Can a good RPG have too many gameplay systems?

[Darth Canoli]

Depends on your skillset and what you consider decent.
If we're talking indie games, you're gonna get Quake, Thief, or Morrowind quality of 3D easier than you can get early 90s adventure game pixel art quality, especially once you factor in the animations

I'm not sure about this.
And of course, depending on the budget, animations are superfluous (not good SFX thiough) or just basic animations.

Maybe shitty 3D graphics with non optimized assets and engine are cheaper but you're not going to make a good game out of it, let alone a great one.

I don't mind good looking 3D isometric graphics but more often than not 3D goes along with a lot of cosmetic shit nowadays and in the end, it's not cheaper.

 

[JarlFrank]

Depends on your skillset and what you consider decent.
If we're talking indie games, you're gonna get Quake, Thief, or Morrowind quality of 3D easier than you can get early 90s adventure game pixel art quality, especially once you factor in the animations

I'm not sure about this.
And of course, depending on the budget, animations are superfluous (not good SFX thiough) or just basic animations.

Maybe shitty 3D graphics with non optimized assets and engine are cheaper but you're not going to make a good game out of it, let alone a great one.

I don't mind good looking 3D isometric graphics but more often than not 3D goes along with a lot of cosmetic shit nowadays and in the end, it's not cheaper.

I mean, if you go for mid-tier 3D in a free-to-use engine like Unity or Unreal, you can buy a whole load of decent assets for less than a hundred bucks. And these assets are super flexible. They become even more flexible when you go for a CSG/BSP level design approach.
Just use something like this:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/modeling/realtime-csg-69542

Bam. All you need is some decent textures and you can make any kind of level architecture you want.

Then you populate that level with NPCs that use a modular clothing system like this:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/uma-2-unity-multipurpose-avatar-35611

And bam. You can just slap any kind of equipment on those character models and you're done.

Extremely flexible, especially when you're going for a large game with lots of assets.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Depends on your skillset and what you consider decent.
If we're talking indie games, you're gonna get Quake, Thief, or Morrowind quality of 3D easier than you can get early 90s adventure game pixel art quality, especially once you factor in the animations

I'm not sure about this.
And of course, depending on the budget, animations are superfluous (not good SFX thiough) or just basic animations.

Maybe shitty 3D graphics with non optimized assets and engine are cheaper but you're not going to make a good game out of it, let alone a great one.

I don't mind good looking 3D isometric graphics but more often than not 3D goes along with a lot of cosmetic shit nowadays and in the end, it's not cheaper.

3D is more flexible and allows to make quick changes and adjustments.

2D may appear easier because you can cobble together small pixel tiles in a matter of minutes, but in reality there's more work involved since you'll have to draw each animation frame by hand and adjust them too whenever you make changes to the character design. That, and you can't reuse animations between characters like with 3D, adding extra work on top of what you need to do.

 

[gurugeorge]

I think a lot of complexity vs simplicity depends on how smoothly the complexity is integrated into the gameplay, which I think maybe depends on whether it was planned into the game from the beginning or is bolted on later in response to demand.

It's never been such a big issue with CRPGs (apart from the "too many collections" syndrome), since those usually use systems that have already had their complexity integrated into them in their basic design (D&D, Pathfinder). The problem with CRPGs is more about levers that look pretty but just spin around uselessly and don't do anything (feats and traits that are a "waste of a pick", like in Fallout) either because the game was unfinished or because they're tabletop features that don't "translate well."

but it's always been a huge problem for multiplayer games and MMOs. Thinking about Warframe there, from being an elegant multiplayer looter-shooter with good systems well-integrated into the gameplay, it's become a complete heath robinsonesque nightmare. That's a particularly egregious example, but most MMOs have suffered a similar fate over time.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I mean, if you go for mid-tier 3D in a free-to-use engine like Unity or Unreal, you can buy a whole load of decent assets for less than a hundred bucks. And these assets are super flexible. They become even more flexible when you go for a CSG/BSP level design approach.
Just use something like this:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/modeling/realtime-csg-69542

Bam. All you need is some decent textures and you can make any kind of level architecture you want.

Then you populate that level with NPCs that use a modular clothing system like this:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/uma-2-unity-multipurpose-avatar-35611

And bam. You can just slap any kind of equipment on those character models and you're done.

Extremely flexible, especially when you're going for a large game with lots of assets.

3D is more flexible and allows to make quick changes and adjustments.

2D may appear easier because you can cobble together small pixel tiles in a matter of minutes, but in reality there's more work involved since you'll have to draw each animation frame by hand and adjust them too whenever you make changes to the character design. That, and you can't reuse animations between characters like with 3D, adding extra work on top of what you need to do.

