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The REAL overlooked sin in RPGs: disconnect between narrative and mechanics

laclongquan

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Witcher 3 bothers me with the gear mechanics.
The game keeps limiting it by level, you level up at a slower pace than finding higher level sword recipes.
So picture level 1 Geralt taking 20+ slashes just to kill a level 6 bear. Even at the LOWEST difficulty.
5 Levels later with a new sword, he massacres the bear in 2 swings. Not because he's really skilled, it's because his sword is way sharper.
Real life hunting bother me with the gear mechanic.
This real life keeps limiting it by certificate, you get higher certs at a slower pace than finding bigger caliber gun shops.
So picture level 1 Crispy shooting 20 rounds .20LR to kill a brown bear. Even at lowest diff with the bear trapped in a hole. (If then.)
28 days later Crispy can shoot 2 rounds to kill a similar bear. Not because he's more skilled, but because his gun now is a type with much bigger bore, a .45 hunting rifle. because his certificate has passed inspection and he now can purchase and use that biggy~

But if you find a high calibre gun IRL before getting the license to use it, you can still use it if you really want to. Yeah, the cops will slap a fine on you if they catch you, but you are not physically incapable of taking the gun in your hands and squeezing the trigger just because you haven't reached the minimum required hunter level yet.

Terrible comparison.
From the way gunnuts and conservatives talk about it, use a bigger caliber without correct certificates is liability from fines upto prison time. It is prison time they seem leery about, since they dont actually fear fine as such, considering the size and price tag of some of the guns they keep wanting to purchase.

Not even shoot it, just keep it would seem to be such heavy crime~
 

JarlFrank

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Witcher 3 bothers me with the gear mechanics.
The game keeps limiting it by level, you level up at a slower pace than finding higher level sword recipes.
So picture level 1 Geralt taking 20+ slashes just to kill a level 6 bear. Even at the LOWEST difficulty.
5 Levels later with a new sword, he massacres the bear in 2 swings. Not because he's really skilled, it's because his sword is way sharper.
Real life hunting bother me with the gear mechanic.
This real life keeps limiting it by certificate, you get higher certs at a slower pace than finding bigger caliber gun shops.
So picture level 1 Crispy shooting 20 rounds .20LR to kill a brown bear. Even at lowest diff with the bear trapped in a hole. (If then.)
28 days later Crispy can shoot 2 rounds to kill a similar bear. Not because he's more skilled, but because his gun now is a type with much bigger bore, a .45 hunting rifle. because his certificate has passed inspection and he now can purchase and use that biggy~

But if you find a high calibre gun IRL before getting the license to use it, you can still use it if you really want to. Yeah, the cops will slap a fine on you if they catch you, but you are not physically incapable of taking the gun in your hands and squeezing the trigger just because you haven't reached the minimum required hunter level yet.

Terrible comparison.
From the way gunnuts and conservatives talk about it, use a bigger caliber without correct certificates is liability from fines upto prison time. It is prison time they seem leery about, since they dont actually fear fine as such, considering the size and price tag of some of the guns they keep wanting to purchase.

Not even shoot it, just keep it would seem to be such heavy crime~

So? The problem with hard stat and level requirements for items isn't that it is a crime to use them. The problem is that the character cannot even equip the item until he reaches that arbitrary stat or level requirement even if he wanted to.

An RPG where you have to purchase weapon licenses before you can use high tier weapons would be cool. But then you could still use the weapon without the license and get in trouble if you get caught (something like casting spells in Athkatla in BG2 is a good comparison).

Finding a high level weapon early on and then not being able to use it until 10 hours later is just stupid game design and no fun. Most of the time it's not even done for a simulationist reason, like "this armor is too heavy for you to wear right now", because usually there's similarly heavy armors you can equip without issue. It's just that... this item is a LEVEL 10 item and currently you are only LEVEL 5 so you cannot equip it until you gained 5 MORE LEVELS. Arbitrary and stupid.
 

Cryomancer

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So? The problem with hard stat and level requirements for items isn't that it is a crime to use them. The problem is that the character cannot even equip the item until he reaches that arbitrary stat or level requirement even if he wanted to.

