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RPG Liposuction: How much fat should be trimmed?
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Anyone who read your posts read the exact same thing I read.
You're just another one of those sad pathetic peoples who believe that your one way of playing a video game is superior to another.
I'd like to play an RPG that manages this balance, and I honestly don't mean this as a shot at you when I say: please do recommend one.
I wonder if you understand the irony in this. Probably not.
I agree with Falstaff that too many basic fights aren't tactical enough (playing a fighter in a NWN2 type game involves "click on enemy, wait for him to die, click on next enemy, wait..." and little else), but I don't know that turn-based vs real-time would really help there. If a battle is going to be boring and easy, it will probably be that way whether or not it is turn-based. In fact, being turn-based might lead to a more tactically rich experience, since the designer figures that the player has more time to sit around and make decisions so a more tactically challenging situation is presented.
How do you define RPG?
Because if you just define it as a game where you gain experience and levels and buy new skills: Silent Storm.
If you mean more of a traditional RPG: I like FFT and the Baldur's Gate games.
Now of course designers could make every turn based fight a unique and challenging experience, but they'd have to limit the number of fights significantly to make that happen. And then I don't think there'd be any distinction between that game and a SRPG.
@ Disruptor: I'm thinking of your typical story driven epic adventures with lots of opportunity to customize your characters. I'm a bit of a min/maxer. Baldur's Gate certainly fits, and I love that whole era of games to pieces. This is mostly because they copy-paste DnD rules and design philosophy. Honestly, I think Dragon Age: Origins really evolved that formula to the point where it'd be hard to go back. That's ok though - designers dropping outdated philosophies is great for the medium.
Recently I bought Etrian Odyssey 2 for the DS, and at first I thought that this was my holy grail. But by the time I'd beaten the first two areas I realized I was playing exclusively to test my various builds and strategies against boss monsters, and that grinding experience and wave after wave of moth monster was not really fun at all.
FFT is a SRPG, and I totally agree that this sort of game is perfect for turn based combat.
It's up to you to find which games give you what you enjoy. You may enjoy Rogue Likes. They require tons of strategy and tactics and tend to use a 'simultaneous' turn system that makes things pretty immediate. They are, as a rule, a pretty brutally difficult RPG subgenre too.
AT2 and the Mario RPG series uses additional player interaction during turns where if you fuck it up, you take an absurd amount of damage, even from regular enemies.
There are plenty of ways to make regular turn based combat engaging enough without an all or nothing approach.
Well, I think Dragon Age has very tactical combat. I don't think its quite as good as Baldur's Gate, but that has more to do with the focus on narrative rather than being the biggest fucking RPG ever. Dragon Age is more a modern update to the Baldur's Gate style.
The thing about both those games is that they could be turn based, but aren't, and work better for it. There's no need for the player to have to handle every melee attack and whatnot, it picks up the pace without losing the strategy. Both have "you go, I go" at the core, especially Baldur's Gate, where the turn based nature of abilities is clearly seen when using spells.
Shiren the Wander is an amazing game; maybe even the best game. I have a hard time associating its design philosophy and execution with any standard RPG, but maybe that's just my own bias.
Edit: Aroduc brings up some good points. Still, though I cannot speak for MK1 and BoF4, these compromises seem to imply that the system itself is fundamentally unfit for what the designers are trying to create. Especially in the Mario RPG series, where the solution is borrowing elements of real time action combat.
How did Dragon Age evolve the formula, exactly? Apart from character creation, more options for melee fighters (I liked NWN2 3rd edition rules better), and arguably more fleshed out companions (though I prefere the cast of BG2, personally) I find every other aspect of it lacking compared to BG2 (it doesn't even look as good, imo).
It made it work in 3d.
Unless there's some obscure game I haven't played, Dragon Age is the first 3d party based game that handles the UI, Camera, and controls just right. Also, it has more of a working threat system than Baldur's Gate's "attack the first thing you see" AI.
The more inherent problem with Dragon Age is that the "holy trinity" is the mage class. Arcane Warrior, basic mage, basic mage/spirit healer.
However, I don't think "not as good as BG 2" is really grounds for calling any game bad.
