I have no patience for RPGs anymore

[Silva]

Playing UnderRail for the first time.

1. What an atmosphere! what cool little graphics! What moody sounds!
2. Damn the guy is too slow.. where is the run button ... fuck there is no run button
3. fuck, why dont the screens transition directly ? I have to wait this slow fade out.
4. Hey! Beardy dude by the crossroads is cool. Seems like someone avatar on the codex
5. what a moody exploration! Im excited! all those derelict stations and all
6. OH COME ON, no fast travel ?? I must traverse all these maps back in turtle steps !?
7. Ok, first mission is over. Now I must capture some little dogs.
8. FUUUUCK! MAPS TOO BIG! TURTLE STEPS AGAAAAAIN!!!!
9 quit

I seriously dont have any more patience for this stuff. I think the classical RPG format is loaded with boring shit thats just there out of tradition sake. Things like map-traversing in turtle steps are the most offensive one, but really, any map traversing at all is boring, except if its solely for exploration purposes. But for strolling through my own base ? Fuck just gimme a RotK 8 menu with options on static screens, man. Click-go-click-go. Done. By the way, I think the "sim" genre has some cool things that classical RPGs could take some lessons from.

Now, before anyone else accuses me of popamoleness, Im as old-school as it gets, with Ultimas and Underworlds and Darklands and Fallouts and Arcanums and System Shocks and Deus Exs and Stalkers and King of Dragon Pass and Alpha Centauris under my belt. (no Baldurs Gate nor Bioware though, those are crap). The last games I had the patience to finish recently was Invisible Inc. and Metal Gear Ground Zeroes, and both playthorughs together took less than 8 hours.

So, is it just me ? Or are other vets out there losing the patience to play through classical 40ish hours games ?

 

[Orma]

 

[CyberP]

both playthorughs together took less than 8 hours.

So, is it just me ? Or are other vets out there losing the patience to play through classical 40ish hours games ?

Why is patience needed to to play a 40hr game, but not multiple shorter games? So you're saying a singular game cannot hold your attention for extended periods of time, you need to get your hands on something different after a while?

It just depends on the game for me. If I'm having fun, I'll stick with it. If I'm not, I'll give it a chance to get better if I'm told good things about it, but i'll give up on it if things don't change.
It's especially important with RPGs to slog through the first few hours with your fingers crossed, because some really blossom over time.

"2. Damn the guy is too slow.. where is the run button ... fuck there is no run button"

This does piss me off in some old RPGs. Fast travel is for fags tho. But either running or agility that actually increases movement speed would be nice in some oldies.

 

[Silva]

By the way, I loved Planescape Torment and regard it as one of the best stories ever, but I don want to ever play another game like that. If you wanna make me passively read the equivalent of the Bible the Kuran and the Torah in word count, gimme a godamn BOOK. It can even be a visual book like, you know, a comic book or something. But dont sell it as a "game" when it isnt. When I sit down to play a game I want to game all the time and reading text after text is not my definition of gaming at all. Far from it. Perhaps this explains my lack of patience for the classic RPG format. These days my gaming tastes sedimented around management, tactics, decisions, choices, etc. and not passive reading (or walking... from handful hours on Underrail, half that must have been walking). Or something like that.

 

[pakoito]

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

You need to become a combatfag or systemsfag. RPGs with great TB combat mechanics are instantly gratifying, easy to pick up/put down. I have increasingly less patience for someone else's idea of a good time where story is concerned. Combat and setting are king.

 

[pakoito]

You need to become a combatfag or systemsfag. RPGs with great TB combat mechanics are instantly gratifying, easy to pick up/put down. I have increasingly less patience for someone else's idea of a good time where story is concerned. Combat and setting are king.

Now, add recommendations. I couldn't get past fight 3 in Telepath Tactics after waiting for it since the first KS Craig did in 2012, so I'm considering filling for ADHD one of this days.

 

[JarlFrank]

There is one game series that I just don't have the patience for due to sloooow movement speed and that is Eschalon. Damn, is that movement slow.

 

[dragonul09]

You need to become a combatfag or systemsfag. RPGs with great TB combat mechanics are instantly gratifying, easy to pick up/put down. I have increasingly less patience for someone else's idea of a good time where story is concerned. Combat and setting are king.

Still think an rpg needs a good storyline to make you keep going through all the trash combat that you will encounter along the road.A recent example would Divinity OS,great combat system and all that shit but fucking hell ,i played 40 hours and i can't remember a single thing from that game,that's how bad the writing and storyline were.

An rpg needs a balance between combat/storyline/music/setting and none of them should be sacrificed to fill the others.

