Game News Realms Beyond Kickstarter Update #6: Itemization

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Procedural generation is terrible. Give me actual good content over bland and boring random generation any day.

I'm admittedly rather obsessed with the relevance of good itemization (the issue almost single-handedly ruined both the Divinity Origina Sin games for me), but I think there are very few things in a RPG that feel duller than accomplishing something (i.e. killing some big monster, exploring a dungeon or completing a major quest) and being rewarded with... A randomly generated item that resembles way too closely dozens of them you've already seen before and that you could have literally dropped at any other point in the same game.

 

[Kev Inkline]

It gets stale quick in its current iteration

Just like every single game with procedural content ever.

Tell that to Dwarf Fortress (or Rimworld).

 

[Grauken]

I was pretty sure they would have randomly generated content, finding out they won't have that, it's really dissapointing. They coudl have with the systems they plan a great PArty combat based rouge like (kind of like Xcom and battle brothers) which is what i thought they were setting up. finding out they are just creating a puzzle that once you play it you should drop it, is dissapointing. Ive been waiting forever for someone to do a party rougelike like battle brotehrs and xcom , with combat like darskun and knights of the chalice.

Where are you crazy people coming from? Is it something in the water?

 

[Farewell into the night]

Would you recommend me this game?

 

[Waterd]

Imagine Fallout, Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate 2 had been entirely procedual. Or, heck, the old Gold Box games. Or Might and Magics. Or Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Legend of Grimrock.

Maybe they would be decent games? I strongly dislike all of them, specially baldur's gate. Wow I think baldur's gate is terrible (but mainly because I think RTwP is cancer). The only 3 games that i could tolerate without procedural content were Darksun, Temple of elemental evil and more recently Knights of the chalice. And at the end of every one of them I end extremly dissapointed that there is no more "game". ( I liked knights of the chalice combat system so much that i replayed it almost 20 times wtih different parties and personal challenges). And even those 3 games have random encounters.

Games with Random templates give me fun for hundreds of hours not , just 5-10-20 hours, and I don't feel like i wasted understanding a system for nothing. Because of that I'm not the kind of person that is desperate for new content waiting for new games, i keep playing the same 15-20 games I like.
I would say Imagine if Heroes of might and magic, Master of magic, master of orion, darkest dungeon, Battle brothers, XCOM or even ADOM, would not have have randomly generated content. I still play all those games since release and I can always know i can open a game of those games and have fun. Evne If i already spent over a hundred of hours on them (in the case of master of orion and heroes of might and magic we could be talking on the thousand hours)

So why I want "a new game" because what im missing in my library of games is a game with the combat of Temple of elemental evil, darksun and Knights of the chalice, but with the campaign system of XCOM. It doesn't exist so far (it seems age of low magic is trying to be that and im super hyped about that and gonna try it as soon as i can).
For some misguided reason I thought This game "wanted to be that" I was horrible wrong and I don't get why the market needs another puzzle to be digested in a few hours. I guess it needs it because thats how these puzzle works, since they are a "play once, then throw away" you need an endless supply of these things. It's ok, I just don't get them and i was wrong.

Maybe it was wishfull thinking because is one of the only things missing in my library of games, a game like the one i described, so I was very very happy it was finally gonna happen because I'm waiting for it since i finished playing Darksun shattered lands for the first time. So my disappointment was equally big.

 

[Bohr]

I guess it needs it because thats how these puzzle works, since they are a "play once, then throw away" you need an endless supply of these things. It's ok, I just don't get them and i was wrong.

Would you describe NWN and the modding/content scene around that as "play once, then throw away"? Or FRUA? No idea whether they will manage to deliver on all their promises in terms of the editors and modding, because it sounds v ambitious for the budget, but to me it seems they're at least aiming for more than a few hours of content before you throw it away.

 

[Haba]

Just compare Dungeon Warfare 1 and Dungeon Warfare 2.

In 1 every map is hand crafted puzzle to be solved.

In 2 we have procedural generation, hitpoint (& damage) bloat and endless grind.

Sure, you can get 100s of hours more from 2. But 1 is the better game.

 

[Waterd]

I think extremly good modding/content creator support could in theory solve "the problem". Sadly I've never seen that actually happen in video games, mostly because good hand made content, that is even superior to a well designed procedural content generator, is extremely time consuming and requires talent that most people don't have. My experience with most community creation support is that most content is just random spazz.
I've tried NVM but as I said RTwP is to me unplayable.

In 1 every map is hand crafted puzzle to be solved.

Exactly, and I don't like puzzles.

 

[Tigranes]

Imagine Fallout, Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate 2 had been entirely procedual. Or, heck, the old Gold Box games. Or Might and Magics. Or Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Legend of Grimrock.

Games with Random templates give me fun for hundreds of hours not , just 5-10-20 hours, and I don't feel like i wasted understanding a system for nothing. Because of that I'm not the kind of person that is desperate for new content waiting for new games, i keep playing the same 15-20 games I like.

