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RPG Endgame Concept

StaticSpine

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So, I'm finishing D:OS right now. The final area is a huge ass trashing mob area. Fight after fight after fight and so on..

And I thought about this: why wouldn't someone make the final chapter of the game like some big non-combat area with tons of quests which provide you with everything necessary to beat the final boss (for example, you get some mega awesome equipment, get some vital information etc). And after that you just go and beat it! Without the shitty pre-boss dungeons and million minions before the actual fight.

Was there anything similar in any games?
 

kain30

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if i remember correctly, in the last area of fallout 1, you don´t need to combat anybody, and can induce the final boss to suicide.
 

StaticSpine

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if i remember correctly, in the last area of fallout 1, you don´t need to combat anybody, and can induce the final boss to suicide.
Good Question!

Fallout 1/2 got the final dungeons with some quests inside, and way to finish the game without too much combat.

Ditto with Torment Planescape.
Well yeah, of course. But we all know FO 1-2.

Though wasn't the Military Base in FO1 a combat area? Otherwise, the real Fallouts are nice example.

Can't agree about PS:T. The last part of the game has a lot of unnecessary combat.
 

Gulnar

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Just finished Lionheart: Legacy of the crusader.

I can't express in mere words how infuriating the last stretch of the game was. Actually, everything past barcellona was bad, but after tolouse it got really atrocious. "Oh, here's a dungeon filled with trash mobs... here's another... you know what, here, have another one!". It could have been a good game, if it wasn't for the absimal endgame (by 'endgame' i mean england and persia).
Thank god for the fact that at least the final boss was defeatable in dialog.

And PST ending, combat wise, was shit. The TO fortress was full of those high-damage, pathblocking shadows... and then there was Ignus. Or, even worse, VHAILOR-I'M-IMMUNe-TO-MAGIC.
 

StaticSpine

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Just finished Lionheart: Legacy of the crusader.

I can't express in mere words how infuriating the last stretch of the game was. Actually, everything past barcellona was bad, but after tolouse it got really atrocious. "Oh, here's a dungeon filled with trash mobs... here's another... you know what, here, have another one!". It could have been a good game, if it wasn't for the absimal endgame (by 'endgame' i mean england and persia).
Thank god for the fact that at least the final boss was defeatable in dialog.

And PST ending, combat wise, was shit. The TO fortress was full of those high-damage, pathblocking shadows... and then there was Ignus. Or, even worse, VHAILOR-I'M-IMMUNe-TO-MAGIC.
Oh yeah, I didn't even try to walkthrough Lionheart because I'm aware of that endgame stuff.

And totally agree about PS:T.
 

Ranselknulf

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I know some jrpg's do stuff like never ending dungeons that are procedurally generated with ever increasing monsters and equipment.

I think one of them was called Disgaea? I know there are others but without intelligent player controlled enemies I don't see how end game can be elevated beyond the mechanics of the game you have already played. It'd just be more of the same but with larger numbers.
 

Tigranes

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Because people run out of time & money, and often less than 10/20% of the players get to the endgame in a big RPG.
 

racofer

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You must travel to four different regions and grab four different items to complete your task! Only then will you be able to defeat the big bad guy.

Geez, I wonder if anyone ever tried this formula before.......
 

StaticSpine

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I know some jrpg's do stuff like never ending dungeons that are procedurally generated with ever increasing monsters and equipment.

I think one of them was called Disgaea? I know there are others but without intelligent player controlled enemies I don't see how end game can be elevated beyond the mechanics of the game you have already played. It'd just be more of the same but with larger numbers.
JRPGs are the whole different sub-genre where thrashmobs/grinding is a usual part of gameplay.

Because people run out of time & money, and often less than 10/20% of the players get to the endgame in a big RPG.
You have a point, but both do not mean shit to me as a gamer.
 

Gulnar

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Because people run out of time & money, and often less than 10/20% of the players get to the endgame in a big RPG.
But maybe this is why 90/80% of the peoples don't get to endgame - if (using Lionheart as an example) everything after Barcellona is shit, why should i play it?
 

Ranselknulf

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I'm not sure the difference between endgame in the sense OP is asking for and trash mobs though. Your character is already leveled up beyond the normal content making it all "trashmobs" and the only ways to counter this is to scale the monsters up (which just makes more of the same gameplay but with bigger numbers) or implement a smarter AI to the endgame encounters which is only realistically done by allowing human players to control the monsters.
 

Scroo

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Yeh, the concept of "Let's throw tons of enemies at the player in endgame" is horrible and gets used way too often. It's just tedious and no fun.

Dark Heart of Uukrul gets actually lighter on combat as you advance and becomes more about exploration and puzzles.
 