Imagine an rpg with a storyline ala Planescape,combat ala Divinity OS,setting ala Darksun ,ah the possibilities...But nooooo,let's sacrifice the combat and make a fucking rpg book or sacrifice the storyline and get bored in the first 5 hours.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

There is one game series that I just don't have the patience for due to sloooow movement speed and that is Eschalon. Damn, is that movement slow.

If you switch the renderer from directx/directdraw to opengl or whatever the alternative is/was, movement speed is quintupled. True story.

 

[Jimmious]

You need to become a combatfag or systemsfag. RPGs with great TB combat mechanics are instantly gratifying, easy to pick up/put down. I have increasingly less patience for someone else's idea of a good time where story is concerned. Combat and setting are king.

Still think an rpg needs a good storyline to make you keep going through all the trash combat that you will encounter along the road.A recent example would Divinity OS,great combat system and all that shit but fucking hell ,i played 40 hours and i can't remember a single thing from that game,that's how bad the writing and storyline were.

An rpg needs a balance between combat/storyline/music/setting and none of them should be sacrificed to fill the others.

Imagine an rpg with a storyline ala Planescape,combat ala Divinity OS,setting ala Darksun ,ah the possibilities...But nooooo,let's sacrifice the combat and make a fucking rpg book or sacrifice the storyline and get bored in the first 5 hours.

I don't know... For me , the older I get, the opposite is true. I tend to preffer rpgs with good and interesting combat and kind of get bored of too much story. Ok D:OS was obviously too silly , but had two major advantages:
I always wanted to go to the next battle AND I was playing it with the wife so I could actually play "freely", not feeling like I gotta hurry or something...bad is gonna happen anytime soon

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

You need to become a combatfag or systemsfag. RPGs with great TB combat mechanics are instantly gratifying, easy to pick up/put down. I have increasingly less patience for someone else's idea of a good time where story is concerned. Combat and setting are king.

Now, add recommendations. I couldn't get past fight 3 in Telepath Tactics after waiting for it since the first KS Craig did in 2012, so I'm considering filling for ADHD one of this days.

For you or the OP, If you haven't played it, Knights of the Chalice is a great mechanically. Excellent encounters and tactical combat, very adjustable animation speed and feedback options. This game gets player feedback just about perfectly. Just make sure you have at least one magic user. There are others but that is one.

 

[UnknownBro]

I hear'ya brother. Same thing happens to me, I guess I'm not a little kid anymore and I don't have an infinite ammount of time to waste watching character animations.

 

[agentorange]

Somethings do feel like a holdover and I am definitely against anything feels like it is implemented for the sole purpose of padding out the games length, but it depends on the game. World building is a big component of most exploration based RPGs, so you sort of need that component of traversal even if it does get tedious at times, you need lulls between the action - reducing everything to menus would speed things up, sure, but if you get too abstract with it you run the risk of becoming monotonous in another way since everything is reduced to clicking through menus, and you are no longer playing a character but managing one.

Have you tried just playing these games for shorter spans of time? I used to play RPGs for like 8 - 12 hours straight, now days I usually just play them in 1 or 2 chunks spread out over a longer period of time.

 

[Mustawd]

I hear'ya brother. Same thing happens to me, I guess I'm not a little kid anymore and I don't have an infinite ammount of time to waste watching character animations.

Similar feelings to the OP. My time is extremely limited lately, and dropping tons of hours into games is hard to do. A lot of times when I have free time I just blow it on here or some other action ey game I know only takes a small commitment of time or energy.

Still love rpgs, but it's becoming harder and harder to get lost in them as time is short.

So when I see things like, "over 100+ hours of gameplay", I'm just like, "oh, fuck you dude. Just give me a tight 20-30 hr experience"

 

[Night Goat]

Does the game advertise its length? If so, you can be sure that it's full of boring time-wasting bullshit.

 

[pippin]

Thing is, now we have other games to play. I bet you have dozens of games in your gog/steam/whatever account. So if you get bored, you just start another one. It's not like we only have 4 cartridges to play for the rest of our lives, like it was back then.
However, I can't play the same game for more than 1,5/2 hours. The total lenght of a game does not bother me because of what I just said. It just depends of what you're looking for in a game.

 

[Serious_Business]

the patience is finished

So I heard, burnout. So I heard

 

[Average Manatee]

For game speed issues download Cheat Engine and bind some keys to speedhacks. I have NUM 1 at +25%, NUM 2 at +50%, NUM 3 at +100%. Use it on probably 33-50% of the games I play.

