Graphics or Gameplay

I'm far more on the gameplay side. It needs to be fun to play above all else.

I like great games, and I game on 4k/60 or 1440/144. So...both.

Two of my favorite games this gen are Shovel Knight and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, so...

Gameplay is king. always will be. With that said your example of NMS is bad. It doesn't have good graphics at all, what you are thinking of is good art direction. You like the look of the world, but graphically it's pretty poor but that's expected from a company with 15 people, that lied to everyone and put out a shit game lol

Not much of a game to me if it's not fun.

This can't be serious? I want to know how many voted for graphics just to play along on the ludicrousy of the thread. I know I did.

Why not both

@nygamespotter: isnt that the point of the whole thread?

That 23% is a sad high percentage for graphics... christ... go watch movies.. your disgraces.

Ahh yes. This thread again. The one everybody claims gameplay is most important but then on a daily basis piss and moan about graphics.

We've had this same thread not too long ago...

Gameplay by far. I don't find games immersive just because of shiny visuals. There are several other things that play bigger role imo. First, you have to treat levels like actual places instead making players feel like they are entering one movie set after another. I have found that sometimes keeping things simple can work better. Lore also plays decent role in making things feel more believable. Empowering player is one of the most important things imo. More scripted game = less personal experience.

If the game does something without player's input then it's immersion breaker. Same goes for forcing players to move from point A to B in a straight line instead of leaving room for free form emergent gameplay. Being completely gameplay driven is a lot more satisfying than shiny cutscenes. Sound also plays key role. This is the reason why I find old games from Looking Glass and Ion Storm more immersive than latest games despite being visually outdated. Sound was top of the line and soundtracks were created to enhance atmosphere instead of sounding like an action movie score.

You had to read notes, diaries, letters and listen to guards to know what's going on and pay attention to everything (while not being frustrating at the same time). You had to observe surroundings carefully before even looting a simple box to make sure that it's not rigged with explosives or traps. These little things made games a lot more personal, memorable, believable and immersive because it was my journey,,, I did it. And most importantly without good gameplay, the game is not fun to play. Crysis 3 has better visuals than Crysis 1 but it pales in comparison as an overall product because the first game had legendary gameplay. Another example; The Order 1886 (Great visuals, crap everything else).

Even in story heavy games there should be at least serviceable gameplay to carry that plot forward imo. It's one of the reasons why I've moved away from Telltale's latest offerings. While good at storytelling, their latest games lack in gameplay and feel similar. For me, the game without some sort of risk/reward is boring (that doesn't mean game needs to be punishingly difficult).

At least TC is honest.

Not again with this CRAP of a question ... Pleeeease.

@AzatiS: You don't have to participate... Just wanted to see how important graphics are to people still. In the late 90s/early 2000s, graphics were very important because they were constantly changing, but now things have slowed down a bit. That being said I still want a my games to look amazing at the expense of gameplay..

@cainetao11: You make a good point. Lol

@PS3FanMan4Life: to be fair, it is kind of a loaded question. If you say graphics you are kind of a snob

@aigis: Well it's a good thing the poll is anonymous! You can be a rogue snob!

@PS3FanMan4Life: you do realize that all 20% are trolling

Thank you!

May i ask you what games you consider having AMAZING gameplay ? Because that right there is the confusion most people having.

Look TC is original. This question has never ever been asked before until you came along. Thank you. Thank you for bringing this topic to the table. Without you no-one would ever discuss this.

Both in certain measurements.

Gameplay it's not even close. Yes it's nice when a game has both, but you can overcome ugly visuals and aesthetics, if the game design is ace. You can not overcome poor game design with "hur durr our game looks pretty". The former will still highlight a strength of this medium, the latter is inherently shallow. Clean and clear aesthetics matter, visuals have their merit in this medium. Resident Evil 4's stellar action benefits also from clear visual rules and a bitchin atmosphere, Bayonetta's stellar combat needs great tells from its enemies, and that's a product of well animated enemies. A game like Mario or Zelda or Metroid always had clean, crisp, well thought out aesthetics (and atmosphere in the case of Metroid) to make their overall play work.