Still not convince up until i can see production costs from devs (2D vs 3D).
Besides, if you can re-use animations in 3D, you can do it as well in 2D.

Just use a "mold" for swordmen humanoids or just humanoids if multiple weapons are going to get the same animation, animate it and then apply some pixels, texture or paint you want to apply to get different units using the same animation.

If a serious team wanted to focus on 2D cRPG, they'd obviously develop such tools and it would be 1000% more optimized than any game made with unity.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Besides, if you can re-use animations in 3D, you can do it as well in 2D.

Just use a "mold" for swordmen humanoids or just humanoids if multiple weapons are going to get the same animation, animate it and then apply some pixels, texture or paint you want to apply to get different units using the same animation.

If a serious team wanted to focus on 2D cRPG, they'd obviously develop such tools and it would be 1000% more optimized than any game made with unity.

This sounds interesting, but also very impractical, because creating a mold and drawing over each animation frame would still require more time than creating a model and animating it. If you're working with a tiny team, this alone will eat through your time (and budget) even if you take extreme shortcuts. Of course, you could try a different way -- draw invidual body parts and use skeletal animation, but AFAIK this method is mostly viable for sidescrolling (Darkest Dungeon) / top down RPGs (can't think of any at this point) / sometimes 3D RPGs (Soulbringer), but the results are somewhat uncanny in my opinion and I have no idea if it's even viable for a tiny team without a decent budget.

What you've just described reminds me of pre-rendered 3D, except... why bother, when you can use 3D models instead to get the same results?

 

[Tyranicon]

Also, don't waste resources on cut-scenes and 3D graphics.

Friendly reminder that decent 3D is cheaper and more versatile than decent 2D.

Doesn't it take more hours to get decent at 3D than 2D? Though obviously if you're just hiring someone else there are better freelance 3D artists around than 2D ones.

Having made the switch from 2D to 2.5D isometric (that is essentially crappy 3D)... I hate 3D.

A decent 3D game is still very, very hard for a solodev. Especially if it's a sprawling RPG with a huge scope. If we're talking about Five Nights at Freddies or something, it's fine. But if you're building a 3D RPG, you're gonna need more than one person.

One thing I never understood is why devs take 3D assets and then force a fixed view camera, eliminating most of the advantages of 3D in the first place. You could've had gorgeous 2D art and painted backgrounds.

But instead your game looks like shit and performs like shit.

 

[Tihskael]

If they don't get in the way of me having fun and let me absorb the content at my own pace, then good. Otherwise, if a developer just wants to shove random incomprehensible systems that don't serve a clear purpose and don't substantially improve the experience, then

 

[anvi]

If they are good then no.

 

[Torus]

I think Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is a great example of good complexity. So much more interesting than normal jrpgs with the swapping and timeline considerations. In addition to fairly different characters and subclasses.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Can you put too many toppings on a pizza?

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Depends on your skillset and what you consider decent.
If we're talking indie games, you're gonna get Quake, Thief, or Morrowind quality of 3D easier than you can get early 90s adventure game pixel art quality, especially once you factor in the animations.

Let's say something like Fortnite in 3D. Something that's not RPGCodex decent, since most would put our own graphics snobs to shame with their hatred of those game's styles. Something generally beloved but isn't insanely detailed. I think early '90s adventure game art is a good comparison to run against.

Still not convince up until i can see production costs from devs (2D vs 3D).
Besides, if you can re-use animations in 3D, you can do it as well in 2D.

Assuming you're not just making simple palette changes, re-using animations in 3D is way, way easier. With 3D models, you have something called a skeleton, which is used to animate a model. Every character that uses the same skeleton can share an animation. In 2D, its as ZZ said.

Just use a "mold" for swordmen humanoids or just humanoids if multiple weapons are going to get the same animation, animate it and then apply some pixels, texture or paint you want to apply to get different units using the same animation.

You're describing what Flash used to do, or at least I think that's what Flash used to do. I've never used Flash, but I believe they set it up so you could attach pieces in a way that was similar to a 3D skeleton. Of course the problem with this is that as soon as you realized that, you could spot most Flash animation a mile off. The closest to something like that but simpler, is a game called Bastard Bonds, which has some very customizable characters, being pixel art, but has some simple, very non-pixel art style animations.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

and then force a fixed view camera, eliminating most of the advantages of 3D in the first place.

Fixed-camera view means designers only have to design for exactly one camera view and know exactly where the camera will be placed. I don't see any advantage to being able to rotate a camera in bird's eye view games, it's just annoying.

You could've had gorgeous 2D art and painted backgrounds.

