Story is more important than combat in rpgs

[Paul_cz]

Didn't read the whole thread but I agree with the premise - combat, while fun, is mostly busywork. It is never what I remember of a game. What I remember are stories, characters, interactions. Obviously it is best when good gameplay meets good writing, but if it can't, I will take story over combat.
Also the gameplay=combat is stupid. Combat is just one part of gameplay, often the least important one, unless I am playing Diablo or Soulsborne.

 

[EverlastingLove]

In this example I have just described “a story of a quest” to make my point clear. In my humble opinion it is parallel to “a story of a game”. The main story of Skyrim is very simple – but still badly executed.

The main story in Skyrim is not only badly executed, but it also fails from both wold-building perspective and its impact on gameplay. Dragons are supposed to be intimidating, but because you play as a dragon slayer you chop them left and right without too much effort. You are also granted great powers early in the main quests, which makes the game ever easier. Mind you, there are more troubles with the story like no cnc, bad writing stiff VA, boring dialog ect. I'm just pointing out that so many things went wrong, that the whole story needed to be completely rewritten, not just properly implemented.

Another example – I think that the story of Witcher 1 is more interesting then the story of Dragon Age 1. But the implementation into the gameplay is better in DA1 (still anything great but ok) – you can visit location in different order, make some decisions on different stages of main-quest, roleplay a few types of character, meet some very personal events connected to your past etc. It is possible only because the story is basic (the forces of chaos invade the realm!) and most of characters are high fantasy chliches.

I have never played DA:O so I can't comment on that, but the story in The Witcher 1 was decently implemented into gameplay, imo. You even had to use alchemy on higher difficulties and use bestiary to be well prepared before the fight. The combat wasn't great, but it fitted the game's world perfectly. You also make important decisions which have pretty big consequences later in the game. The story is also interesting, because it ISN'T typical muh good guy have to defeat this bad bad didntdunuffing guy, it nicely touches problems like xenophobia or fanaticism in a mature manner.

Creators of DA:O had more liberty with the story not because it is simpler than the one told in The Witcher 1, but because Geralt in an established character so the story had to be more "tight". But for example the story in Kotor 2 is very complex and players can visit places, take different decisions etc.

In short, for me, the basic story (even with many cliches) which is flexible is better then good but static story. I, personally, prefer to role-play naïve canonic characters (like a Lawful Good Paladin, Chaotic Evil Necromancer or Greedy Thief) then just WATCH realistic, well-written characters like Geralt. My point is – it is easier to write flexible story based on typical high fantasy themes then based on realistic, adult plots. This is a matter of convention.

The basic story with many cliches is dull and uninspiring, just like that. It doesn't matter if players are given choices to make during such a story, because if the story sucks then why should they even bother with the consequences (if there are any at all, usually there aren't)? I also don't quite get this "static" and "flexible" story. The story in The Witcher is "static" even though this game has some nice cnc, but stories in typical high fantasy themes can easily be more dynamic? Like in Baldur's Gate? NWN? I don't follow. I think what you meant is that you prefer to play a character created from scratch by the player than an already established character.

 

[JarlFrank]

So – the best story, for me, is a frame story, with very simple plots. Compare two quests from two games: the “bridge quest” in the first town of Arcanum and the “conspiratorial” quest in Marharth of Skyrim.

· Arcanum. So roughly simple. You have a bridge to cross. The bridge is occupied by bandits. End of the story. But so many opportunities. The player can ally with the local officials or with the bandit leader. If allied with sheriff – we can kill bandits or persuade them. Or we can ignore whole this conflict, just steal the key, sneak through the bridge and say “goodbye” to everyone. All approaches has some minor dialogue variants (“I will make it for money” or “I will make it for an idea”) and some minor future consequences. It is a good cRPG.

· And in Marharth? We have a quite complicated political-criminal plot (let me be generous for Skyrim…). And what we can do with it? Nothing. We are just running from one quest marker to the other and watching the brilliant story. It is not a good cRPG. All Withers 3 quests are exactly the same thing – dialogues are better but gameplay is also week.