 

[imweasel]

I have no patience for RPGs anymore

'Tis so sad.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

1 Good setting: Yes
2 Good art and graphics: Yes
3 Good sound: Yes
4 Good story and characters: Yes
5 Fun and engaging: No

4/5 but can't play it.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I think a procedural approach to games can alleviate some of these issues. The reason it's so boring to backtrack through an already explored area is because areas in RPGs are static, once you go through the content there that the developers put in, there is nothing else but a dead shell. But if these areas and the content were more dynamic, there would be interesting stuff going on every time you travel through it, giving you something new to see and interact with. Same thing as with real life, every time you walk down the same street, something new is happening, new fights, new conversations, new events.

My personal issue with RPGs is sometimes I get fatigued going through settlements and trying to talk to everyone. In a static RPG, there is only so much content, so if you miss a quest giver, that's that much less content for you to enjoy. So there is pressure on the player to go through every settlement with a microscope, and make sure you talk to everyone. But sometimes this gets tiring, when you just want to be more spontaneous and just travel around. After all, Aragorn didn't have to talk to every elf and hobbit, he just traveled around and new adventures presented themselves. This is also something that can be fixed with procedural gameplay. If new dynamic situations and problems are coming up all the time you don't need to be OCD about tracking content down.

 

[Ashenai]

I think a procedural approach to games can alleviate some of these issues. The reason it's so boring to backtrack through an already explored area is because areas in RPGs are static, once you go through the content there that the developers put in, there is nothing else but a dead shell. But if these areas and the content were more dynamic, there would be interesting stuff going on every time you travel through it, giving you something new to see and interact with. Same thing as with real life, every time you walk down the same street, something new is happening, new fights, new conversations, new events.

My personal issue with RPGs is sometimes I get fatigued going through settlements and trying to talk to everyone. In a static RPG, there is only so much content, so if you miss a quest giver, that's that much less content for you to enjoy. So there is pressure on the player to go through every settlement with a microscope, and make sure you talk to everyone. But sometimes this gets tiring, when you just want to be more spontaneous and just travel around. After all, Aragorn didn't have to talk to every elf and hobbit, he just traveled around and new adventures presented themselves. This is also something that can be fixed with procedural gameplay. If new dynamic situations and problems are coming up all the time you don't need to be OCD about tracking content down.

This is what I liked about Darklands and the first two Elder Scrolls games. (And the 1989 Microprose action-strategy-RPG hybrid Sword of the Samurai, but no one's ever heard of that one. Try it if you liked Darklands and you don't mind the occasional realtime actiony bits.) You can legitimately just do whatever you want and know that there's no danger of missing anything or running out of shit to do, since quests and events are procedurally generated on the fly wherever you are.

It's how my ideal RPG would work, except with way more moving parts than any of those games. Unfortunately, the early Elder Scrolls games, Darklands, and Sword of the Samurai all start getting repetitive and same-y way too early.

 

[Goral]

(...) I seriously dont have any more patience for this stuff. I think the classical RPG format is loaded with boring shit thats just there out of tradition sake. Things like map-traversing in turtle steps are the most offensive one, but really, any map traversing at all is boring, except if its solely for exploration purposes. But for strolling through my own base ? Fuck just gimme a RotK 8 menu with options on static screens, man. Click-go-click-go. (...)

I agree. I've raised this problem (and more) here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/divinity-or-eternity.98054/page-3#post-3826311

I think that AoD is better both mechanics-wise and as far as writing is concerned. Writing is WAY better and there shouldn't even be a hint of doubt here. Dialogues in UR either suck or are mediocre, dialogues (and writing overall) in AoD is either very good or superb. UR is too easy, especially with Oddity system (classic with grinding is easy too, if you're a fighter of course), while AoD combat system is challenging and requires the use of tactics. UR has too many flaws that annoy me like:

1) You can't load a game during combat unless it's your turn. It is annoying especially when you know for sure you will die before even all the guards will have a chance to burst ammo in you. No such problem in AoD.

2) If you want to sell your stuff you have to go from one vendor to another because one trader will buy only very specific things and nothing else. Which makes sense in real life but in a game it's annoying (and to be honest in a post-apocalyptic world I doubt any trader would pass on a chance to buy something he doesn't need at the moment but for a fraction of it's real value). AoD wins again.

3) Running is so slow in here and it's one of the main reasons I don't want to replay the game. Playing Underrail lets you realize how great "teleporting" is in AoD. First location (SGS) is very annoying, especially cave tunnel exit which is slow like a retard. Also, you can't skip the shooting session with Gorsky.

4) There are some idiotic choices, like you can't open your room from the inside unless you have a keycard (or lockpicks).