Look to Fallout New Vegas. Can you use Anti Materiel Rifle with poor stats? Yes. But will have a insane scope sway, high recoil, etc.

Or to Dark Souls, i got a black Knight halberd before i was strong enough to use it AND i could use but it was slow and not worth using it.
 

JarlFrank

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So? The problem with hard stat and level requirements for items isn't that it is a crime to use them. The problem is that the character cannot even equip the item until he reaches that arbitrary stat or level requirement even if he wanted to.

Look to Fallout New Vegas. Can you use Anti Materiel Rifle with poor stats? Yes. But will have a insane scope sway, high recoil, etc.

Or to Dark Souls, i got a black Knight halberd before i was strong enough to use it AND i could use but it was slow and not worth using it.

Which is soft stat requirements, not hard stat requirements. Hard ones block you entirely from using an item. Soft ones mean "you must increase your character's skills and stats (or play a different type of character if it's a system like Fallout where stats are mostly static) if you want to use it effectively, but you can still use it at a lower level of effectiveness".
 

Nathaniel3W

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I know we're discussing the ability to use equipment in an RPG, but in case anyone wants to know, here are some relevant gun laws in the US:

  • Nothing over .50 caliber. Anything bigger than that is a "destructive device" and is banned, unless it has a "sporting purpose." The ATF considers hunting pretty much the only legitimate sporting purpose. So if you can hunt with it, you can have it. That's why you can own a shotgun even though its bore is over .50 caliber.
  • You can buy a fully automatic firearm--if you can afford it. The Firearm Owners' Protection Act in 1986 banned the sale of new machine guns. But if you can find a machine gun made prior to 1986, it's totally legal. The problem though is supply and demand. Lots of people want machine guns and there aren't many to go around.
  • You can buy a new machine gun if you get a National Firearms Act class 3 license, which involves a lot of money, paperwork, registration, and storage requirements. Most of the people who do this are firearms dealers.
  • You can't have a rifle (meaning something that you hold with two hands up against your shoulder and fires a bullet down a rifled barrel) that is shorter than 26 inches or with a barrel shorter than 16 inches. That counts a short barrel rifle, and to get one (if allowed in your state), you have to pay money and get a special license.
  • You can't have a shotgun (meaning something that you hold with two hands up against your shoulder and fires shot down a smoothbore barrel) that is shorter than 26 inches or with a barrel shorter than 16 inches. That counts as a short barrel shotgun, and it is under similar prohibition as an SBR.
  • You can't put a forward grip on a pistol (meaning something that can be fired with one hand) because that would make it so that it's intended to be used with two hands, and thus it becomes an SBR.
  • You can't put a shoulder stock on a pistol because that also turns it into an SBR.
And there are hundreds of other laws that vary from location to location about how many rounds it can hold, whether it can have a pistol grip, bayonet lug, heat shield, collapsible stock, or other scary features.

Then there are these...

images

That is not a shoulder stock; it's a forearm brace that you could put against your shoulder if you used it improperly. Because the forearm brace shows that the firearm is intended to be used with one hand, it is still a pistol and not an SBR.

And this...

83392_V3_Tac-13_right_Remington.jpg

That is not a shotgun because it cannot be fired from the shoulder and it has a barrel shorter than 16 inches. But it has an overall length greater than 26 inches, so it's not an SBS. It is not a pistol that it cannot be used with one hand and is over 26 inches and it doesn't have a pistol grip at a right angle to the barrel. It is a "firearm" that is neither shotgun nor pistol, regulated the same way as a musket.
 

Cryomancer

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Which is soft stat requirements, not hard stat requirements. Hard ones block you entirely from using an item. Soft ones mean "you must increase your character's skills and stats (or play a different type of character if it's a system like Fallout where stats are mostly static) if you want to use it effectively, but you can still use it at a lower level of effectiveness".

Hard stat requirement doesn't make any sense in 99% of cases, except if for example, you can't even operate the weapon. For example, my young brother when he was younger could't "load" my 175 lbf crossbow unless he uses some devices(now we both can "load" with only our hands) but a longbow for eg, someone with bellow the necessary STR will just "half draw" the bow, the bow will fire but the projectile will be slower and less powerful.