To me this seems to be more a thing of offering the player a situation rather than a pre-determined story, more so than it is a thing of complexity or simplicity.

You can have a very complex situation for the player to get involved in, or a simple one.
You can have a very complex linear story for the player to follow, or a simple one.

"You are the hero of the land and must stop the evil dragon by teaming up with Princess Pinky who had once been captured by the dragon and knows the secret entrance to his lair" is a very simple story, but still a very linear one if the only option for the player is to join up with Princess Pinky and enter the dragon's lair through the secret entrance.

"Princess Pinky tells you about the evil dragon that abducted her two weeks ago" is a situation. The player learns about the dragon, learns that the princess had been abducted by the dragon once and managed to escape. So the player can approach the situation on his own terms: he might ask the princess for help and recruit her, so she can show him the secretentrance. Or the player can try to assault the dragon's lair frontally. Or he can try to search for secret entrances without the princess' help. Or he can talk to the dragon and forge an alliance with it, if he wants. Maybe even bring the princess to the dragon as an offering!

Arcanum and Fallout excel at presenting the player with situations, rather than stories. These situations can be of various levels of complexity. Look at New Reno with its multiple mafia families all vying for control of the city. It's not a simple situation, is it? Same with New Vegas: you got the NCR, you got Caesar, you got Mr House, and you got the alternate option with Yes Man. It's a complex situation with many political entities involved, each with their own style of governance and own worldview. And within that situation, the player is given the option to choose whom to work for.

The best "stories" in RPGs are actually situations. Things that are a certain way at a certain place, and you have the opportunity to get involved.

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, to give an example I thought Bard's Tale I & II were pretty shitty games precisely because they had no story but decent combat & dungeon design. I like a nice middle ground - good combat AND good story, but not something completely story-centric like too many AAA tiltes and jRPGs or, at the other end, just tech demos for micromanagement in combat with no story.

Bard's Tale were among the worst of the blobbers tho

They were amongst the most ancient. we are speaking of stuff published 30 years ago , the work of hobbyist and enthusiasts on 8 bits machines. Now there's little interest to play those old games if you like blobbers, last wizardry and jrpgs clones are considerably superior now.

MM was from 86 and had story spanning games.

Yes but it wasn't that much better, MM was quite primitive too. Best were probably gold boxes for story telling 1988 still.

Bard's Tale was a contemporary to Wizardry and Might and Magic, both of which were better at gameplay than Bard's Tale.
BT really is my least favorite of the ancient blobbers.

 

[Viata]

I am curious as of which games do you see as the pinnacle of RPG making?

Wizardry 1, obviously.

 

[Kliwer]

The basic story with many cliches is dull and uninspiring, just like that. It doesn't matter if players are given choices to make during such a story, because if the story sucks then why should they even bother with the consequences (if there are any at all, usually there aren't)?

In general – I agree with You, Good Sir. With one exception.

The typical fantasy story, even with a lot of clichés, could be interesting and engaging. Take the example from the movies. There are a lot of sword&sorcery movies with almost the same story, but some of them are good and some are… not so good.

Warcraft: The Beginning. For me, it is solid fantasy movie. Plot and plot-twists, characters, world-building… everything is typical to the root. But the direction, art-style and all other subtle things make the movie a pleasure to watch.

On the other hand – we had Dungeon Siege movie. Also adaptation of the fantasy video game, also a collection of typical themes: wizards, monsters, heroes, pos-LoTR esthetic… and the movie is just plain bad.


The same thing is with cRPGs. Icewind Dale is typical FR adventure, but it is, for me, stylish. NWN2 main campaign is almost the same thing but… I can’t handle it, for some reasons.

 

[Sigourn]

[Arcanum and Fallout excel at presenting the player with situations, rather than stories. These situations can be of various levels of complexity. Look at New Reno with its multiple mafia families all vying for control of the city. It's not a simple situation, is it? Same with New Vegas: you got the NCR, you got Caesar, you got Mr House, and you got the alternate option with Yes Man. It's a complex situation with many political entities involved, each with their own style of governance and own worldview. And within that situation, the player is given the option to choose whom to work for.

