The "yet another thread ruined by ABF" Thread

[A Black Falcon]

Seriously, you don't have a fucking clue as to what you're talking about. There are numerous problems when it comes to adding analog joystick support to PC games, which is why so few games support it (even a big game from a big third-party like BG&E). First of all with most types of programming languages adding analog support is an extremely difficult task, especially if you're a small developer with very limited resources. Secondly there's no standard controller, so not only do you have to add something complex and non-standard like analog support for your game, you have to come up with complex configuration tools to accommodate hundreds of different types of controllers. And finally, if you really want to take advantage of analog controls you have to completely disregard the kb&m controls and render them basically useless, which takes away most of your potential audience. Or you can make decent kb&m controls and built the game around that set-up, but make a worse game because of that. Like I said, idiot, there's a reason why there aren't many original platformers for the PC.

I'm talking about how games play, not how they are programmed. And I know that as far as gamepads go the PC supports digital buttons and analog axes.

BG&E? Just sheer laziness. Rayman 3 has full analog gamepad support, after all.

You are right that there is no standard controller, so a controls configuration system is required. And yeah, that probably is harder to program. But it's for the best... no one who is sane would WANT a standard gamepad for the PC!

The funny thing about that is that just about all of those types of games have been done on consoles fairly well (with some difficulty in translation, of course), but none of those console genres that I mentioned have been done well on the PC.

sidescrolling platformers of course have been done well on PC. 3d ones have been done well too, but mostly as console ports. Fighting games? Sure, that's a weakness. Same with beat em ups. Third person action is plenty fine on PC though, if you mean games like Max Payne... Racing is the other genre that PC is a bit weak on (on the non-simulation side, that is), but there are still quite a few of them. And there are many, many more racing sims.

Consoles have had wargames, flight sims, pc-style rpgs, and strategy games, you are right. But they do not work as well and generally end up dumbed down. If you want the full complexity you pretty much have to use the PC... you must admit that that is true. Each one has strengths based on what their controls can do better. It's bad logic to say that consoles are better because they have things that PC doesn't do quite as well because PC can do them, and do them better than consoles can do the genres that PC are better at!

The keyboard and mouse is not meant for gaming. All PC games were built around this cumbersome, unintuitive control set-up, and completely disallows any other genre to thrive on it. With consoles, if you want to make a new type of game, you release a new type of controller! New systems come out around every four years so console gaming is always evolving, while PC gaming has remained the same for over a decade.

And I made fun of some of Nintendo's gimmicky Gameboy things, but they have made considerable strides in innovation over the years. Just look at the DS, which could be the first major gameplay innovation since the invention of 3D.

I'll just repeat myself. For some genres, the keyboard and mouse are the best possible controller. Thus the keyboard and mouse are a great control scheme that work fantastically for all of the genres that are most popular on PC. Your disliking it does not in the slightest change that fact.

However, you are right about different controllers. That is why joysticks, steering wheels, and gamepads were developed, in addition to things like voice headsets, VR headsets, tilt controllers (you know, where just turning the pad moves), flight stick sets (as in the ones with a joystick with many buttons and a throttle controller for the other hand), etc... the stumbling block is that many people don't have these, but I would bet that most all hardcore gamers have some kind of gamepad and probably a (maybe old) joystick. Those are common controllers and there are plenty of games out there, as I said, that require joysticks to play. And they allow for you to play many types of games more comfortably. :)

Baldur's Gate has a convoluted mess of an inventory and battle system, like most PC games have. And do you know why that is, my retarded little friend? It's because making things more complicated is far easier than making things simpler. This is why every developer in the world admires Nintendo. Bioware isn't a tenth as talented as Nintendo is and they are very much used to doing things the easier, complicated way, so in simplifying their RPG for a console they didn't do it extremely well. But they're still learning, so you have to cut them some slack.

As I have made clear, I most definitely would disagree that it is overcomplicated. As I said before I definitely think that the BG inventory system is dramatically better than the one in KotOR. And it isn't even anywhere near close. It is far easier to use, far quicker to do things in... just better in every imaginable way. I don't know how you can say that it's worse, because that arguement makes no sense at all to me.