I know we're discussing the ability to use equipment in an RPG, but in case anyone wants to know, here are some relevant gun laws in the US:

Yep. But on US you still have much more gun freedom than most American countries. In guns per human, US has twice the second place(Falklands with 62.1 vs 120.5 on US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country )

On Americas, Mexico and Brazil had the worst gun laws. On both countries, anything stronger than .38 special or .380 ACP is a restricted caliber and the penalty from ilegally owning a restricted firearm is harsher than perma blinding someone.

Argentina and Uruguay are far freer than Brazil but still more restrict than US.
 

sser

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You should be able to wield just about any weapon but suffer (probably) percentage-based maluses for using something outside your skill set. There's often already a sort of trope with this when wizards wear plate mail and all of a sudden they can't get enough speed rubbing their socks on the carpet to produce static shocks from their fingertips or whatever.
 

DraQ

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Because resurrection mechanics, without exception, break the logic of the setting unless they are severely limited to the point that doing it is mostly not worth it.
I wouldn't say it's without exception, but unless you really dedicate your worldbuilding to exploring how a setting with resurrection would work, it will just pop your setting like a soap bubble. And even if you do, you don't get any guarantees against your setting popping. And if it doesn't pop it will certainly be a very weird place, not necessarily in ways you initially intended.

So yeah, resurrection is a definitely no-no unless you are really sure you can make something weird and interesting out of it - and can accept (nearly?) inevitable failure.

And you are confusing a facade of self-confidence with strength and being authoritative in the subject.
I assure you, I am content with just being right.
:obviously:

For anyone who stops and think one minute about this issue, it’s self-evident that it’s the other way around. The more competent, i.e., engrossing and complex, a combat system is, the more variables you need take into account and the more stuff "under the hood" you have to learn. This is just basic common sense.
Complexity of systems is not a goal in itself - being able to handle complex and interesting situations is, but complexity of the systems comes as a cost of that and difficulty of learning them as a cost of this complexity, not gain. Simpler system is better unless it accomplishes less. A system can also be simple and intuitive in human terms despite being complex and involved in programming or mathematical terms - most simulations are that. As a designer your job is then to try and explain the system in terms of what it's meant to represent, not the mathematical intricacies under the hood.

Hard to learn, easy to master at best means that you haven't done good enough job unfucking your system (or just the UI), which then failed to live up to its full potential.

Making complex shit for the sake of complexity doesn't yield you complex, but complicated and kludgy, which is almost universally a bad thing, unless you are designing, say, a magic system and you want it to seem arcane and incomprehensible.

Most of the time, however, system is meant to make sense, not to be as convoluted as you can imagine.

Character system, in particular is just a kind of UI, for translating the character concept player has in their head into the game mechanical terms (and applying the right constraints to it). A complicated, difficult to use interface is just a bad interface, unless you can show that it really can't be made any simpler or easier without losing something.

Coincidentally, complicated and kludgy stuff tends to compound in unpredictable and broken ways (which definitely contributes to the easy to master part - just find broken stuff and exploit to your heart content), whereas complex tends to arise from composition of multiple simple parts and tends to itself compose nicely.
 

Sykar

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So? The problem with hard stat and level requirements for items isn't that it is a crime to use them. The problem is that the character cannot even equip the item until he reaches that arbitrary stat or level requirement even if he wanted to.

Look to Fallout New Vegas. Can you use Anti Materiel Rifle with poor stats? Yes. But will have a insane scope sway, high recoil, etc.

Or to Dark Souls, i got a black Knight halberd before i was strong enough to use it AND i could use but it was slow and not worth using it.

Which is soft stat requirements, not hard stat requirements. Hard ones block you entirely from using an item. Soft ones mean "you must increase your character's skills and stats (or play a different type of character if it's a system like Fallout where stats are mostly static) if you want to use it effectively, but you can still use it at a lower level of effectiveness".

Underrail does this with weapons and armor. You can use them without meeting the requirements but you lose quite a bit of your 50 standard action points.
 