The best "stories" in RPGs are actually situations. Things that are a certain way at a certain place, and you have the opportunity to get involved.

Well said. A story has a certain logic that runs through it. You are expected to go from A to B to C. And in some stories, it may be hard to come up with situations that give the player some room to get creative. The way Fallout does it, the different towns and cities you visit are "situations". The story is essentially the Vault Dweller going from place to place looking for the water chip. And that's a fairly limited story, because if we are to expand it we end up with:

• The Vault Dweller goes to Vault 15 and finds nothing.
• The Vault Dweller learns about the Bakersfield Vault in The Hub.
  
• The Vault Dweller finds the Water Chip.
• The Vault Dweller returns the chip, but now has to take care of the Super Mutans.
• The Vault Dweller destroys Mariposa.
• The Vault Dweller destroys the Cathedral.
  
• The Vault Dweller returns to Vault 13, and is exiled.

The game presents lot of situations, however. You get to Shady Sands, you get to Junktown, you get lots of quests in The Hub, and more. Even when it comes to the important plot points, like finding the Water Chip, they act like situations even though the outcome is already decided (you MUST find the Water Chip, after all). So you can steal the chip and leave the ghouls to die, OR fix the water pump and leave with the chip on friendly terms. You HAVE to destroy Mariposa, BUT there are different ways the situation can unfold: do you let yourself get caught by Super Mutants and destroy Mariposa as you escape, or do you go there after enlisting the BoS' help? The Cathedral HAS to be destroyed, but do you fight the Master? Do you convince him? etc.

When it comes to that particular Skyrim quest, the problem is that Bethesda didn't bother to turn the different plot points into situations. They could have, but they didn't. The story is absolutely on rails, almost every single aspect of it (the ones that aren't are so trivial they may as well be). But every Fallout player can agree to having done these major plot points (the only one I'm doubting about is the library in the Hub, but let's pretend for a minute that's what most players should realistically do). And yet all of them will have solved the different situations differently.

Ultimately, the Forsworn Conspiracy has three key moments:

• The player gets involved into the issue, as he witness a murder attempt.
• The player tries to find out more about it.
• The player gets thrown in jail.

Whatever happens in between, and how do those specific plot points work, shouldn't be set in stone. But you always get thrown in jail the same way, you always investigate the same way. The only exception is the start, as you can save the NPC from being assassinated, so I don't know why Bethesda didn't add more creativity into the quest (as reacting quickly to save the NPC is fairly difficult and realistically possible only with metagaming).

 

[Kliwer]

To me this seems to be more a thing of offering the player a situation rather than a pre-determined story, more so than it is a thing of complexity or simplicity.

Yes, I think You have described this better then I. Thank You. Still – I think simple situations are easier to implement. Of course more complex situations are more interesting – if they have the good level of interactivity.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

The point of RPGs is murderhoboing for levelups and loot. A bare bones excuse just to go out there and start your murderhoboing career is all the story a good RPG needs.

If you want stories go play adventure games. or go back to your books and films.

Don't pollute my combatfag munchkining with "MUH IMMURSHUN".

 

[JarlFrank]

When it comes to that particular Skyrim quest, the problem is that Bethesda didn't bother to turn the different plot points into situations. They could have, but they didn't. The story is absolutely on rails, almost every single aspect of it (the ones that aren't are so trivial they may as well be). But every Fallout player can agree to having done these major plot points (the only one I'm doubting about is the library in the Hub, but let's pretend for a minute that's what most players should realistically do). And yet all of them will have solved the different situations differently.

I think the difference between the Fallout and Skyrim quests that have been taken as examples can be explained by two things: first, Bethesda has become a lazy low effort company by the time of Skyrim so of course they wouldn't put in any effort to make a truly interactive quest. Second, the approach to quest design was different.