You want games to give you hundreds and hundreds of hours of 'new' content. The problem is that good content is hard to create, and 99% of game mechanics usually are played out to their conclusion long before that. So even if you have randomly generated maps, what's the point? You've already cracked the real puzzle that matters, which is the gameplay systems.

You say you don't like puzzles, but playing a procedurally generated series of maps using the same character and game systems for 500 hours is like saying, "I don't like this connect-the-dots puzzle, I'd rather play 3000 slightly different connect-the-dots puzzles". I'd rather play five or six good connect-the-dots puzzles, then move on to some other puzzle designed by someone else giving me a different experience, instead of stretching my own enjoyment paper thin.

 

[Waterd]

"You've already cracked the real puzzle that matters, which is the gameplay systems. "
So you mean that chess players "Craked" the puzzle? What about poker players? Go? Bridge? A good deep gameplay system can't be cracked by humans.
Let's go video games. What about heroes of might nad magic players? that game is still played by players after how many years? It's not cracked, people keep improving and improving. I could name a lot of small games that I'm sure nobody "crackeD" where peopel keep playing singleplayer with random generated content, like threes, Auro, and even the games i mentioned previosuly like master of orion.

I would say it's more like "I like this connect the dot system, sadly once i know the configuration, i know the exact steps to win and there is nothing interesting to discover, I would prefer a system that random generates the varaibles, so i have to learn how to discover the solution without "trial and error", that is i need to improve at playing the system, and not a specific configuration"

You can see exactly that in heroes of might and magic. If i know a MAP perfectly, i can just create a predetermined set of steps that will guarantee me maximum EV, so i don't need to study the system, i need to study the configuration. However improving the system, it means that no matter the random generated configuration, I need to improvise based on my understanding of the system. However , if it's like heroes of might and magic , where teh system is deep enough, humans keep improving on their understanding of the system and keep improving forever.

 

[Kronoan]

I'm always up for a game of Monopoly. So yeah I get what you mean.

 

[FeelTheRads]

"You've already cracked the real puzzle that matters, which is the gameplay systems. "
So you mean that chess players "Craked" the puzzle? What about poker players? Go? Bridge? A good deep gameplay system can't be cracked by humans.
Let's go video games. What about heroes of might nad magic players? that game is still played by players after how many years? It's not cracked, people keep improving and improving. I could name a lot of small games that I'm sure nobody "crackeD" where peopel keep playing singleplayer with random generated content, like threes, Auro, and even the games i mentioned previosuly like master of orion.

I would say it's more like "I like this connect the dot system, sadly once i know the configuration, i know the exact steps to win and there is nothing interesting to discover, I would prefer a system that random generates the varaibles, so i have to learn how to discover the solution without "trial and error", that is i need to improve at playing the system, and not a specific configuration"

You can see exactly that in heroes of might and magic. If i know a MAP perfectly, i can just create a predetermined set of steps that will guarantee me maximum EV, so i don't need to study the system, i need to study the configuration. However improving the system, it means that no matter the random generated configuration, I need to improvise based on my understanding of the system. However , if it's like heroes of might and magic , where teh system is deep enough, humans keep improving on their understanding of the system and keep improving forever.

In the other thread you compared this with KotC and Darksun (your favorite RPGs) which are in no way procedurally generated... so... what the fuck are you even talking about?
Procedural generation has its place in some games, but not every fucking game needs to be a rogue-like.

Also, procedural generation alone does not guarantee replayability nor do you need it for replayability.

 

[JarlFrank]

RPGs are just the wrong genre for procedural generation. Board games like chess and go and Monopoly live off the PvP gameplay. There are even some modern fantasy boardgames with RPG elements where you place dungeon tiles randomly (I played a Munchkin boardgame once that was like this, every game the board would be a little different), and it works great for games with your pals. In 4X and RTS games, random maps are also great because it's you vs the other players, pure PvP, and the random maps add a layer of unpredictability that makes the match more exciting.

But RPGs aren't PvP games usually. They're PvE games, and interesting encounter design is needed to make it engaging. You can't just drop random mobs at the players, that's gonna become boring and repetitive in the long run.

Compare board games and card games to pen and paper RPGs. RPGs have a DM who designs an adventure in advance, or who buys an adventure module to lead his players through. Encounters are hand-placed, a story is made up to engage the player with the content, the players will likely engage with long-running questlines that last for several sessions, they get to talk to NPCs and interact with a believable world. RPGs were never meant to have a large degree of randomness. Dungeons are designed by the DM, the plot is written by the DM, encounters and loot are usually created by the DM too (although sometimes DMs roll for loot).

RPGs have always been a content-focused genre. The entire role of the DM is pretty much "dude/dudette who presents you with the usually hand-crafted content".