How to do open world RPG the right way ?

[gestalt11]

Has there ever been a true open world pure RPG other than maybe Ultima Online? Everything I can think is some kind of action game with RPG elements.

 

[laclongquan]

I like weapon durability. Seriously, I do. But let us acknowledge some of its shortcoming here

Durability introduce a new factor into differentiating items. Before you can have a stack of Crafted Weapons, or Generic Looted Weapons XYZ. Now you have several separate items with different durability. Which can be a bad thing from inventory management aspect of a game.

Durability also introduce a new factor into game's economy, as it can lessen the supply of items (looted or made). It can be a good thing if the economy is loosely managed, as it keep inflation of item down. But it can be a bad thing if game devs have kept a tight lid on the balance.

 

[Falksi]

Weapon durability does little but add busy work to RPGs. I don't get the fun in having to always fuck about managing & repairing items, it's chore-like. The only games I've felt it worked fully in are the Fallout ones, as in that case it adds to the whole survival/resource aspect.
Don't get why, in these worlds filled with magic, we can't just have magic items enchanted so that they don't degrade. Or degrade at a very, very slow rate so that you're not constantly repairing them.

 

[Longshanks]

The model is GTA. Accessible in-world fast travel, no walking, no constant trash attacks. A large, continuous world with maybe one city, not many tiny cities all within 5 minutes walk of each other. Can be fun.

But if you want to actually make a good game you don't do it. Fallout and Arcanum is the model to follow. Large world and free (or largely free) exploration but only a manageable number of interest points.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

A lot of your people's angst about action combat in RPGs stems from a misunderstanding of what action combat could be. You always imagine it either as pointless button mashing as in Bethesda games, or reflex-based super fast timing schemes which your aging nerdish reflexes can't handle.

But this is imposing unnecessary constraints on something that could be so much more. A good action combat system doesn't have to be like that. It would be technique driven, similar in a way to the turn based combat that you love so much, but much more exciting and interesting. At its heart, it would be about making shallow-tree decisions (whereas in a turn-based game you go "if this guy is here and doing this, i can throw a fireball there", in this type of action combat, it would be "if this guy is using this attack, i can use this guard to prepare myself and then this move to counter him"). In both cases you are making shallow decisions, but because the latter is in real time, it makes things more exciting and skill-based. But it doesn't have to have some super fast speed, just maybe give you half a second to respond, which is plenty of time even for old geezers once you get used to it.

The primary problem with this approach is that there are aspects of reality which can't be mimicked in a vidya game. Suppose you complete a quest which magically grants a mastery of swordsmanship. A sophisticated combat system can't account for this increase of ability without levels.

The beauty of a simulationist approach (or one of them anyway) is that it forces you to think about this kind of stuff. Why would you want your swordsmanship skills increased magically? If they are part of some system of swordsmanship that you learn and practice and improve over time, that is great, and gives you a sense of achievement. Why ruin this with some arbitrary spell?

This is actually pretty common in games under a different guise. Sometimes the developers will come up with a good combat system, but then ruin it themselves with stuff like overpowered weapons/armor/items or unbalanced skills. If you stay simulationist and avoid steep curves for things like damage/armor/hitpoints, you can actually avoid all these issues altogether.

 

[V_K]

Just go larp already instead of all this simulationist bullshit.

 

[Damned Registrations]

If you stay simulationist and avoid steep curves for things like damage/armor/hitpoints, you can actually avoid all these issues altogether.

Bullshit. Simulation kills gameplay very, very quickly. Real world is not balanced for interesting choices. One small wound and you're basically dead, combat is extremely random rather than being tactical or stat based, and the most appealing option is to give up on adventuring entirely and make a living growing potatoes because nothing you can defeat has anything of value, nor will it make you significantly stronger. XP is meaningless, if you want to get better spend months (not minutes) training. Etc.

 

[V_K]

if you want to get better spend months (not minutes) training

Precisely. The closer simulated combat becomes to real-life one, the closer the amount of time needed to master its system will get to that of actually mastering real-life combat. If realistic combat is what you want and you're willing to make such time investments, why not just go do fencing sport? It'd even have an added bonus of being beneficial to your health.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Bullshit. Simulation kills gameplay very, very quickly. Real world is not balanced for interesting choices. One small wound and you're basically dead, combat is extremely random rather than being tactical or stat based, and the most appealing option is to give up on adventuring entirely and make a living growing potatoes because nothing you can defeat has anything of value, nor will it make you significantly stronger. XP is meaningless, if you want to get better spend months (not minutes) training. Etc.