The best way to design an RPG quest is to come up with the situation first, and the story second. If you come up with the story first, you need to fiddle around and adjust it to allow for player interaction.

The guy who came up with that Forsworn conspiracy quest probably had the following train of thought: hey, I got this cool story of a conspiracy in my mind, involving the following characters, and there are cool plot points like the player being thrown into jail, and the plot of it will be very interesting.

So he has a story in mind right from the start, a way he intends for it to unravel and develop: the player witnesses a murder, then he discovers X, then he discovers Y, then Z happens. He imagines it as a traditional short story, with an instigating event, a plot twist, a climax etc.

Meanwhile, if you were to start out with a situation rather than a story, you can approach it with a more free mindset.

There has been a murder. Character X is responsible. There are clues at locations A, B, and C. Character Y is corrupt and doesn't want people investigating the murder.
Now you have a situation, and you think about possible player involvements.
Since you only have the situation and no concrete story like "Player finds clues, gets imprisoned, escapes prison, etc etc", you can look at the situation from a player's perspective and ask yourself, "What are the approaches I would like to have as a player?"

And that will more likely result in a player-driven, branching quest design.

Just with the situation details I used here - there's a murder, there's a responsible party, there are 3 clues, there is a corrupt official who doesn't want it investiagted - I can come up with several potential player interactions that might be interesting.
You can find the three clues in any order.
You can confront the culprit with the clues. You can either try to take him to the guard, kill him right there, or blackmail him so he pays you off to keep his secret.
You can go to the corrupt official with the clues. In the conversation you find out the corrupt official is involved in whatever conspiracy is responsible for the murders. You can swear to uncover his complicity, which makes him wrongfully arrest you. You can offer to join his conspiracy, which opens up a new questline.

Etc etc.

If you start your design process with "Here is a situation, let's brainstorm what kinds of actions the player might want to do with it", it automatically results in an open quest design that allows for multiple approaches and solutions.

 

[fantadomat]

The best way to design an RPG quest is to come up with the situation first, and the story second.

Eh,it really depends on the writer and the team,you could come up with a story that have many options,like those old game/adventure books.

 

[Darkzone]

To me this seems to be more a thing of offering the player a situation rather than a pre-determined story, more so than it is a thing of complexity or simplicity....
The best "stories" in RPGs are actually situations. Things that are a certain way at a certain place, and you have the opportunity to get involved.

I have a little problem with your separation of "Story" and "Situation". You devide here the "Story" according to the narratio ( german "Erzählung" ) in spoken or written form and in situation as a state. But according to this devision you would rob the visual medium, like paintings, comics, film or pictures of a narrative. And as the saying goes a picture tells more than a thousand words. A definition of the narrative from wikipedia: A narrative is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images, or both. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to tell", which is derived from the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled".
A "Situation" according to my understanding is a state (the event is a subgroup of the state) within a "Story", and therefore a integral part of a story or even a story by them self. Therefore i suggest that you should rather divide it by oral-written narrative and implicit narrative.
Otherwise i agree with you and i prefer "the show (or confront the player) don't tell" part, but that is not always valid because there are cases where showing or confronting is not necessary or even counterproductive.

 

[Master]

Combat is the most important. Everything else is nice but not really needed for rpgs. Its just how it is.

 

[Sigourn]

The guy who came up with that Forsworn conspiracy quest probably had the following train of thought: hey, I got this cool story of a conspiracy in my mind, involving the following characters, and there are cool plot points like the player being thrown into jail, and the plot of it will be very interesting.

So he has a story in mind right from the start, a way he intends for it to unravel and develop: the player witnesses a murder, then he discovers X, then he discovers Y, then Z happens. He imagines it as a traditional short story, with an instigating event, a plot twist, a climax etc.

Meanwhile, if you were to start out with a situation rather than a story, you can approach it with a more free mindset.

There has been a murder. Character X is responsible. There are clues at locations A, B, and C. Character Y is corrupt and doesn't want people investigating the murder.
Now you have a situation, and you think about possible player involvements.