RK47

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Well, anyone trying to 'unfuck' Witcher 3 character system would be hard-pressed to understand the developer's intent.
We have item-level requirements that made a veteran witcher incapable of wielding a sword unless he levels up 20 times. This sword can be crafted within 2 hours of the game and does nearly 8x more damage than your level 3 sword BTW.
We also have a skill system that an attained skill does 'nothing' if it was not 'equipped' into his active skill slots. And the amount of this active skill slots is dependent on your character level as well. So you will have situations where the player has more skills attained but no skill slots to assign them to.

cfBcpfP.png


I ask you Codexers, how would you unfuck both the item level requirement and this skill slots system?
 

Nathaniel3W

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For anyone who stops and think one minute about this issue, it’s self-evident that it’s the other way around. The more competent, i.e., engrossing and complex, a combat system is, the more variables you need take into account and the more stuff "under the hood" you have to learn. This is just basic common sense.

Complexity of systems is not a goal in itself - being able to handle complex and interesting situations is, but complexity of the systems comes as a cost of that and difficulty of learning them as a cost of this complexity, not gain. Simpler system is better unless it accomplishes less. A system can also be simple and intuitive in human terms despite being complex and involved in programming or mathematical terms - most simulations are that. As a designer your job is then to try and explain the system in terms of what it's meant to represent, not the mathematical intricacies under the hood.

I tend to agree with DraQ here, but there's something I'd like to add.

You need to ask yourself what your game is about and whether any feature contributes to the intended player experience. Is Octodad a realistic simulation of an octopus trying to pass itself off as human? No. Do the awful controls contribute to the intended player experience of moving comically and awkwardly as an upright octopus? Yes, and they nail it.

For those games where you want to present something realistically, you have to ask yourself how realistic it has to be, and how much you are willing to abstract in order to make the game fun and playable. Arma 3 is generally considered the most realistic first-person shooter. But you know what would make it even better? Virtual reality, where if you move your head you can see a fully immersive world. And if you had to aim using an actual gun as a controller. Or if you had to run on an omnidirectional treadmill to run in-game. And if you had actual pain inflicted on yourself if you get shot in the game. And maybe you should have to play through a basic training level that takes 10 real-world weeks to complete, followed by advanced infantry training that takes 5 real-world weeks to complete. And eventually you'll be playing the most realistic version of Arma 3, in Iran, using real bullets, against real Iranians. What could be more realistic than that?

If you're making a game rather than a simulation, then fulfilling the player experience (probably through fun and engaging gameplay) is more important than how well something is simulated.
 

Cryomancer

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I ask you Codexers, how would you unfuck both the item level requirement and this skill slots system?

Only a complete overall of the system can fix it. There are no small changes that can fix it...

You need to ask yourself what your game is about and whether any feature contributes to the intended player experience. Is Octodad a realistic simulation of an octopus trying to pass itself off as human? No. Do the awful controls contribute to the intended player experience of moving comically and awkwardly as an upright octopus? Yes, and they nail it.

Yes, but the propose of RPG's is to "simulate" be another being in another world.

----------------------------------

That said, another mechanic that i usually hate and usually makes no sense lore wise is when the damage reduction is by percentage.

Think on how clothing that protects you from cold works. There are clothing that can negate all damage that being subjected to -20º C(-4º F) on Ushuaia can make to you? Yes. But there are no clothing to protect you from the absolute zero. HAving a clothing that reduces the cold damage by X% against the -20ºC or the 0 K makes no sense. Same with protection from piercing. Having a armor that reduces the piercing damage by the same amount, from a dart trowed by a bellow average STR man and by a 14.5x114mm armor piercing round makes no sense.
 
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Nathaniel3W

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Yes, but the propose of RPG's is to "simulate" be another being in another world.

I disagree. The only consistent feature of RPGs is character progression. You start the game in a situation with a limited set of tools to solve your problems. That limited set of tools could be low attack power, low HP, weak weapons, or even dialog options. Then the RPG gives your character a chance to grow so that by the end you're solving problems using a more powerful toolset, to include higher HP, better weapons, or whatever else makes sense for the setting.

