Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-74.104.206.83-20130730235710/@comment-25555436-20150612053921

I am not surprised you think that way. You are more inclined towards an Eastern perspective, and it's been made clear that the Japanese and to a lesser extent the SKoreans don't give a damn about good writing, creativity or story.

Yes, that genre's focus is more on gameplay than plot. It could be brutal and awesome like GoW, flashy and stylish like DMC, unnecesarily fanservicey like Bayonetta, or simply awesome in the most japanese way like MGR. But with a bad plot, you won't get many lovers.

Unless your game has already established itself as the kind of "crazy awesome with no much thought put in logic", like DMC. If it hasn't, then it must be like you said: You have to tell a good story, with good writing and characters. Not make it the emphasis, but not ignore it either nor just go for "We Just Didn't Care".

If you make a terrible plot, or there's no plot, many people won't like it. You see, a plot needs to be good enough to motivate the player, keep them interested and push them to keep playing until the end. Especially for the constantly-growing Casual base, who don't care too much about the gameplay and as such pay more attention to other details such as plot.

If the plot is terrible or there's no plot at all, players will be dissapointed. Combos and overall gameplay may be good which can entertain for a while, but without anything to truly push the player at least the first time, don't expect it to be too memorable. Otherwise, you end up relying on achievements (which not everyone cares about), the moves (which will eventually start to feel repetitive) or possibly a "point" system (which again, not everyone cares about. "Got 1000000 points and an S rank? OMG that's so amazing. Now go get a real life, instead of wasting your time getting meaningless points").

If the devs did like you want and give a good gameplay and bad plot, they would please the hardcore boys, but would please the (larger, growing) casual fanbase. Which will hurt sales in the long term. And they need Money, Dear Boy. Even indie devs do it for the money.

Not to mention, having or at least trying to give a good plot in a previously gameplay-focused franchise isn't always a bad idea. Look at Mortal Kombat. First games focused on gameplay, MK9 and MKX focused more on giving us a good plot to complement the gameplay. MK9 got shining reception, MKX only somewhat under it because of the changes and actually because it focused less on the plot than MK9. How bout that?

Besides, this isn't a normal Hack N Slash. This is a Licensed Game. They can use this chance to expand on the Remnant we barely know anything about via a plot, and still give us a good game. Telltale Games has done it Thrice, the Witcher games all did it too. This may as well be the best WoR we could ever get. They shouldn't waste this chance. Gameplay is nice, but this is an oportunity they can't ignore to focus on the gameplay, which honestly won't even be mindblowing.

As for PLatinum making plots simple, is less a design choice and more of a problem. Their writing skills are often mediocre, and they know it, but unlike many other devs, they don't try to improve at all in that aspect. Recent gaming history has shown that attempting to make a good plot in a gameplay-focused franchise can be good and give profit. They are just scared, and rely on gameplay which I'll be honest, gets repetitive after a while, especially with the simpler games like MGR.