Would you mind listing some of the ones you’ve tried? Describing melee as spam clicking sounds like you’ve either only played real-time RPGs or didn’t understand the tactics that come with the trade-offs on your character sheet. Fallout itself comes in a ton of different flavors across the series.
Comment on Games you really want to play, but can't or won't?
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
RPGs in general, but esspecially Fallout. I want to like them. I love games with a heavy emphasis on detailed worlds and environmental storytelling. I love detailed character customization and building. I especially love varied and non-linear games. Despite all of that, I just can’t enjoy RPGs, because the primary loops are always so shallow. Melee is almost always either a matter of spam clicking or timing paries, firearms tend to be just holding left click on mindless enemies and they walk into a choke point, and stealth is either buggy and unreliable or completely overpowered. So much of the game is spent on these weak points, rather than the genre’s strengths, to the point where I just can’t enjoy them.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
I’ve tried a bunch of the big ones. Fallout 1&3, Skyrim, Final Fantasy 3 and 7, Pokemon, Borderlands, a couple of different MMORPGs, and a bunch of random others. My description was a bit oversimplified, but my point was more about the general lack of care towards the primary loops that you spend 99% of the game engaging with. For example, Fallout 3 has terrible gunplay which is further limitted by the need to focus on one weapon type, and uninteresting AI which doesn’t leave room for deeper tactics. Pokemon, along with a lot of other JRPGs, often boil down to finding one or two decent buffs/debuffs to use, then spamming whatever does highest damage. MMOs obvious tend to require a lot of grinding repetitive, often easy enemies.
That said, I have found some of the RPG-adjacent games better. Roguelikes are one of my favorite genres, since they tend to center around a strong gameplay loop, while still featuring the non-linearity and character builds. Same with tactics games. Honestly Dark Souls seems like it may be a good option, but I bounced off of it due to technical issues the first time and just haven’t gotten around to trying it again.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I’d argue that a game like Fallout, 1 or 3, is not 99% combat, and that’s probably where the disconnect is. They intend for you to do some detective work and even solve problems without combat plenty of times too, even when you have a combat-heavy build. Pokemon is a strange one here too, because that series is built around a rock paper scissors system such that you should be regularly be switching up which attacks you’re using. I’d love to see if your complaints hold up to Larian’s games on tactician difficulty.
missingno@fedia.io 18 hours ago
If you want a few recommendations that I think are particularly great for their combat mechanics:
- Etrian Odyssey - Regular encounters are no slouch, FOEs are a terror, status effects hella matter, and you always have to carefully gauge how far you can push before it's time to retreat back to town. IMO, 4 is the peak.
- Bravely Default - The ability to bank your turns or take an advance on future turns adds a really cool layer to combat. As a spiritual successor to FF5, the job system gives you lots of fun toys to play with and encourages you to constantly change up your builds.
- Tales of series - These games are partially inspired by fighting games, and if you squint hard enough you can see those influences in the early titles before it started to go off in more of its own direction. I think Vesperia is the most polished, though I actually want to suggest starting with Symphonia for the story/characters, because otherwise you'll find it a hard game to go back to since it doesn't have the Free Run mechanic from later games. The trick is that you won't miss it if you play Symphonia first.
- CrossCode - Closest thing I can try to compare this to would be Secret of Mana, if that game was faster and significantly more technical.
- The World Ends With You - If you can, play the original DS version to fully enjoy how it was built around the hardware. If you can't, the Switch version is still worth playing, and does have some cool added content to compensate for some of the sacrifices made to adapt it to a single screen.
tab@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
how ahout kingdom come deliverance? combat is a bit more interesting in that series