Matalarata

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My ideal endgame are would be: An unbeatable (or almost unbeatable) and interesting final boss + environment and quest to weaken him prior of combat. You could tie a lot of choices made during the game to this moment (no.....not talking DA:O, I know what you're thinking you troll) and make some choice mutually exclusive: eg McGuffin Crystal you could use to remove tis or tat from his arsenal or even better mutually exclusive allies to change the mechanics of the fight, like mages chaining the bastard to reduce his speed vs the amazing amazon dickgirls going all brazzers on the thug, swarming it and turning the encounter into a mass-scale battle (incidentally also multiple dicks hitting ass and legs in case of giant end boss...)
The above examples could be used for a single/multi character turn based system and for a popamole RT game done right, I think

TL;DR organize endgame mechanics to rotate around the climax of the game. Fallout simply did that, the only amazing thing is no one managed to turn it into a repeatable process.
 
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StaticSpine

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My ideal endgame are would be: An unbeatable (or almost unbeatable) and interesting final boss + environment and quest to weaken him prior of combat. You could tie a lot of choices made during the game to this moment (no.....not talking DoA, I know what you're thinking you troll) and make some choice mutually exclusive: eg McGuffin Crystal you could use to remove tis or tat from his arsenal or even better mutually exclusive allies to change the mechanics of the fight, like mages chaining the bastard to reduce his speed vs the amazing amazon dickgirls going all brazzers on the thug, swarming it and turning the encounter into a mass-scale battle (incidentally also multiple dicks hitting ass and legs in case of giant end boss...)
The above examples could be used for a single/multi character turn based system and for a popamole RT game done right, I think

TL;DR organize endgame mechanics to rotate around the climax of the game. Fallout simply did that, the only amazing thing is no one managed to turn it into a repeatable process.
This :thumbsup:

that's the concept I was talking about.

Dark Heart of Uukrul gets actually lighter on combat as you advance and becomes more about exploration and puzzles.
I wish more games were like this.

I'm not sure the difference between endgame in the sense OP is asking for and trash mobs though. Your character is already leveled up beyond the normal content making it all "trashmobs" and the only ways to counter this is to scale the monsters up (which just makes more of the same gameplay but with bigger numbers) or implement a smarter AI to the endgame encounters which is only realistically done by allowing human players to control the monsters.
I dislike the thing that in most RPGs the endgame become diablo-like in terms of filler combat. It really become tedious, because you know all of the combat aspects and want to kill the final boss ASAP, but the devs are like "Oh, let's throw another 5 hours of mobs trashing before the boss" and you already do not need that.
 

Ninjerk

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Deus Ex. Somewhat trivial combat to give you something mechanical to busy yourself with while you decide what the hell you want to do, and the exposition continues to the very end. I still can't decide if it's good that games like this let you make a save right before the end and see all the possible endings.
 
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
This thread had me thinking. Why are game designers so slavishly loyal to the concept of a dungeon? There are many dungeons-only RPGs. Old Wizardries, Eye of the Beholder, Grimrock etc. However there are no city-adventure RPGs with mechanic centred solely around cities (just like dungeon crawlers are focused on dungeons). Bloodlines had dungeons which were so forced it hurt. Even Torment had dungeons.
If you'll take games like Fallouts, Arcanum, Bloodlines, KoTOR 2, Torment etc. a.k.a storyfag RPGs, you'll notice that people are always praising city areas while ignoring or outright bitching about combat-heavy dungeon-like areas. I've never heard someone talking about what fun was Military base, people are usually talking about how appalling people from Vault City were or about CnC's (which most take part in cities), same with Arcanum people can't shut their traps about Tarrant but seldomly mention any of the game's many dungeons and if they do they just talk about how much they hate that one with rock golems.
Why not just give up and make a city adventure. One detailed location, NPCs that change through time, short combat encounters from time to time, heavy CnC, ability to give non-essential NPCs some character development since you don't change them every 3 hours or so. The first Witcher was the closest to that type of game I believe. I mean look, if you spend resources on something people will either dislike or ignore just because it's an old genre trope then you are just wasting your money.
It's not like they do that because enforcers force them to. I remember that one NVN porn module, I believe it was called A Dance With Rogues, basically a story about princess having to hide from invading empire and getting fucked silly more often than not. Even this had many fucking dungeons. For what reason? I mean it's a game about princess sleeping around, nobody is going to download it for the dungeons, so why even bother. To get the best ending you had to kill 100 orcs, what the hell. It's like these people have some dungeon-obsession or something. It's not like mondblut will start liking their C'n'C storyfests just because they put in something that looks like a cave and filled it with trashmobs.
 
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RandomAccount

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OMG, can you please press the 'edit' button and use the 'enter' button on your keyboard to separate those 'lines' into 'paragraphs' - much obliged and welcome to the internet.
 

Ranselknulf

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Welcome to the codex.

Pitchforks can be found to the left and edgy one liners can be found to the right. Enjoy your stay. You could be here a while.
 

octavius

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Dark Heart of Uukrul gets actually lighter on combat as you advance and becomes more about exploration and puzzles.

That game felt like one guy designed the first half and another guy did the second half.
 

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