Sorry, but you are wrong. You conflate simulation with 100% realism, when in reality, any simulation is going to be a simplified model of reality. The simulation aspect merely implies that the model will attempt to approximate reality rather than pull arbitrary mechanics out of its arse.

Take something as simple as a day and night cycle. For obvious reasons, it would make no sense to force the player to sleep during the night, which would be 100% realistic, but implementing day and night mechanics, even if not fully realistic, brings a lot to gameplay. Stuff like sneaking at night, NPCs having schedules, different views aesthetically, and so on.

Some real world stuff would make no sense to implement in a video game, such as getting an infection from a minor cut, as this would just bring about tedious and punishing outcomes. But the fact that one wound could end it in combat would actually encourage interesting systems, with parrying and defense, as opposed to the boring button mashing hit-point whittling crap we got now.

And because a simulationist approach would not be 100% realistic, you wouldn't need months to master it, just days or weeks, and that's a good thing. Nothing wrong with a little learning curve.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What you're describing is not simulationist, but merely additional mechanics. It doesn't matter whether you implement a day-night cycle or a fire-earth-wind-water cycle. Adding schedules and sneaking can easily be a shitty waste of time compared to improving other mechanics.

A good example of a 'simulationist' game is the ironically named 'UnReal World', a sort of open world primitive era roguelike set in northern europe. Sure, some of it is cool- you can build your own buildings, even set up fences to funnel animals towards traps you've set. OTOH, the most effective way to play is to trade someone some stuff to convince them to go hunting with you, then kill them with a rock to the head once you're outside the village and take all their shit and your own stuff back. And building even a small hut takes forever, because cutting trees is exhausting. And you'll never get significantly better at anything because training is slow. And eventually you'll die to a lucky arrow into your eye socket from some totally unskilled punk, even if you play perfectly.

 

[Falksi]

Day & night mechanics are largely pointless too IMO. All they do in reality is often mean you have to wait round for someone to appear where you expect/want them too. That adds nothing to the game for me. The aesthetic change? Yeah cool. But weapon degradation, day & night npc routines, & in some cases encumbrance all belong in the "ball ache" bin of failed ideas which seem good in theory, but in practice do nothing but make games more work-like.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

What's the matter Falksi, do those things get in the way of your AWESOME?

What you're describing is not simulationist, but merely additional mechanics. It doesn't matter whether you implement a day-night cycle or a fire-earth-wind-water cycle.

Oh, but it does matter. You see, the day and night cycle is from the real world and has a tremendous amount of depth related to it. The fire-earth-wind-water cycle is something you've pulled out of your backside, and because of that, chances are it's going to be really shallow and silly. Much like common video game mechanics.

This is why it's better to take an existing real framework, and perhaps adjust it somewhat for playability and entertainment, instead of coming up with random stuff that is almost guaranteed to be dull.

 

[Falksi]

What's the matter Falksi, do those things get in the way of your AWESOME?



Oh, but it does matter. You see, the day and night cycle is from the real world and has a tremendous amount of depth related to it. The fire-earth-wind-water cycle is something you've pulled out of your backside, and because of that, chances are it's going to be really shallow and silly. Much like common video game mechanics.

This is why it's better to take an existing real framework, and perhaps adjust it somewhat for playability and entertainment, instead of coming up with random stuff that is almost guaranteed to be dull.

They just get in the way full stop.

 

[Falksi]

the problem with day & night mechanics is that devs like brag about new content only available at night, whereas most of the time all it does is making shit barely visible for the sake of two quests

Yeah, it's another mechanic which has little practical benefit or quality.

 

[ore clover]

"People think LARPing is weird and worthy of ridicule, but it really isn't. You can use it to reconnect with your past lives!"

uh

 

[Beastro]

Has there ever been a true open world pure RPG other than maybe Ultima Online? Everything I can think is some kind of action game with RPG elements.

I'm always reminded of someone's UO story in a thread I read like 15 years ago where they were able to lure some sort of elemental into the house he shared with two other guys and then managed to pin it behind a bunch of furniture. They declared it a pet and would pretend it was friendly and was greeting them like a dog when they'd come home it would stop wandering around, aggro and then bolt to attack only to be kept at bay by the furniture.

I can't think of any other game that would be capable of something like that happening even though, IIRC, they exploited to get the mob into their house.

 

[V_K]

Has there ever been a true open world pure RPG other than maybe Ultima Online? Everything I can think is some kind of action game with RPG elements.

Wiz7 doesn't cut it for you?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Building codes have a great deal of depth too; doesn't mean they'll make for good gameplay. The best mechanics are often shallow but fine tuned.