Inventory. Okay, in BG you get one inventory screen. You have a paperdoll figure with lines connecting boxes for equippable items by type. It shows your weight limit and armorclass. Below you have the boxes for items. If it's BGII, you may have some containers in some of those slots... for these you double click to open them and get a list of the items inside which you can then move into the main inventory. It's a simple inventory system, with all items being just one block (unlike a Diablo II where items are different sizes)... I guess that that's because BG is D&D and that has a weight-based inventory system, not really blocks. Oh, and in some games you have more blocks... I believe that BGII has more blocks than BGI. Icewind Dale II definitely has more than previous games. It can be a minor pain at times, but never too bad... the only reason that you may have a full inventory is if you're carrying a lot of junk from enemies to sell, and if all of your people are really full you can always just drop some. Or put it in some chest or something onscreen, in BG anything in a chest or other box onscreen (as opposed to being just dropped on the floor) will stay there forever. :) Anyway, you greatly overstate its complexity and the level of challenge of using the system. To equip you just click and drag. Very easy. Easier than KotOR, actually, where you have to go to the seperate equipping screen and then click on the category and then scroll down and click on the item! That is much, much slower! Same in the main inventory. You have to slowly scroll through this list instead of just being able to see them all. Oh, and when you have a full party of 6 in BG you have a lot of inventory slots so it's not really that often that everyone can truly carry no more... sure, in KotOR you can sort it by item type. But in BG you can drag items into groups by type in the inventory grid, which is similar and you can see the rest of that character's items at the same time as well... Anyway, I think I have made my case for the superiority in every way of the BG inventory system over KotOR.

I also think that while the battle system is more complicated in BG than in KotOR, that is absolutely necessary because BG has a much more complex system to organize. KotOR has no character special abilities, no item special abilities, so seperate stealth mode, no party formations, no resting, a tiny fraction of the number of spells (sorry, force powers -- there are 13 normal force powers and 14 each of light and dark. BG and its sequels have hundreds of spells, and by BGII's expansion you will have forty or more memorized at the same time...), fewer saving throw categories, fewer equippable item slots, auto-target and weapon selection buttons above the target instead of click to target and buttons on a bar on the bottom of the screen... need I continue? I think you get my point that BG has a much more complex system to model so of course it has a more complex interface to deal with it. And I really like the complex ruleset, so of course I prefer BG. Or BGII more appropriately, BGII is a way better game than BGI... :)

Football games need an overhead perspective because everything happens in real-time and the players are all over the field at one time, and you cannot afford to miss what's behind you. In a PC RPG like KOTOR the game fucking pauses for you when an enemy approaches, and the levels are built in a manner in which you do not need to change the camera whatsoever. You do not, I repeat NOT, have to see the entire fucking world in order to play the game. You are either the worst player in the world or the biggest idiot in the world, or both. Probably both.

Sure there's autopause, and I covered that for sure, but one of my points was that it slows you down quite as bit as you have to constantly re-orient yourself... and my OTHER major point which you seem to have ignored was that I was also talking about a game with five or six characters and how horrible a system like KotOR's would be for a game like that. You cannot see where your characters are without a significant hassle! You want to just belittle that point, but I don't think it is like that... these ARE real issues that DO affect how you play, to a greater or lesser extent depending on which one you are talking about. You cannot (or should not) just dismiss it like that. And it has nothing at all to do with how good I am at the game... though I think I'm doing perfectly fine, if you really want to know. There are just a bunch of annoying things about the game.

Though maybe I should clarify some things. You don't have to look at the WHOLE world with each character. What you have to do is locate the enemies, then figure out if you can target them (thanks for having a maximum targetting range, Bioware! Yet another awful decision on your part that makes combat a pain!). If the other character(s) are too far away, or are around the corner from the enemies, you can only choose attacks for your main character (or the one who initiated combat, if it's someone else) and must unpause and move the others into position to begin fighting. This is a very annoying problem that greatly delays combat, slows down your ability to fight, and gives the enemy some free attacks that they shouldn't have. You know, when you are slowly moving into position while the game is running because you can't give move orders while paused. Yes, with a better design (like 'click on location to have person move there' as a movement option) a 3d RPG could avoid some of these things. But some of them are unavoidable from a third-person perspective... only an isometric view would truly fix it all.

More about that flaw recently noticed. You can't move while paused. That is, you cannot give a move order 'move to here' while paused. This is a huge flaw in KotOR. Setting 'move to here' orders while paused is one of the most common things I do in BG and its lack in KotOR is very sadly missed... it makes you have to unpause to move, and this can be a serious problem if you want to move multiple people at the same time. Yet another thing on the litany of control-related flaws in that game, but this one is a more serious one than most. I was playing KotOR yesterday and really noticed this missing feature...

And if you had six characters you would multiply the problems by three or four at least. A game with the KotOR interface/control system and a full party (six) would be hugely hard to play and dramatically more complex than the same game in isometric. You'd also have many more essentially unavoidable deaths. This kind of game is intrinsically harder to play from this perspective.

(Oh, don't get the wrong idea. I think KotOR is a great game and I'm having a lot of fun playing it. But I can't help but notice all these little problems... I like it and wish that it had tried harder (okay, so it wouldn't be isometric. But as I have made clear not all of the game's problems are soley because of its perspective...). :)