Nah, I don't say it's a bad game (although I do think it's got many things wrong), I'm really just wondering how it has evolved the RPG genre, as I believe that neither the gameplay nor quality of writing has improved significantly (if at all) since the Infinite Engine era, and there's almost a decade in between these games. I also don't buy the argument that it was the first to bring the classic Bioware style to full frution in 3d, as NWN2 MotB (okay, not Bioware, but still) controlled and worked just as fine as DA did in my experience.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
One thing I've noticed though is that I'm happy as long as there aren't TOO many choices. 20 different suits of armor, all viable? No thanks.
3 at any given time? Yeah.
There's a problem with this post, and I'm trying really hard to address why there's a problem in a conversational, polite, constructive fashion. So, if I miss, forgive me, and take it in the spirit it is offered!
You've basically gone about things in a completely bass-ackward way. "Turn-based combat is not fun because it involves grinding out boring, repetitive, meaningless combats."
What you've done is picked something you don't like - boring, repetitive, meaningless combats - and lumped it in with something with which it has only the most tenuous of ties. It's ... like ... arguing that watching football (either version) is boring because you don't like beer.
Sure, beer is often found at football events - and at those of many other genres ... I mean sports - but it is by no means a requirement of that genre. It's entirely possible to watch football while drinking soda, or single-malts, or iced tea - or not drinking anything at all!
So, instead of denigrating football - turn-based combat - why not attack the real issue - repetitive, easy, meaningless combat?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
That is exactly what he is saying. He is not saying turn based combat is inherently horrible for god's sake.
Did he say that Chess is a bad game? No, he said Chess with all queens vs. all pawns is a bad game. And its not like RPGs gain anything by going into turn-based combat anyway... they only lose complexity for the most part.
Its more like electronic dungeon crawling more than anything. Edit: And yes... this crutch is the necessary element that shows the laziness of the developer.
You just described about 90% of stuff out there, just so you know. Which is exactly the point that Falstaff is making.
The reason there is even a confusion is the word RPG... I could hardly consider most of the RPGs out there anything other than dungeon crawling.
PSN: BlakeMaxwell3
No, he said Turn Based combat doesn't belong in RPGs. He said Turn Based combat belongs in strategy games.
That's wrong.
And about 90% of any genre is crap.
And I am totally for RPGs being in action titles. I consider Deus Ex to be an awesome RPG, though not just for its stats.
By ignoring it.
Also, here is another way to look at it.
Turn based mechanics sacrifice real-time combat for something. The only reason to justify is complexity in something, let it be tactics, strategy, epicness etc. Otherwise, there is no purpose for it to be in a turn-based format as opposed to real-time. So, when we are talking about uncomplicated stuff like Final Fantasy, there is no justification for Turn Based combat.
Compared to things like Advance Wars, Civilization, Chess, and Fire Emblem where turn based format allows increased complexity.
Yeah, Advance Wars is still worse than Starcraft in terms of complexity, but at least Advance Wars is doing something through its turn based mechanic (making the most of its platform). As opposed to RPGs... where the only thing gained is... what? I don't know.
Action-movie rules.
Sure, Bruce Willis is all beat-up after tangling with Gunther, but he can, after a couple minutes' breather, still kick Petrov's ass.
Or, you know, they just don't deal with it at all.
After all, we're talking about games wherein getting hit with a sword results in the loss of an arbitrary number of "life points" to begin with - arguing about whether and how fast those life points come back means you've skipped ahead.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
I'll take Final Fantasy's take on TB combat over Bethesda's whack-a-mole gameplay any day. Going real time doesn't inherently add anything better to a game. And TB combat is just as much a tradition in western RPGs as it is in JRPGs.
I've tried to get into Oblivion many times. I have a lot of friends who sink hours into the game. The auto-leveling for the enemies and the retarded leveling system have just killed it for me. The first time I went to an Oblivion wiki to look at a character creation guide I was stunned by how they recommend character builds. The system is just broken in favor of counter intuitive character builds and leveling abuse. The RT combat did nothing for me. For a company that has been making these games for a while, you'd think they'd find a way to make it interesting. Hell, you'd think you could swing a sword from horseback. But no, I've got to laboriously climb off the stupid animal while get mauled by a fucking bear or some Elf bastard in Daedric armor.
The issue isn't TB vs RT. It's bad game design. And the majority of games in any genre have bad game design. Even beloved ones.
