it seems a bit silly to name a publisher such as ubisoft for their whole oeuvre but... i'm going to do it, if only the publisher's name prevents you from making a game purchase it seems that it would fit the ' don't click ' bill

Piranha bytes is another one, not necessarily bad but, their games, nope

Bethesda....

Codemasters ....

Bandai Namco ( though i'm willing to give their aerial combat thing another try )

4A games

and probably many more

The major disadvantage of a low-level game is that you don't get to interact with the growth system often enough, meaning that one of the major reasons I like to play RPGs is significantly reduced in such a system.

You can have a lot of levels without it reaching high levels of power, with each individual level having a smaller role, and I would prefer that to having a single digit level cap. You can also have something like SaGa-style growth, where there are no levels, but rather characters gain stats or skill levels based on their actions during combat, giving you continuous growth instead of the rare and staggered growth you get in games like BG1 and Pool of Radiance.

One problem with these requirements is the ability score requirements, meaning that unless you plan for them at character creation time, you're not going to meet them at all. (Same problem that 2e dual-classing has.) Problem is that, while 3e does give stat increases, you only get 1 point every 4 levels, and the lack of a cap (as well as the lack of diminishing returns on points spent) strongly encourages these points to be spent to improve good stats rather than fix deficiencies in weaker stats. (I think I'd rather have a situation like Wizardry or Bard's Tale where everyone ends up with all 18s at a high enough level rather than the situation where stats end up becoming more lopsided at higher levels.)

What I'm saying isn't that I'd like damage improvement in addition to accuracy improvement, but that I'd like damage improvement *instead* of accuracy improvement, like in Dragon Quest games and later Final Fantasy games. This way, attacks can have high accuracy in most situations while still allowing for improvement as characters level up.

In particular, I dislike the sort of combat where you constantly miss until the RNG decides that you should hit (or be hit and killed in one shot).

Final Fantasy 5 has a good way of handling things, for example:
* Many weapon types (knives and swords, for example) hit by default. There's no attack roll needed; unless the attacker is blind or the enemy has evasion, the attack is going to hit. There are weapon types with less than 100% base accuracy, like axes and bows, but I think they may be a minority. (Plus, Axes are somewhat impractical due to the fact that only Freelancers (who don't learn any abilities) and Berserkers (who are always berserk) can equip them naturally.)
* Evasion isn't standard. In order to avoid an attack, a party member must either equip a shield or equip an item or ability that has evasion as a special ability (or be a Samurai, who gets an evasion ability innately). Enemies have an evade stat, but it's often 0.
* There are a few ways to improve accuracy: Some weapons, like knives and bows, ignore half the target's evasion. Also, some abilities, like the Archer's Aim ability, never miss. (Note that there's no attribute that improves accuracy or evasion.)
* Damage is weapon attack - target's defense, but is then multiplied by a value based off the attacker's stats and level.
* Stats are handled in an interesting way. Rather than remaining constant or growing, they're dependent on current job (and sometimes secondary ability) only (with some small equipment bonuses). HP and MP are derived stats that will change when your job or permanent level changes. (Note that this avoids the issue of some games where leveling up while in a certain job will give you better or worse stats than leveling up in a different job; FF3 is particularly guilty of this in regards to HP.)

I had a hard time with AAA games (didn't matter who made them) which made me take a hiatus from gaming from around 2005 until around 2010.

They just all went for that big lush 3D experience which ended up kind of looking the same a lot of the time (yes, more detailed and realistic every year, but also kind of the same).

They spent so much energy and time trying to make it look real that they forgot to keep some energy for groundbreaking gameplay. While they were adding little things here and there, it mostly felt like all the gameplay innovation I had gotten used to in the 80s and 90s had come to an abrupt end.

Creative Assembly, i love some of their games but i HATE, their practices and i HATE their DLC policy.
you CANNOT ask for 5 dollars for blood in every game

you know what, Paradox as well, their DLC is downright pathetic, i dont wanna pick on the easy targets like PubiSoft cause everyone does that, i want awareness for scummy companies who manage to stay out of that particular spotlight

That rule has existed as far back as 1e, and was implemented in the Gold Box games like Pool of Radiance.


The point I'm making is that the D&D rules just don't scale well to higher levels, unlike many other rule systems in games that do. Dragon Quest 3 still feels balanced at levels in the 40's, for example, in a way that D&D does not. And, I believe, this is due to accuracy and evasion being the primary things that improve, rather than damage. A 20 point difference in accuracy is huge regardless of level, while a 20 point difference in damage is not at sufficiently high levels.

Also, XP requirement growth in 3e is not geometric/exponential; each level requires 1,000 XP more than the previous level; the reason leveling slows down is that XP gained is based off the relative level of the PCs and monsters (and 3e uses average party level, which causes problems when there's large level differences, a problem that's particularly bad in Icewind Dale 2). Incidentally, the 1e/2e situation is different again, as XP requirements stop doubling around level 10 and are the same for every level, so a level 4000 character (if one somehow got that high) can reach level 4001 as easily as a level 10 character can reach level 11. (Note: This varies by class; in 2e, 10 works for Mage/Thief/Bard, 9 for Fighter/Paladin/Ranger/Cleric, and Druid's XP table is just strange.)

Sorry for continuing this off-topic discussion, but I felt the need to respond and don't want to start a new thread for it.