 

[Elemental_wanamingo]

Yes. Arcanum golems are actually a very good example on how it can add another layer of decision-making into a game. It can also be used to make items stand out more from each other, e.g. a light but brittle sword versus a heavier and more durable one. However, rather than equipment being permanently destroyed, I prefer some sort of a repair system, as balancing economy is hard in an open world game, and weapon and armor maintenance can provide a useful money sink. Besides, if your game has a single weapon that you can get early on and is better than anything else, there's something wrong with the itemization.

I don't think it added any new layers to decision making. Micromanaging your party's equipment was already a big thing in the game at that point. In the end all that you needed to do (iirc) was to micromanage their weapons so they don't accidentally use their good weapons. I don't see the positives. Even one off special weapons are a bit gimmicky and overused in rpgs already.

Equipment durability is also class dependant. A mage's wand or staff probably doesn't wear out unless it is used in physical combat. But a melee character of any kind or weapons character will surely pay more attention to it which can make resource heavy characters even more heavy to play. But the s tone golems were only annoyance to you if you played melee character.

One of the issues with weapon durability is that people are detail oriented. If your weapon is at 98% and as such it does 99.5% instead of 100% of damage then I'm sure that many people will simply stop and fix their weapons to 100% just to get the best out of it. Especially if you have challenging combat in the game. Some of this can be then countered with making the fixing more resource intensive so you need certain amounts of x and y and z to fix an armor made of xyz. So you end up carrying all that stuff with you as well. Or you counter that by making the skill and equipment requirements for equipment fixing so heavy that you need someone else to do it for you. Which adds useless travelling to the game. Maybe the use of the world map adds another layer of decision making to your equipment management but I don't see it a positive layer either.

When it comes to weapon durability I think it would be more fun to just not make it possible to fix the weapons at all. Instead just have 2 stats. Sharpness and durability. Sharpness is just damage modifier and is taken care by a passive skill. More sharp more damage, more skill more sharpness and done automatically as a passive skill. Durability is just wear and little by little towards the 0% the equipment starts to lose effectiveness and once the equipment eventually wears out then it just turns into pile of random bits. To fix it you need high quality blacksmith and so forth.

But I really don't see the point in stopping in every once in a while to fix your weapons. Having a passive skill or equipment would work better. Because otherwise it is just micromanagement that becomes a chore very quickly. I don't think having thust and hunger is good either for a rpg. It just adds annoying micromanagement. I did not like it even in minecraft... Although in minecraft equipment management worked pretty well but on the other hand minecraft did not have unique items.

But in the end with weapon durability you are going to get some of these:
1) players having to carry more stuff
2) players having to stop playing to micromanage/wait more often
3) players having to travel back and forth more

In general I think that open world RPGs would benefit from a flatter power curve, both in equipment and character development. Rather than items having a single damage stat or whatever, give them some different properties that make them feel different from each other, so that finding one great weapon doesn't make every other weapon in the game world obsolete. Also, while starting out as a weakling and ending up a demigod half-way through the game is undeniably appealing, it becomes a nightmare to balance the content so that the game always offers reasonable challenge, especially if the player is allowed to go anywhere from the start.

I'd argue that one of the key aspects of rpgs is trying to find better equipment. This generally means you have 4 different level of equipment in the game. Level 1 is really basic stuff. Rusty swords, cheap daggers, baseball bats etc. Level 2 is good quality basic stuff. Single shot rifles, spiked baseball bats, decent swords. Level 3 is castle guard swords and armor. Better than 99% of the stuff out there. And then you have level 4 stuff. Ancient magical swords, unique items.

If the game has level 4 stuff then everybody wants it. Managing your equipment and getting the best out of your group centers heavily on 2 things. Skills and equipment. And improving those two is one of the key aspects of rpg game. One way t make different equipment more different is to add more different stats. To have more variance you generally need more stats. But even if you have endless amount of different stats one kind of weapon is usually going to be the best. And having tons of stats will also make it super annoying to compare the weapons. And can lead to players carrying lots of different weapons so they have the right one for most scenarios. Or if you limit weapon carrying then you just make the player travel more to go the right weapon.

Most often times players are filthy rich and powerful towards the latter part of the game anyways so the only real way to keep (all) the best absolute equipment away from the hands of the players is to hide it in the world. This also means the equipment is going to be rare and once again leads to situation where players go for the best weapon as soon as they can and use it for the rest of the game. Or if you give out special equipment to the player all the time then it is not special and again imho hurts the equipment collecting experience.