5) There aren't that many ways to accomplish missions and pickpocketing skill is a must have. AoD gives much more freedom to the player and always gives you more than 2 options. Here there are usually 2 options only where the second one is way more difficult than the first (e.g. retrieving Elwood's key).

6) It has too monotonous locations. Corridors, corridors and some more corridors. That is the main reason it's not as replayable as AoD.

Crafting is good in both games (in AoD you also have Alchemy), UR offers more interactivity so you can disable cameras or actively use sneak (that also goes for your opponents). AoD often resembles a text adventure game rather than cRPG but that shouldn't be a problem for people with imagination. At least I don't have to spend 5 minutes on walking to disable a security system or to sneak into a building and pickpocket someone.

Last but not least UR is Fallout in sewers while AoD is a cRPG unlike any other.

Fallout New Vegas also has this problem. Even with fast travel you had to waste time on going through boring locations where there was nothing except some copy/paste rocks. That way instead of 50 hours or less I've spent over 100 hours on this game. That is one of the reasons I love Age of Decadence. There is no bloat here, every quest is a gem and every fight is meaningful (and fun). What's more you have "teleportation" here which many people do not like and I love. Thanks to it, when you're being told that you should go to person XYZ you don't have to click, click and click some more, you click once and you're there (although most of the time you have the option to go there later and do something else first which is also important - when you do not have a choice it's because the story demands it). There are also no "random encounters " here which is understandable in a post-apocalyptic, desolated world.

AoD is addictive and has the most replayability out of all RPGs besides Fallout 1. It's not a sandbox game but you can explore any location you know at any time. It's more realistic that way (who in his right mind would go to the wasteland without knowing whether he would find any water or food) and you avoid filler that way. In games like Skyrim or Fallout 3 50% of the time you spend is pointless filler content. In AoD every quest is a gem and every character well written. Thanks to that the game doesn't waste your time and gives you only cream of the crop and makes you replay it again and again and again to find every quest, every location and every character possible.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Playing UnderRail for the first time.

1. What an atmosphere! what cool little graphics! What moody sounds!
2. Damn the guy is too slow.. where is the run button ... fuck there is no run button
3. fuck, why dont the screens transition directly ? I have to wait this slow fade out.
4. Hey! Beardy dude by the crossroads is cool. Seems like someone avatar on the codex
5. what a moody exploration! Im excited! all those derelict stations and all
6. OH COME ON, no fast travel ?? I must traverse all these maps back in turtle steps !?
7. Ok, first mission is over. Now I must capture some little dogs.
8. FUUUUCK! MAPS TOO BIG! TURTLE STEPS AGAAAAAIN!!!!
9 quit

I seriously dont have any more patience for this stuff. I think the classical RPG format is loaded with boring shit thats just there out of tradition sake. Things like map-traversing in turtle steps are the most offensive one, but really, any map traversing at all is boring, except if its solely for exploration purposes. But for strolling through my own base ? Fuck just gimme a RotK 8 menu with options on static screens, man. Click-go-click-go. Done. By the way, I think the "sim" genre has some cool things that classical RPGs could take some lessons from.

Now, before anyone else accuses me of popamoleness, Im as old-school as it gets, with Ultimas and Underworlds and Darklands and Fallouts and Arcanums and System Shocks and Deus Exs and Stalkers and King of Dragon Pass and Alpha Centauris under my belt. (no Baldurs Gate nor Bioware though, those are crap). The last games I had the patience to finish recently was Invisible Inc. and Metal Gear Ground Zeroes, and both playthorughs together took less than 8 hours.

So, is it just me ? Or are other vets out there losing the patience to play through classical 40ish hours games ?

you realize you have let the internet, TV jump cuts, modern sensibilities etc ruin your natural ability to sit and appreciate being a human being alive on the earth?

And instead of worrying about why you have become this way (literally more stupid), you complain that you are in essence 'bored'. Its not normal to become so easily impatient by things like the screen taking 1/5th of a second longer to transition than you have been accustomed to by constant and repeated exposure to hyper entertainment and advertising techniques. Such complaints are at the heart of decline. People are becoming ruined by modern entertainment.

What I mean by ruined is that by continuing down this path you will find a place where you can not appreciate nor enjoy anything except in the most superficial way, and but for the briefest of moments. Imagine an existence where you 'enjoy' 10 million shallow exchanges a day, remembering none of them, and each of them only satisfying some sudden impulsive urge but for that moment alone because alas the next such urge is upon you again. A constant state of uneasiness, desire and want and ultimately, unhappiness.