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Are Action RPGs Dull?

sea

inXile Entertainment
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Short answer: yes, if developers continue to make mechanically simple hack-and-slash games that don't have significant gameplay depth in terms of control interface and character development.

Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls are two obvious examples of action-RPGs which are not dull because they are not mechanically simplistic. The Witcher 2 is one of those games that's somewhere in the middle but trends towards being simplistic, by comparison. Fact is that "hack and slash" is kind of a genre in its own right so it's not surprising developers are more interested in catering to the larger audience that wants simpler, easier games - less trouble to develop them too.
 

Machocruz

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There is a thin line between hack and slash and ARPG that's being drawn here. Dark Alliance is an ARPG, a console ARPG like those early Falcom games, but even more complex than those (but somehow duller). Same with Champions of Norrath. That a PC arpg can be far more complex doesn't make the simple ones less part of the genre.

Problem with Diablo 2 and clones is too many damn enemies to click on. If your combat control is that limited in the first place, least you can do is not require me to spam it hundreds of times per minute. Of course you can just run by hordes of enemies and bet your levels from champions, boss packs, etc.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
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What is the difference in combat of Witcher 2 and Derp Souls?
1) Armor has significant impact on mobility
2) More options for dodging and parrying etc.
3) Weapons have much greater variety and have more nuance and subtlety required to use them well
4) Timing of attacks is much more precise
5) Direction of attacks is much more important to success
6) It's way fucking harder and requires mastery of the mechanics rather than just roll + roll to win
7) Enemies have significantly more varied attack patterns, movement speeds, etc. and require different strategies to take down
 

Hobo Elf

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So you were calling it Derp Souls before you knew anythiing about it?
I saw the videos. The combat is terrible. But so is Witcher 2. I was only comparing between them.
You can tell the combat is terrible because you watched a video and never played it?
Yes.

When I saw the very first Demon's Souls video ever I thought that the combat was the worst looking shit I've ever seen in my entire life. The way it looks, feels and plays out are completely different, though. You have to play it to get a feel for what the combat is really about. Dark Souls combat is no exception.
 

Hobo Elf

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Relying on your shield early on is an ok strategy, but later you will get destroyed if you rely too much on it. Also, what games are there that fit your criteria of a good action game? I can't think of any. And what's bad with enemy patterns? They can and are challenging if well done.
 

Hobz

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Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
I am not going to debate this since it is damn difficult to debate Good and Bad points of action combat. But one of the most important is reacticivity of the opponent. The opponent should react to YOUR actions. Dark Souls looks like a QTE where all you have to do (like in Gothic) is to learn the timing of your opponents and strike in intervals and use the shield for the rest.

Thank you for your in-depth analysis of the combat mechanisms of a game you've never played. As expected you are spot-on.
 

Horus

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Before we attempt to engage with the crux of the matter as to whether the Action RPG is dull, we must first ask ourselves "What is an Action RPG?"

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granit

Scholar
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Mar 1, 2013
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Action RPGs are bad things because of Todd Howard's that doesn't really want an RPG experience, they want action games.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Here's the funny thing: they wouldn't like actual action games like God Hand or Ninja Gaiden, either. They just want some brain-dead "hurr I kill everything" game that you can slash through in a weekend, rather than an actual experience, filled with struggle and misery. If Todd Howards played one of the actual Edward_R_Murrow-approved games he'd be all like "fuck this, not accessible enough".
 
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Yep, same as the FPS/RPG hybrids. Made for people who want to shoot bitches and fuck aliens, but not actually play an RPG nor an FPS.
 

Metro

Arcane
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Shrek you are fast becoming a shit poster with these nonsensical opinions.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
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I am not going to debate this since it is damn difficult to debate Good and Bad points of action combat. But one of the most important is reacticivity of the opponent. The opponent should react to YOUR actions. Dark Souls looks like a QTE where all you have to do (like in Gothic) is to learn the timing of your opponents and strike in intervals and use the shield for the rest.
They do this in Dark Souls.
  • Enemies keep their guard up until you show a weakness, like dropping your shield or swinging up to attack.
  • Many enemies will time their attacks to get in between your strikes.
  • A few enemy types will circle behind you while one draws your attention and try to stab you in the back.
  • Enemies have different weapon types and will switch them according to the situation (i.e. archers switching to melee).
  • Ranged attackers will relentlessly pepper you with attacks, forcing you to constantly move or use a shield.
  • Enemies will use shields and slowly advance on you if you use ranged weapons, trying to close distance as quickly as possible, or in some cases they will turtle in cover to force you to change tactics.
  • Many melee enemies will throw you off guard by varying attack patterns and canceling their combo chains.
  • Enemies (including bosses) will chase you mercilessly, and many are able to jump up ledges etc. to prevent the use of cheese tactics.
  • Boss enemies will use powerful attacks that send you flying near ledges, to send you falling to your death.
  • Bosses are aware of the fact that players can roll and dodge, and will time and lead their attacks to prevent you from dodge-spamming.
You see all this in the first 1-2 hours of gameplay and it does not get any less sophisticated.

Admittedly, this isn't so much good AI as it is smart encounter design and well thought out enemy composition and ability selection, but very few parts of Dark Souls let you just hack and slash your way through things, and I don't really care if the enemies aren't the most amazingly smart ever if the end result is a challenging game.

On top of that, you have plenty of complexity in character and equipment systems:
  • Different weapon types don't just have different stats, they also have dramatically different speeds (pre-swing, attack, follow-through, recovery), different ranges, different attack directions, different combos, different blocking and parrying capabilities, different momentum, different amounts of character movement/commitment required, etc.
  • Armor types influence your protection level, movement speed, attack speed, stamina recovery, and more.
  • There are about a dozen core character stats, all of which have varying affects both on the "feel" of gameplay (movement speed, attack speed, dodge speed, special moves, and so on), and also which influence secondary attributes in varying ways as well.
That's not even getting into the magic system, which I admit I have not even touched yet. Definitely more interesting than Dark Messiah, though.

Combat in Dark Souls isn't really symmetrical so it can't be compared to Dark Messiah directly anyway. In Dark Messiah you have enemies with near-like ability sets and you fight only a handful of opponents at once. In Dark Souls you deal with much more varied types of enemies who have more specialized roles, and it's the specific composition of each encounter that tests your reflexes as well as your intelligence in prioritizing threats, using correct weapons and items, etc. It's not really fair to compare the two because they have different goals from each other.

Last, aside from the fact that you're basically just spouting uninformed BS, if your criteria for good action RPG combat is "enemies respond to what you do" then it's worth pointing out how extremely subjective that criteria is, especially as it's hard to really quantify or tell whether those are intelligent enemies or just their particular attack patterns and the limitations of the player character tricking you into thinking they are more reactive than they really are. I could just as easily say "predictable enemies with pre-defined attack patterns who don't react to the player" is my criteria for what makes good action RPG combat, and not only would it be just as subjective and therefore difficult to really quantify or qualify by any standard we agree upon, but we could even, depending on our own interpretations of games, come up with the exact same games as examples for completely opposite arguments.
 

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