The RPG doesn't have to simulate another world--it could be our own world, and it doesn't have to be a very good simulation in order to be a good game. In fact, I would argue that trying to simulate is one of the biggest pitfalls rookie game developers make. You just have to give the player a goal, an obstacle, and a tool to overcome the obstacle. And then the game mechanics show you whether the player succeeds or fails at using the tool to overcome the obstacle and achieve the goal. The game doesn't have to simulate anything--not to any realistic degree. It just has to change the difficulty of the obstacle intuitively when the tool changes: a bigger sword makes it easier to slay the dragon, or higher charisma makes it easier to bluff the guard.

A friend of mine is constantly scribbling notes and watching YouTube videos on how much an 8-foot orc should really weigh, or whether a longbow would penetrate plate armor, or how blade cross-sections would change if knights had to fight dragons, or how much someone should be able to squat at a given strength score. And he has never made any progress on making the game he's always wanted to make.

It doesn't matter how unrealistic it is when your stealth archer in Skyrim crits a Falmer for a thousand damage, and his friend doesn't even notice the corpse flying across the cave. It doesn't matter that Borderlands doesn't try to explain why your powers result in your gun holding more bullets. Skyrim stealth and Borderlands guns are tools for overcoming obstacles, and they only need to be "simulated" enough to make the obstacle easier when the tool improves.
 

JarlFrank

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Complexity of systems is not a goal in itself - being able to handle complex and interesting situations is, but complexity of the systems comes as a cost of that and difficulty of learning them as a cost of this complexity, not gain. Simpler system is better unless it accomplishes less. A system can also be simple and intuitive in human terms despite being complex and involved in programming or mathematical terms - most simulations are that. As a designer your job is then to try and explain the system in terms of what it's meant to represent, not the mathematical intricacies under the hood.

Pretty much. This is why even complex wargames tend to be easily understandable for anyone with a basic interest in military history because the concepts are logical and easy to grasp without having to know the maths behind it.
So a tank's armor thickness determines how strong an anti tank weapon needs to be to punch through. Makes sense. Angle of impact of the projectile also influences likelihood of penetration. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.
You don't need to know how to calculate the penetration likelihood, though, you just need to grasp the concept of "the straighter the angle, the more likely your shot is to penetrate" and that will directly influence your tactics of positioning your tanks vs the enemy as well as your AT guns vs enemy tanks. The maths behind it are complex, but the concept is easy to grasp.

That's just one example common in modern wargames, both real time and turn based. This is also why simulationism tends to be better than heavy abstraction. You won't get people asking "HOW THE FUCK THAC0 WORKS?????" if you use a sensible, realistic armor system instead. So leather armor is meh but light, chainmail is medium and has medium weight, full plate is heavy but has great protection. Sensible and easy to understand. How does the protection work? Armor blocks damage unless the weapon penetrates, which could be calculated by the weapon's penetration strength + character STR bonus + percentage change of hitting a weak spot in the armor modified by the character's weapon skill. Complex calculation, but easy to grasp: armor protects, STR helps punch through armor with AP weapons, weapon skill helps aim for weak spots. Nobody is going to be confused by that system because it reflects how stuff works in real life closely enough that the average human brain can easily relate to it.
 

Deleted Member 22431

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Complexity of systems is not a goal in itself - being able to handle complex and interesting situations is, but complexity of the systems comes as a cost of that and difficulty of learning them as a cost of this complexity, not gain.
Look at this poor fuck. He doesn’t even know how to express himself.

ENGROSSING CRPG SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

THEREFORE, GOOD CRPGS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

Simpler system is better unless it accomplishes less. A system can also be simple and intuitive in human terms despite being complex and involved in programming or mathematical terms - most simulations are that. As a designer your job is then to try and explain the system in terms of what it's meant to represent, not the mathematical intricacies under the hood.

This is a discussion about cRPGs.

This is not a discussion about the designers job in abstract.

cRPGs provide simulation by means of abstract representation of stats and skill. If you don’t enjoy such gameplay, you have no business playing cRPGs. Go player some shooter instead. cRPG developers shouldn’t try to emulate shooters as if this was some sort of superior and more intelligent design just because you dislike cRPGs.

Hard to learn, easy to master at best means that you haven't done good enough job unfucking your system (or just the UI), which then failed to live up to its full potential.