Maybe you should be more specific about what rule you're talking about. I don't know of any rule in Pool of Radiance where a character, upon reaching 0 HP, can continue to act consciously (although it might be possible with barbarians; I never play that class so I'm not sure how their immortality during rage works). Maybe you're actually referring to how characters with 0 HP or less (but more than -10) don't die, but are unconscious and can be bandaged and healed without resurrection? I admit that feature is lacking in BG, not that I think it's that critical in a CRPG that supports saved games (plus needing this kind of thing goes against my general play philosophy). Obviously if that's what you're talking about, you disagree. Yes, I know the point you're trying to make, and honestly, I don't care, because I pretty much disagree with you every step of the way (especially when you bring up ATB games as supposedly superior counterexamples). My point in my response was that using a virtually impossible, extremely unrealistic level 4000 character with no feats (and a level difference of 40, which is the level of an excessively high-level D&D character on its own) to illustrate even part of your point is disingenuous. Part of your complaint is that the level cap is too low and progression is too slow, so your examples should use low-level characters. At least use realistic characters. I've never seen a normal D&D/D&D-like RPG with a level cap over 40. Solasta, a brand new (5e) game, has an unmodded level cap of 10, similar to BG:ToSC. BG2:ToB and NWN are 40. NWN2 is 30. Pathfinder doesn't even support epic levels, so it caps at 20. I don't know what is planned for BG3, but it's probably not over 40, either (I think I read somewhere that they are planning on 10, so just like Solasta and BG).

I will gladly take back my statement about geometric level progression. I probably confused that with newer games, as I don't pay that much attention. The end effect is still the same: slower progression as you increase levels. Some games do use geometric progression to accomplish this, and some reduce the XP you get from lower-level enemies. Some do both. Whatever. The exact mechanism isn't really relevant to my point, anyway.

This is 100% the answer to me. Different art styles and things can be present in a developers work but if it starts to feel to similar I get very bored. I'm an adult with a job and responsibilities so anything that doesn't feel unique in one way or another probably won't get much play time. A lot of big developers are guilty of this and economically it makes good sense, but I can't get into a game that feels like it was planned around buzzwords the marketing department overheard on a YouTube video.

What did Id change their star franchise into?

Agreed.

I suspect that a lot of the satisfaction (delayed gratification) that I experience in (finally!) creating a great character derives from the consolation of thwarting the information asymmetry that so hampers the novice. Just as all games have secret knowledge, optimal stratagems, hidden weapons and power-ups, etc., this is the format for D&D. The game is all about preparation: learning spells before being able to cast them and learning skills appropriate for solving the challenges ahead.
It is a curiosity of our digital age that the one thing that computers are the worst at (RNG) is the one thing we seem obsessed with making them do for us.

As you say, the collision between defense and attack are the meat & potatoes of the (battle) game.

The D&D system has been distorted with epic levels, but has retained some modicum of reality with the 5% rule (epic fail / success on the natural roll of 1 / 20, icosohedrally.)

I like the job-dependent stat idea, but the devil is in the detail.

I think the GURPS system (à la the Fallout series) has handled the damage (-reduction) process quite well; different armour will grant varying damage reduction, which is only very basic in D&D, e.g., scale mail prevents the crushing damage of chain mail.

I guess it's the old paradox: There was a horse that couldn't be rode, and a rider that couldn't be throw'd; or the impact of an unstoppable projectile and an immovable object.

We need a better mousetrap.

Yes, games like FTL and the sequel are a cool drink of water for those suffering from this. :)
I just bought Into the Breach and have found it pretty addictive, so far. Back to the roots: simple game theory.

There's also been cases where I would like a series at first, but then various changes would turn me off from later games in the series.

Two cases where this happened to me:
* Final Fantasy: I enjoyed the first 5 games, and to some extent the 6th (but note that, like most non-Japanese people, I played 6 before 2, 3, or 5), but did not enjoy the 7th. The big problem is that the series, by this point, was focusing too heavily on the non-interactive elements like cutscenes and long summon animations, rather than on the gameplay (with seemingly little to no care about game balance; who thought KotR was even *remotely* balanced?). Also, as a veteran of the series at that point, FF7 was way too easy. The minigames in FF7 also weren't so good, as they tended to dilute the main game, particularly when the game requires you to do something as obnoxious as performing CPR (even though you have access to healing magic). When I finally got to play FF5, I was thinking "why couldn't FF6 and later be more like FF5?"
* Zelda: The early games were good. But then Link's Awakening came and emphasized puzzles (some of which were of the "guide dang it" sort, like the one requiring killing enemies in a specific order) rather than combat. Then came Ocarina of Time, which is when the series introduced mandatory insta-fail stealth sections, and while I played Majora's Mask and the two Oracle games, I have not played any later Zelda game (not counting GBA Link to the Past, but that isn't different enough to count as its own game, and I never played 4 Swords).

Changed it from one of my top FPS games ever into something I'm having a hard time enjoying. Certainly an unpopular opinion, but after playing through Doom 2016, I have zero desire to even try Eternal.

Bethesda. I've never seen a company rep have more disdain for fans -- and voice it -- than Pete Hines. I'd have expected his behavior to have been an end to his career, but instead he was promoted... and promoted...

Well, Todd Howard comes to mind too, but again, he's with Bethesda.

I've disliked them ever since they consolized TES in Morrowind. It started the process of streamlining stats and skills and completely dumbing down a complex system so stupid players wouldn't be confused or turned off. I LOVED the complexity of Daggerfall, and it pissed me off so much to see skills go away in Morowind. Oblivion and Skyrim, while good games were terrible at Role Playing for the same reason. Good mods to add skills and stats to the games were a must.

Other companies I can't stand: Frogwares. After the debacle with The Sinking City (after the debacle with Focus Home) I just don't have any hope that they are a competent company that can avoid legal trouble.