I think it vastly depends on how you deal with the plot points. Of course, it's not the same to imagine "the Cathedral is destroyed" than to imagine "the Vault Dweller convinces The Master his plan won't work, and The Master lets the Vault Dweller go before self-destructing the Cathedral". I'm guessing The Forsworn Conspiracy was written around the latter, everything designed around the emotional impact the writer wanted the player to feel.

If we were in charge of designing a linear Fallout game, wouldn't we agree that convincing The Master he was wrong would have been far more interesting than simply having the VD shooting him to death? Bethesda makes the mistake, for the RPG genre at least, of enforcing a narrative instead of letting players make their own, even if some are more interesting than others. When you set out to make such an specific story that needs to be experienced as opposed to a general idea (you find a conspiracy, you investigate, you are thrown to jail; this last step is necessary since it ties into the second half of the quest, which is to Escape Cidhna Mine), the player won't be able to make that many choices.

To answer the OP:

The most important in an RPG, to me, is a good balance between combat and interactivity (whether it be exploration or NPCs), but progression is always important. Some games I really dislike (like fighting games) because there's no progression to them. I don't want to play an RPG where I feel like I'm doing the same thing all the time. In a lot of RPGs, the story is there to prevent combat from becoming a monotonous task. I've seen some JRPG players say JRPGs would be boring without stories, because it would just be grinding, and that says a lot about how stale combat can be in a lot of games.

Consider Wizardry: there's a story, sure, but most importantly there is an objective, which is to get to the end of the dungeon and kill the big bad guy. The battles may feel samey, but there's always the risk of dying and potential rewards to be found, all which help getting to the end of the dungeon, there's always that sense of progression as you uncover more of the maze and map the levels. When you don't get gameplay progression and the only sense of progression is "advancing through the story", you have a problem with your game. And that is because fighting lots of level 20 enemies doesn't feel that different from fighting lots of level 5 enemies, no new tactics or strategy involved.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

So – the best story, for me, is a frame story, with very simple plots. Compare two quests from two games: the “bridge quest” in the first town of Arcanum and the “conspiratorial” quest in Marharth of Skyrim.

· Arcanum. So roughly simple. You have a bridge to cross. The bridge is occupied by bandits. End of the story. But so many opportunities. The player can ally with the local officials or with the bandit leader. If allied with sheriff – we can kill bandits or persuade them. Or we can ignore whole this conflict, just steal the key, sneak through the bridge and say “goodbye” to everyone. All approaches has some minor dialogue variants (“I will make it for money” or “I will make it for an idea”) and some minor future consequences. It is a good cRPG.

· And in Marharth? We have a quite complicated political-criminal plot (let me be generous for Skyrim…). And what we can do with it? Nothing. We are just running from one quest marker to the other and watching the brilliant story. It is not a good cRPG. All Withers 3 quests are exactly the same thing – dialogues are better but gameplay is also week.

Arcanum and Fallout excel at presenting the player with situations, rather than stories. These situations can be of various levels of complexity. Look at New Reno with its multiple mafia families all vying for control of the city. It's not a simple situation, is it? Same with New Vegas: you got the NCR, you got Caesar, you got Mr House, and you got the alternate option with Yes Man. It's a complex situation with many political entities involved, each with their own style of governance and own worldview. And within that situation, the player is given the option to choose whom to work for.

The best "stories" in RPGs are actually situations. Things that are a certain way at a certain place, and you have the opportunity to get involved.

Fallout 2/NV doesn't excel at anything, except offering you the choice of which faction you want to run mindless errands for. There is absolutely nothing remotely complex, engaging or interesting about choosing which faction you run errands for.

 

[Okagron]

Fallout 2/NV doesn't excel at anything, except offering you the choice of which faction you want to run mindless errands for. There is absolutely nothing remotely complex, engaging or interesting about choosing which faction you run errands for.

And you only run errands for everybody in Fallout 3, with no choice to say no to either your father or BoS. And yet you claim Fallout 3 is better than NV and Fallout 2. You are a fucking retard.