ENGROSSING CRPG SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

THEREFORE, GOOD CRPGS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

Making complex shit for the sake of complexity doesn't yield you complex, but complicated and kludgy, which is almost universally a bad thing, unless you are designing, say, a magic system and you want it to seem arcane and incomprehensible.

ENGROSSING CRPG SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

THEREFORE, GOOD CRPGS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

Most of the time, however, system is meant to make sense, not to be as convoluted as you can imagine.

This is not proper English even for internet standards.

Character system, in particular is just a kind of UI
Brilliant.

for translating the character concept player has in their head into the game mechanical terms (and applying the right constraints to it). A complicated, difficult to use interface is just a bad interface, unless you can show that it really can't be made any simpler or easier without losing something.

This is irrelevant for the present discussion. I’m debating cRPG systems, not UI.

Coincidentally, complicated and kludgy stuff tends to compound in unpredictable and broken ways (which definitely contributes to the easy to master part - just find broken stuff and exploit to your heart content), whereas complex tends to arise from composition of multiple simple parts and tends to itself compose nicely.
Lack of critical skills and conceptual nuance. Your post is barely legible.
 
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Deleted Member 22431

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I tend to agree with DraQ here, but there's something I'd like to add.

You need to ask yourself what your game is about and whether any feature contributes to the intended player experience. Is Octodad a realistic simulation of an octopus trying to pass itself off as human? No. Do the awful controls contribute to the intended player experience of moving comically and awkwardly as an upright octopus? Yes, and they nail it.

For those games where you want to present something realistically, you have to ask yourself how realistic it has to be, and how much you are willing to abstract in order to make the game fun and playable. Arma 3 is generally considered the most realistic first-person shooter. But you know what would make it even better? Virtual reality, where if you move your head you can see a fully immersive world. And if you had to aim using an actual gun as a controller. Or if you had to run on an omnidirectional treadmill to run in-game. And if you had actual pain inflicted on yourself if you get shot in the game. And maybe you should have to play through a basic training level that takes 10 real-world weeks to complete, followed by advanced infantry training that takes 5 real-world weeks to complete. And eventually you'll be playing the most realistic version of Arma 3, in Iran, using real bullets, against real Iranians. What could be more realistic than that?

If you're making a game rather than a simulation, then fulfilling the player experience (probably through fun and engaging gameplay) is more important than how well something is simulated.

What you would like to add is irrelevant for the present discussion. The point is that any decent cRPG’s will have engrossing character systems with their own skills, stat, itemization, build combinations, encounters, etc. This requires time and analysis from the part of the player. This takes effort even if you already played dozens of cRPG’s in the past. The presentation can be pristine and precise, and it will still take effort from the player’s part. Do you know which cRPGs are easy to learn? The awful ones with a fluffy character system.
 

Peachcurl

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I ask you Codexers, how would you unfuck both the item level requirement and this skill slots system?

Wasn't there a decent overhaul mod that adressed these issues? (I think it included stuff like making some skills passive, without slot requirement, and also the changed scaling of equipment)

I really hope the CDPR improves this (as well as the incentives for exploration. edit: and the combat system) for their next game.
 

laclongquan

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Well, anyone trying to 'unfuck' Witcher 3 character system would be hard-pressed to understand the developer's intent.
We have item-level requirements that made a veteran witcher incapable of wielding a sword unless he levels up 20 times. This sword can be crafted within 2 hours of the game and does nearly 8x more damage than your level 3 sword BTW.

This is kinda similar to NWN2OC craft system and situation. You can craft an adamantine full plate once you are out of your home village (no crafting smithy there). It's kinda very strong armor without any extra imbuement. All it needs is some ores, as you canbuy mold and cast it at a smithy for free.

How do they make that less abusive? Well, adamantine full plate require a large amount of ore and they can control a bit where players can gather them. You can gather al right, but that would take more hours of gaming instead of straight outta home village~

Apply this to Witcher 3 would require they manually adjust the weapon recipe, the amount of ore, and the placement of those items.

Mind you I dont see the problem. You know how to create a weapon but you need time to learn to use it. What's the problem?

Or are you saying every smith who can make weapons can use each and every type of them like a trained warrior?
 

Tim the Bore

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Go player some shooter instead.
This is not proper English even for internet standards.

You got that right.

