jerking off Richard Garriot's self-insert avatar (Lord British, for those who don't remember, or never experienced that joy) for his fantasy life story. I really don't see the difference you're trying to establish.

http://www.mw5mercs.com/
FINALLY!
MW5, Based on UE4, announced for 2018.
Via Twitter they announced VR Support planned as well.

BUT . . it is still fucking PGI/IGP . . so let us see how they fuck this up <.<

DSMatticus wrote:Dragon Age Origins gives you Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan. Clearly, you should romance the one who can tear the cosmos asunder with her mind, and not the one who shoots a bow wut gud. But you could be forgiven for romancing Alistair. He is a sassy bitch and it's glorious.

Morrigan is the best choice, but sadly, she's straight, and I tend to play female or apparently female characters.

....is there a mod to change her sexuality?

In a note that isn't lamenting the sexuality of fictional witches, Saints Row 4 lampooned the Mass Effect style romances. You can "romance" pretty much any of your lieutenants, even the floating robot ball, but it's literally just a "wanna fuck?" dialogue option and then a short video before a fade to black. Kinzie, CID, and Asha have the best scenes.

Prak wrote:

DSMatticus wrote:Dragon Age Origins gives you Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan. Clearly, you should romance the one who can tear the cosmos asunder with her mind, and not the one who shoots a bow wut gud. But you could be forgiven for romancing Alistair. He is a sassy bitch and it's glorious.

Morrigan is the best choice, but sadly, she's straight, and I tend to play female or apparently female characters.

....is there a mod to change her sexuality?

In a note that isn't lamenting the sexuality of fictional witches, Saints Row 4 lampooned the Mass Effect style romances. You can "romance" pretty much any of your lieutenants, even the floating robot ball, but it's literally just a "wanna fuck?" dialogue option and then a short video before a fade to black. Kinzie, CID, and Asha have the best scenes.

In-game Morrigan sexes up only male Warden because she's on a mission to get pregnant from a Grey Warden to make the space baby or something. Clearly not an option with the female Warden.