Yes, there is a moral choice in picking any faction in both those games. But you are too fucking retarded and stupid to even grasp that.

 

[JarlFrank]

To me this seems to be more a thing of offering the player a situation rather than a pre-determined story, more so than it is a thing of complexity or simplicity....
The best "stories" in RPGs are actually situations. Things that are a certain way at a certain place, and you have the opportunity to get involved.

I have a little problem with your separation of "Story" and "Situation". You devide here the "Story" according to the narratio ( german "Erzählung" ) in spoken or written form and in situation as a state. But according to this devision you would rob the visual medium, like paintings, comics, film or pictures of a narrative. And as the saying goes a picture tells more than a thousand words. A definition of the narrative from wikipedia: A narrative is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images, or both. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to tell", which is derived from the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled".
A "Situation" according to my understanding is a state (the event is a subgroup of the state) within a "Story", and therefore a integral part of a story or even a story by them self. Therefore i suggest that you should rather divide it by oral-written narrative and implicit narrative.
Otherwise i agree with you and i prefer "the show (or confront the player) don't tell" part, but that is not always valid because there are cases where showing or confronting is not necessary or even counterproductive.

Good point, yes. My choice of words may have been not perfect here, as a narrative is of course included in the "situations" the player is confronted with, and paintings can certainly have narratives too.

The important difference I had in mind is the one between two different kinds of quests a player might encounter in an RPG:
1. The quest centered around a pre-determined short-story like narrative, where the player follows the plot points as intended by the author.
2. The quest centered around a situation the player encounters, which has a narrative to it, but what happens once the player gets involved is not set in stone.

Of course going with the "situation" style of quest design doesn't mean you can't develop interesting narratives and stories. It just changed the point of player entry.
Maybe you have a cool story filled with intrigue and betrayal... that happened before the player appeared, and it is now up to the player to unravel the story, find out who is in the right and in the wrong, and make a decision whom to support.
While in a more linear quest design approach, the player would actively participate in the original story of intrigue and betrayal but the path he takes would be pre-determined.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

Fallout 2/NV doesn't excel at anything, except offering you the choice of which faction you want to run mindless errands for. There is absolutely nothing remotely complex, engaging or interesting about choosing which faction you run errands for.

And you only run errands for everybody in Fallout 3, with no choice to say no to either your father or BoS. And yet you claim Fallout 3 is better than NV and Fallout 2. You are a fucking retard.

Tell me what does happen in FNV if you say no to all factions? Or in F2 if you say no to the village elder? You're done with the game that's what happens, because neither has any substance to offer besides these main quest errands.

In F3 if you ignore dad or BoS well, there is still a massive world to explore and tons of interesting sidequests which you aren't aware of because you didn't play the game.

 

[fantadomat]

The most important thing in RPGs is the world building and the exploration. Everyone likes that feel of wonder when you find something new in a game. It could be new shiny loot,a good side story,a hard encounter,etc etc. All the great games have satisfying exploration,arcanum,fallout games,BG games,old blobbers,vampire and deus ex....all of them have it.

 

[naossano]

When you have bad story but good combat, game is not good. But when you have good story and bad combat, game can be enjoyable. So having good story is paramount in making good rpg.

Trigger the codex with one sentence...

I would say it depends on the scale. Some games seems to have an enjoyable setting, but the gameplay is too boring that i end up not finishing them.
Some others have a very generic setting, or no story at all, but the gameplay is so enjoyable that you want to replay it over and over.

Yet, if the game is story heavy, it better be good and consistent.

 

[Onionguy]

When you have bad story but good combat, game is not good. But when you have good story and bad combat, game can be enjoyable. So having good story is paramount in making good rpg.

Having a good engaging story keep you interested in the game. What is the point of having good combat in lousy driven story? One can argue that in almost all rpgs stories are lousy so all that left is good combat. Those people identify themselves as combatfags.