ENGROSSING CRPG SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

THEREFORE, GOOD CRPGS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

ENGROSSING CRPG SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

THEREFORE, GOOD CRPGS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

ENGROSSING CRPG SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

THEREFORE, GOOD CRPGS ARE HARDER TO LEARN.

Look at this poor fuck. He doesn’t even know who to express himself.
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,691
For those games where you want to present something realistically, you have to ask yourself how realistic it has to be, and how much you are willing to abstract in order to make the game fun and playable. Arma 3 is generally considered the most realistic first-person shooter. But you know what would make it even better? Virtual reality, where if you move your head you can see a fully immersive world.
There are other directions for games, depending on what do you want to simulate. You can have a flight simulator (space, WW2, etc.). Or simulate economy so players have to operate in the ever-changing markets. You could attempt simulate how the game world reacts to your actions. All of the above falls under simulation, not just combat. It's all simply the matter of what you're trying to accomplish.

What I disagree with you is that simulation of something is "one of the biggest pitfalls rookie game developers make". Crusader Kings II did an amazing job of creating the game where every character had their own goal and participated in something. This had tremendous impact on replayability and gave us a great impression of a living world. Because there is always someone at the bottom and at the top and NPCs were always at odds with that, and you were mixed in the middle of it all. Space Rangers 2 had very nicely simulated economy, despite it being fairly simple. Part of the reason why enjoyed Morrowind was because you couldn't just re-sell items stolen from the shopkeepers you stole it from. And leveling up skills by using them felt like a natural thing to do, which was a novel concept back then, which did help to contribute to the feeling of "being there". The other cRPGs at the time required of you to kill something or complete a quest before you could learn a new skill or improve the old one.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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It doesn't matter how unrealistic it is when your stealth archer in Skyrim crits a Falmer for a thousand damage, and his friend doesn't even notice the corpse flying across the cave. It doesn't matter that Borderlands doesn't try to explain why your powers result in your gun holding more bullets. Skyrim stealth and Borderlands guns are tools for overcoming obstacles, and they only need to be "simulated" enough to make the obstacle easier when the tool improves.

In the skyrim example is poor IA problem. Not poor game mechanics. In Borderlands, borderlands is a a looter game. Not a RPG. A best example of realistic gun mechanics into a ARPG is on Fallout New Vegas. There are no "pistol ammo bs", in fact, you can use .45 ACP ammo in a pistol or in a SMG of the same cal but not use a 45 acp round in a 9mm pistol. And there are tons of ammo types to choose from. I can use explosive, incendiary, dragon breath, armor piercing, hollow point, etc ammo. Can mod my weapon, can repair and upgrade, weapons with low durability "jam", FNV makes me feel like i an using a actual firearm.

That said, i an not against unrealistic healing speed, unrealistic inventory management, etc. I know that realistic inventory management would be something awful on 99% of games except a survival horror games where you don't wanna your player to be carrying 4 anti materiel rifles and 5 submachine guns with 600 rounds of 9mm an 400 rounds of. 50 bmg on his backpack.

But even with magic, you can make magic fel more "a part of your fictional world". And that should be the goal. The satisfaction of starting Gothic 3 being unable to do any magic, then once you learn ice lance, be able to cast only 6~3(if charged) with your 100 mana and have no mana regen to the end game where you can destroy hordes and hordes of orcs is so amazing. Mainly because the magic of G3 is well made. On Gothic 3, having to have enough Ancient Knowledge and find someone able and willing to teach you the spell is much more immersive than "everyone learn spell X on lv Y" that many wow clone mmos use. Arcania in other hands is awful by the high amount of unimmersive mechanics that has no lore explanation. Why my magic who was tied to how much ancient knowledge i had in G3 now is tied to the carnavalesque armor that i an wearing? Why rune magic that was destroyed by Xardas is back? And why runes have cooldowns now? How it works? And why enemies takes so long to die? Why i take so long to be dead? Why the world felt so railroaded?



