Nice call on this one. My least favorite part of The Witcher 3 was Novigrad. It was beautiful and huge… but tedious to get around and the missions that take place there were boring.
I have the opposite opinion, I didn’t think The Witcher 3 got interesting until it got to Novigrad. But if the whole game had been there I would have gotten bored with it.
I agree that big cities can be a real game-killer for isometric RPG’s, but I found the main city in PoE 2 interesting and digestible… it was not too large but just large enough. Also, maybe because it starts off in a huge city, but I was able to tolerate the Athlatka in Baldur’s Gate 2.
Best Elder Scrolls = Morrowind. Most unique fantasy setting of the series so far. Skyrim be damned (…well…in comparison to Morrowind).
Did Mass Effect 1 have the Mako missions where you fought those giant worms and looked for resources? I actually did like those. Reminded me of StarCon2.
I do too, so you’re not the only one. ;)
Expanding on my previous comment: turn based RPGs / tactical get super boring if you spend more time watching the AI moves than doing your own moves. This happens on Wasteland 2, and also in Fallout 2.
RTWP FTW!1!1!!!
Man, no joke. I logged in once I think to the pre-panda patch and while I generally enjoyed Cataclysm, the 5.0 or whatever version that would have been made it clear that whatever alchemy that had so enthralled me was going if not gone.
DK cata tanking was so damn much fun though.
I don’t know how localized to my friend group these are, but what I perceive as my most unpopular opinions:
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I really like random action resolution, assuming it is quick and has dramatic results. I like rolling to hit or rolling for damage, especially when I can choose between risky-but-impactful and conservative-but-unexciting. I really dislike when random resolution doesn’t have a big impact. If a game wants me to think about a random element, it better have a HUGE impact on the results.
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I like Real-Time-With-Pause. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who expressed liking it, so I’m surprised it’s considered unpopular here. RTWP lets me blaze through battles when appropriate, and very carefully plan and execute battles when caution is necessary. It has a much greater range of pacing than turn-based, which is usually only deliberate if the game has any animations. I prefer the ease of understanding in turn-based games, but inevitably get annoyed at how slow combat is at some point. (With a few exceptions: most indie games and Age of Wonders series do a great job with keeping turn-based combat snappy.)
Turn Based = a Superior Strategy game than RTS.
Also, HOI4 ain’t a historical wargame. It’s a 4X in WW2 clothing.
This has stopped me in quite a few games.
At one point, I was pretty good at resto druid, and played a lot of PvP. It was such fun, and druid was such a complex class to play even decently much less well. To really utilize all of the abilities you had as a druid, and when to use them, was a huge rabbit hole to go down, and took a hell of a lot of keybinds, but was really satisfying when you got it. TLDR: Yah.
Go somewhere that’s not populated by aging strategy nerds and you will find dozens, nay, hundreds of people who lurve RTWP and consider turn-based dull or actively outdated. There’s a reason that they’re making these games even as indie and crowd-funded titles.
Hey!
- It makes no sense for there to be Super Mutants on the East Coast of the United States.
Have you been to New Jersey?
Are you saying there are crass, hulking brutes roaming around New Jersey?
I am 100% with you here. Morrowind is, for me, the best Elder Scrolls. (I probably even count it as my favorite game of all time.)
I love that you can’t climb to the top of every single faction in a single play through because of the stat requirements. It actually forced you to play a character that made sense to be part of that faction, and I adored starting a brand new character who was going to be built for x faction.
It never sat well with me that my thief Khajit archer could become archmage of the Mages guild or whatever.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Skyrim, but it just doesn’t have the flavor and style of Morrowind. (And I totally don’t get people who say Oblivion is the best in the series.)
I hate to break it to you but you can totally lead every faction in Morrowind, except for the Great Houses because those are actively mutually exclusive. Yeah, there are stat requirements but you can get all of those in one run.
Sure, but not in a normal amount of time. You have to grind all those stats, which takes longer, especially if the associated skills aren’t your primary or secondary skills.