I don't think flatter power curve really works. Definitely not for open world games. Shadowrun games for example don't really have any really special weapons but it kinda works as shadowrun is not open world. No crafting and no unique weapons or armor or even stats. But even then everytime I play any shadowrun game I'm left with wanting something little better than everybody else. I have all this money and all I can get is the same level stuff as the next wannabe shadowrunner. As a player I don't want it because it is more overkill. I want it because it is unique. I just like the equipment finding aspect of the game and the flatter power curve ends up limiting the game imho.

In order to circumvent this problem, some games use a chapter-based structure, others resort to level-scaling, some might put visible level numbers above the enemies' heads, but it's not really ideal. For open world games horizontal growth is generally a better fit than vertical — give the player new abilities instead of just making his numbers go through the roof. It potentially gives you a greater sense of progress (taking out enemies with a new spell or learning to levitate as opposed to just hitting a bit harder with a sword), and it allows for more freedom when it comes to exploration. Of course your numbers can and should go up as well, but not to a point where low-level enemies can't even put a dent in your armor.

Adding more abilities and then balancing it can be a lot of work though. Levitation for example can instantly create balance issues when the enemy mage can fly around your bestest swordmen and shoot fireballs from complete safety. Better stats are easy because all it takes is adding more numbers into txt files basically. New abilities can easily lead to feature creep.

Also I think if you add too many special skills and abilities to a game then it becomes too random. Instead of rock/paper/scissors you have 10000 different attacks and counters and the battles can easily become such that you keep using your special ability and win everyhing until you come across the one npc in the game who has the ability to counter you ability and as such you just switch to your 2nd best ability and easily kill him. Or you can just add more attack abilities. But 99% of the time those are just damage multipliers.

Anyways more text = I'm more right.

 

[Paul_cz]

Combine best aspects of Gothic 2, New Vegas and Witcher 3 into one game while excising their worst aspects.

Simples .)

 

[YES!]

Discussion


Imagine large environments. How to do RPG properly ?

Play a game Tim Cain made and copy exactly what he does but just always have full party creation and good combat with no combat saving.

 

[YES!]

Combine best aspects of Gothic 2, New Vegas and Witcher 3 into one game while excising their worst aspects.

Simples .)

Like being really easy and bad and two of them forcing you to be a metrosexual retard who is hated by all normal people instead of creating your own character?

 

[Falksi]

Combine best aspects of Gothic 2, New Vegas and Witcher 3 into one game while excising their worst aspects.

Simples .)

The Witcher 3 is one of the worst Open Worlds I've ever had the misfortune of trudging through. It's a good game coz of it's storytelling & engaging quests, but the world itself is just a big waste of time, with little of note to interact with, a repetitive structure and mostly just junk to find.
I'm playing alongside Saints Row 4 and it's a very similarly setup world, in that everything is for show.

And please God STOP the constant overlapping NPC chatter. Hearing 3 conversations spill over each other constantly does nothing for open world gaming. Atmospheric music and the odd "any time now" worked fucking perfectly.

 

[Quillon]

And please God STOP the constant overlapping NPC chatter. Hearing 3 conversations spill over each other constantly does nothing for open world gaming. Atmospheric music and the odd "any time now" worked fucking perfectly.

Truth is we're already dependant on the Black Ones... Economically.

 

[Carrion]

It doesn't matter whether you implement a day-night cycle or a fire-earth-wind-water cycle.

The former is instantly intuitive and natural whereas the latter tells nothing to the player on its own. A day/night cycle is something you can grasp within a second, with all of its potential effects on gameplay and the game world. With a fire/earth/wind/water cycle all these things would have to be explained to the player first, and even then they'd give fewer opportunities for out-of-the-box thinking as the player has to work on the knowledge the game specifically gives him. Having things work like you'd expect them to work is very important for the player's decision-making, even if the game is high fantasy set in some alien universe with its own laws of physics.

Morrowind has an early-game quest where you're tasked with killing five guys that hang around in a tavern. By that point you're likely to be still a weakling that can barely hold his own against a single opponent, let alone five. The most sensible course of action would've been to simply wait — at some point one or more of the guys would surely leave so that you could kill him in his bed, or on some dark alley on the way home, or something like that. But no, every single one of those guys will stand in the same spot for all eternity unless you go in there and stab them until they're dead, in plain sight of their comrades. It creates this incongruity where the most sensible course of action is made unavailable to you because the game world functions in a non-intuitive way, i.e. the player can't make the logical decision when the game world itself isn't logical. In this case it was because the developers simply didn't implement a feature that would've made a lot sense in the setting, but the same can also happen if the game is loaded with mechanical nonsense (see: Pillars of Eternity).

By the way, are there any actual examples of these games that are "too realistic" or "too simulationist", or is it all about conjuring up straw men? UnReal World is probably not a very good example since its appeal very much lies in the simulation.