Even the fantasy animals felt like animals that would exist on another world. On G1/2/3. For example, Shadowbeasts, in lore they are deadly, carnivorous and live in shadows. That is exactly where you can find shadowbeasts. Same wirh lurkers on lakes, ice golems on cold montains.. I remember when i was on G1 trying to reach Swamp Camp but there was a pack of wolves that can kill me in a half of second. I killed a Scavenger near then, lured then and ran away and when i was back, the wolves was eating the dead animal. I used this opportunity to kill 2 isolated wolves and run towards swamp camp. Animals on Gothic looks and act like animals and i love it.

For those games where you want to present something realistically, you have to ask yourself how realistic it has to be, and how much you are willing to abstract in order to make the game fun and playable. Arma 3 is generally considered the most realistic first-person shooter. But you know what would make it even better?

That is a harsh question. Enough to make me feel immersed in the fictional world that you are creating. Some people can feel immersed even playing WoW... Is up to the person in question.

For me, if your armor design and mechanics are at least similar to Dark Souls or Diablo 1, is immersive enough to play.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
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Messages
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Frostfell
One thing that i hate on 99,9% of modern games is this lack of "ludonarrative consistency"

On DA:O, you can use blood magic in front of Templars and nothing happens. Despite the game stipulating that blood magic i one of the worst taboos in the world. On DA:I, literally in one of the first dialog options is that "i don't need a staff to be deadly" and all spells scale with you weapon in game. In that case, the game is contradicting completely the lore. No, not just a single dialog. If mages are that dependent on his staff, why have a strict control over then? Just control their staves since their spells are nothing without a weapon. In VtMB for eg, unarmed attacks and disciplines doesn't scale with your gear at all, and if you use blood magic(thaumaturgy) in front of mortals, is a masquarede breach and it has consequences.

This is why IMO 90s/earlier 00s RPG's are far more immersive than modern games.
 
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Lutte

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Aug 24, 2017
Messages
1,967
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DU's mom
One thing that i hate on 99,9% of modern games is this lack of "ludonarrative consistency"

On DA:O, you can use blood magic in front of Templars and nothing happens. Despite the game stipulating that blood magic i one of the worst taboos in the world. On DA:I, literally in one of the first dialog options is that "i don't need a staff to be deadly" and all spells scale with you weapon in game. In that case, the game is contradicting completely the lore. No, not just a single dialog. If mages are that dependent on his staff, why have a strict control over then? Just control their staves since their spells are nothing without a weapon. In VtMB for eg, unarmed attacks and disciplines doesn't scale with your gear at all, and if you use blood magic(thaumaturgy) in front of mortals, is a masquarede breach and it has consequences.

This is why IMO 90s/earlier 00s RPG's are far more immersive than modern games.

The loss isn't just ludonarrative consistency (which sometimes should be ignored for better gameplay depending on circumstances) but interactivity in general. Bioware has never made highly interactive RPGs, but the BG certainly had a lot more of it than DAO. DAO doesn't allow you to arbitrarily kill people but you can kinda fuck yourself in the BG if you made town NPCs hostile to you. BG2's Athkatla has a law forbidding randoms from casting magic in town and breaking it without paying dem taxes has the cowled wizards going after you after a first offense. Failing an act of thievery in BG has a consequence. That sort of freedom also obviously gives you some abilities for abuse (like spamming traps in front of an enemy that isn't hostile yet but you know is going to be) DAO doesn't really care besides giving you a few instances of flavor text and a few random encounters. And then games like the ME don't even have that sort of option in the first place.

Everything they made after BG2 became a lot more static, with clear distinctions of - this is the talky talky part, click some dialogue text - - this is the combat part, click on enemies -. And you're not supposed to try to think of ways to do things other than following the script. Set pieces spam where you just end up in a situation without an ability to prepare before engaging, constant spawn-waves of enemies that just teleport on the screen etc.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
One of my favorite things to do in RPGs is to test whether developers accounted for certain in-game actions. Like an NPC asking you to do a certain task and you go and do it, but the plot immediately shifts in another direction and you are never required to go back to the NPC that commended you a task in the first place. In those cases I like to go back to earlier towns and see whether my actions have been accounted for, even if it is something as simple as "I heard you delivered the goods, thank you Sigourn" as opposed to "Please Sigourn, you must deliver them hastly".

To me something as small as that has more valuable than yet another treasure chest full of leveled loot.
 

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