Until all - or hell, even MOST - of the gameplay in a given turn-based RPG is engaging then I will continue to think so. If I'm wrong, it certainly hasn't been proven yet.
And of course a large chunk of any given genre is crap, but it's not usually because of the genre-defining mechanic*. What you should be asking yourself is why 90% of the traditional RPGs that we consider average or even GOOD are guilty of (mostly) boring-ass combat. It may not make the games bad in and of itself, but it's certainly a handicap.
*I say "genre defining" because "RPGs" almost always employ the turn based grind mechanic. This is why we qualify the Tales games as "action RPGs" and Fire Emblem as a "strategy RPG". The very fact that strategy has become so isolated from the genre as to require qualification is telling on its own.
In the game I'm working on - "Breath of Death VII: The Beginning" - all of the characters are undead so they have very fast regenerative abilities.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Common knowledge seems to state that Diablo/WoW is an RPG, Zelda games are RPGs, Planescape: Torment is an RPG, Sacrifice isn't an RPG.
Now, with each of these games you assume a role and play that role in the sense that the character is your avatar, but only in the last two do you make actual decisions that affect how the story unfolds (even if in a limited amount). Even the illusion of choice should be present for me to say I'm 'role playing'.
I like to think of Planescape as nearly the pinnacle of the RPG: it's a game that can be completed with very few combat encounters through a combination of proper stat allocation, dialog, and stealth (dialog being the primary factor I'm focusing on here). It also had a multi dimensional alignment scale (standard D&D stuff) that was affected by nearly every conversation you had. The role you chose to play (still multiple choice though) determines how your character develops and the story unfolds.
However, modern convention seems to equate the capability of playing Barbie dress-up with your avatar to role playing. See WoW and Diablo - both 'role playing' games where you never role play (unless you're on an RPG server I suppose) outside of wardrobe and stat allocation. Even Final Fantasy- considered THE RPG series has little to no actual role playing.
Dragon age and Mass Effect are both in the line of the classic Balder's Gate/Planescape era of RPGs. The popularity of these two games has reaffirmed my faith in the future of the RPG genre.
But role playing is aside from the mechanics. Turn based vs. real time, strategy vs. action, etc... I'm not saying any of this makes one game crap and another game good, I just want to point out that the year is two thousand fucking ten. We can reasonably state that if FFVI were made today, it would still be a great game, but a lackluster RPG- let's call it an 'Adventure' game.
I don't know if it will ever be considered 'fun' to have an RPG where the choices you make aren't presented in multiple choice format. I'm not sure if anyone would enjoy a game where you literally typed (or spoke via voice recognition) your own custom replies to NPCs and they react appropriately. The capability for that sort of thing may still be a ways off technologically though (software-wise at least).
Origin: Viycktor
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Until a computer can convincingly simulate spontaneous interactions between characters, world and story they will just be bits and pieces of the table top mechanics for combat and character progression reformatted to take advantage of a processors number crunching abilities. That can still make for a fun game though.
I guess that's perhaps a better way to think about it. Are you saying that the term 'RPG' is distinct from actual roleplaying in the game? (At least as far as electronic games are concerned)
Origin: Viycktor
Dragon Age does it, but there's no justification for it. I don't mind, it's less tedious than 'resting' between fights, or waiting for mana to regen to cast a couple of Heal Groups.
And I never said it wasn't done in Western tradition, just that the japanese only understand that one facet of role-playing games. And they do this well enough, I find most of them superior. But the west creates titles like Planescape: Torment and Deus Ex.
This is another correct statement.
I will say that Deus Ex is a very good role-playing game.
Yes. This is another correct statement. The term RPG nowadays is very divorced from what it actually is...
Edit: This is a mistranslation in your part. We aren't putting them against each other and saying what is better. What is going on is defining them so that we can understand what will make them either better or more complex.
And JRPGs are for the most part, bad game design. So much that they need to get something else to keep them from being horrible. The issue of why that is has already been covered.
Again, totally useless statement. Yes, it is bad game design, BUT WHY! Because we are using all queens vs. all pawns. And this is, unfortunately, the definition of a JRPG.
Uh... huh.
Action adventure.
I find all of the gameplay in pretty much every turn based RPG I've played engaging.
There, I have proved you wrong.