I would say the same about a story over gameplay, **** and no. I like The Walking Dead from Telltale, but it's not a good video game. It's a good story yes, but it's entirely achieved by them borderline stripping gameplay and interactivity to its bare fucking minimum, if not out of the experience in their other games.

If you can't be interesting on an interactive level, why are you making a video game? That's always been my stance when it's argued that any other pillar of game design is remotely close to being on equal footing with gameplay, because it just isn't.

Both.

This stupid question again. My answer which isn't a choice in the poll: I want both.

It's 2016 not 1990. You no longer have to choose between one or the other. People who play really shit indies with crap graphics do so to appear cool to people on the internet who actually don't give a flying f*** what they're playing.

Graphics along with carefully crafted world would make the game very immersive. Whatever the **** witcher 3 does, its everything right. Graphics along will not make a game immersive if the characters are all 1 dimensional like Bethesda games. Also better graphics generally means hotter female character models unless sjws, politically correct or feminist sissies played a part in the character design.

Gameplay is the priority....a balance of both is ideal, after all we are talking about games.....so GAMEplay is the most important aspect.

It's also dependant on the type of game. For example in a racer like Forza, what is happening onscreen is 100% gameplay. From the moment the race begins to the end, you are in control of the car. So gameplay is the most important thing, it pretty much needs to be perfect. If the gameplay sucks, it will make no difference how amazing the game looks.

Now in a game such as Telltale's Walking Dead, where 90% of the time you are watching cutscenes, gameplay takes a back seat....it's still important, it cannot be pure garbage, but it is less important than in a game like Forza or StreetFighter for example.

In Telltale's Waking Dead you've managed to find a game with ZERO gameplay and absolutely awful graphics. So are you in fact arguing that it's possible to enjoy a game that has neither gameplay or graphics?

@blueinheaven: Not at all, you missed my point....first of all I don't consider the WD games to have awful graphics, I simply chose it for the type of game that it is. Just pretend that the WD game, exactly how it is now, has what you would consider incredible graphics...in that type of game, the way they designed it, the gameplay is far less important, and there is barely any of it anyways.

All you do is press the button to choose the dialog option, the other times you move the circle To the right place and you view descriptions of world objects. No offense to Telltale, but a Hollywood movie studio would almost be able to design such a game, you don't need to be an experienced game maker imo. That being said, I still greatly enjoyed those games....I'm not bashing them at all.

You seem to agree WD has no gameplay but disagree that it has awful graphics. Dude, it looks like a PS2 game. Sure, lots of people can live with that and look how popular their non-games have become but with all the money they've made they continue to shit in the face of their loyal fanbase by flatly refusing to upgrade their graphics engine.

Horrible company that make terrible non-games that look, to me... butt-ugly. Not having a go at you mate but it's a dev I have absolutely zero time for. Until Dawn as an i.e. v ANY Telltale game it's not even funny.

O we all know what happens to games who cheat us on our gameplay.

Says he prefers graphics, then mentions NMS. LOL

Both.

@cainetao11: Lol exactly.

I game on a PC... I don't have to chose.

It needs both to have staying power for me. Most games these days look pretty nice tho.

Obviously gameplay, battlefront looked amazing, but I stopped playing it after a while since the gameplay was way too basic and the game lacked a lot of content compared to previous battlefront games.

i need both

Gameplay > Performance > Music/Sound > Graphics >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Story.

That's generally how I see it.

Why not both? I'm tired of people acting like developers can only choose one or the other.

Most developers have to work on a budget, which means they have to prioritize certain things. Making highly detailed models and animations doesn't come for free. And honestly I would have them put more effort into gameplay than graphics.

@thepclovingguy: The best developers are able to find balance.

both

Both of these answers sound great to me, but if I had to pick one or the other, I would pick gameplay.. I can still fully enjoy games that came out in the ps2 and ps1 era to this day.

LOL.

Awesome console features (if he played it on a PS4): severe pop-ins, terrible FoV, chromatic aberration, frame rate drops... so immersive.

Gameplay,but some games can find a balance between both like uncharted 4.this thread was already made not long ago.

I can't even play games unless there are some graphics involved, so graphics are pretty important to me.

It can even be argued that the gameplay that people love so much is only made possible through the level of graphical detail utilized in their favorite games.

But No Man's Sky has crap graphics? I'm scratching my head over this one.