Story is more important than writing in books

When you have bad story but good writing, book is not good. But when you have good story and bad writing, book can be enjoyable. So having good story is paramount in writing a good book.

Having a good engaging story keep you interested in the book. What is the point of having good writing in lousy driven story? One can argue that in almost all books stories are lousy so all that left is good writing. Those people identify themselves as writingfags.

No, it's exactly opposite. Even the greatest story told in a dull/lazy manner will put me to sleep. On the other hand, the crappiest, most simplistic one, but delivered with enough skill and imagination will impress me with ease. I swear, even a story about taking a shit can be captivating once you know how to make it sound right.

As for the combat vs story discussion, It's perplexing that all the retards here are still obsessing about these two things, while at the same time, completely disregarding the most defining traits of every great rpg:

1) Character development
2) Exploration
3) Quest design.

I've seen a lot of that shit in Vtmb and Arcanum threads-
seemingly seasoned rpg fans claiming that combat = gameplay. Sure, it makes sense as long as icewind dale or some average blobber is your point of reference. But then, take games like Ultima Underworld, Gothic 1/2, Fallout and Arcanum and suddenly it doesn't fit the equation. So why is everyone around here so narrow is beyond me.

 

[Okagron]

In F3 if you ignore dad or BoS well, there is still a massive world to explore and tons of interesting sidequests which you aren't aware of because you didn't play the game.

You mean a shitty world with terrible location placement, crap sidequests that only have one solution with laughable writing and when they have more than one, it's so poorly made that is hilarious, copy and pasted assets everywhere and shitty level scaling that removes all challenge from the game? Yeah, you can keep that garbage to yourself.

And you're the one that hasn't played New Vegas when you don't even know what each faction is trying to accomplish, quite evidently when you think you are just "running errands" for them, completely missing the point why you even do quests for them. Then again, you are the braindead retard that got triggered when people said New Vegas is miles better than Fallout 3 and that's the sole reason you even hate it. Same for Fallout 2.

Just admit that you only played Fallout 3 in the Fallout series and you tried to go to the internet seeking validation, you got what you deserve. Getting complete shit on because you like garbage like Fallout 3.

Also, fucking hilarious that this moron put me on his ignore list and said i wasn't "worth his time", but he still responds to my posts.

 

[KK1001]

The most important thing for any game, and especially any RPG, is vision. The reason why PS:T and Fallout are such strong games and even better RPGs is that they have a distinct vision around which everything revolves.

 

[Azarkon]

Story is not important.

World building is important. Even for combat focused CRPGs.

In fact, I can't think of a single combat focused CRPG that had shit world building but was still widely loved. Maybe you can come up with one, but it'd be the exception, rather than the rule. Even roguelike games, which are obscure by mainstream standards, have passable world building in most cases.

This doesn't apply to games in general. Tetris, for all its sophisticated squares and dangerous angles, never needed world building. Chess doesn't, either.

But CRPGs are not just defined by their mechanics, even though that'd simplify it.

They're also defined by their settings.

You'd never say that Dungeons and Dragons and its derivatives were just a set of mechanics. Or that WoD was. Or that Call of Cthulhu was.

None of them pretended to be GURPS, nor would they have been as successful, had they been. In fact, we know GURPS today mostly from its association with Fallout. Otherwise, it'd be a small foot note in the history of CRPGs.

These systems, these predecessors to CRPGs, all came out of an era when nerds were clamoring for more fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Their market appeals were intimately tied to the popularity of Tolkien, Moorcock, Vance, Heinlein, Dick, Lovecraft, and the like. They were sold as much on their world building as on their mechanics; in fact, more so on their world building than their mechanics.

CRPGs are no different, in this regard. They are sold as a package with their settings, not just their combat mechanics. Fail the setting, and it doesn't matter how magnificent the combat is: nerds can't get immersed and so, can't be bothered. This is a fact many people miss when talking about "writing" in CRPGs.

 

[JarlFrank]

In fact, I can't think of a single combat focused CRPG that had shit world building but was still widely loved.

Knights of the Chalice.