Most "gorgeous 2D art and painted background" games you can think of used prerendered assets which were sometimes handpainted over -- mostly due to technical limitations.

The downside? It's not a real 3D world. No real-time lighting or shadows, in general no environment interactions, physics issues, etc.,
PoE used extensive hacks to get around these limitations. Even Sawyer has admitted it was too much effort to be worth it.

PoE(deadfire, at least -- first PoE probably used a similar but simpler system) is just a pre-rendered 2D background draped over a real 3D world. It was easily the most extensive "2D pretending to be 3D" system in any cRPG, and possibly the last time it will ever be used by a big budget game.
To fully understand what I mean, watch this video to the end:

You'll even see that the interactable objects are actually real 3D objects and not prerendered. They stick out ingame like those old cartoons where the animated things would be of a different color.

Collision meshes are invisible, but I wish they would have toggled them on to give a better idea of what's going on here. PoE is a real 3D world with a semi-2D presentation.

They used various rendering tricks to enable things like real-time lighting and shadows(entire scene has one giant normal map baked for it.) And, IIRC, static objects don't cast dynamic shadows -- only dynamic objects can.
All this just to claw back the things they lost by not actually being 3D.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

oh look
2021 and codexers still detest 3d graphics and rotatable cameras
some things never change

fixed

Might want to provide an argument as to why rotating cameras are good. They seem pretty annoying to me.

 

[Zeriel]

Yes, Path of Exile is a prime example. Well, maybe not "RPG" or "good", but it's an example of what happens when developers just ladle new systems onto a game with no thought over time.

 

[J1M]

My current game is falling victim to scope creep (pretty damn hard too), so I was wondering if there are good RPGs that have an abundance of gameplay systems/mechanics/features/whatever. Complexity does not always equal richness of experience, but sometimes it can.

Of course, this depends pretty heavily on the implementation/quality of said systems.

Yes. Usually this system is referred to as 'crafting'.

 

[Tyranicon]

Fixed-camera view means designers only have to design for exactly one camera view and know exactly where the camera will be placed. I don't see any advantage to being able to rotate a camera in bird's eye view games, it's just annoying.

Might want to provide an argument as to why rotating cameras are good. They seem pretty annoying to me.

Not simply rotating. I agree that a simple rotating camera adds tons of extra work without bringing much to the table. I'm talking about more complete camera control: being able to zoom in, pan, switch perspectives, etc.

Yes, it's a hell of a lot of work. This is something I have firsthand experience in as I am currently building a game that can switch seamlessly between 3D, isometric and 2D (I can even implement first-person easily if I should choose). And I do take shortcuts, the first of which is actually removing a rotating camera (I don't want to have to decorate more than one wall). If I had a bigger team I would absolutely add back rotating, zooming and panning features.

So I know it's a difficult and time-consuming task, but it also allows your 3D to shine like an actual, y'know, AA or AAA quality game, instead of some shitty asset flip made by a solodev like me.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

 

[J1M]

Besides, if you can re-use animations in 3D, you can do it as well in 2D.

Just use a "mold" for swordmen humanoids or just humanoids if multiple weapons are going to get the same animation, animate it and then apply some pixels, texture or paint you want to apply to get different units using the same animation.

If a serious team wanted to focus on 2D cRPG, they'd obviously develop such tools and it would be 1000% more optimized than any game made with unity.

This sounds interesting, but also very impractical, because creating a mold and drawing over each animation frame would still require more time than creating a model and animating it. If you're working with a tiny team, this alone will eat through your time (and budget) even if you take extreme shortcuts. Of course, you could try a different way -- draw invidual body parts and use skeletal animation, but AFAIK this method is mostly viable for sidescrolling (Darkest Dungeon) / top down RPGs (can't think of any at this point) / sometimes 3D RPGs (Soulbringer), but the results are somewhat uncanny in my opinion and I have no idea if it's even viable for a tiny team without a decent budget.

What you've just described reminds me of pre-rendered 3D, except... why bother, when you can use 3D models instead to get the same results?

It's a clumsy description of one of the cheapest ways to increase enemy variety: a palette-swap...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Besides, if you can re-use animations in 3D, you can do it as well in 2D.

Just use a "mold" for swordmen humanoids or just humanoids if multiple weapons are going to get the same animation, animate it and then apply some pixels, texture or paint you want to apply to get different units using the same animation.

If a serious team wanted to focus on 2D cRPG, they'd obviously develop such tools and it would be 1000% more optimized than any game made with unity.

This sounds interesting, but also very impractical, because creating a mold and drawing over each animation frame would still require more time than creating a model and animating it. If you're working with a tiny team, this alone will eat through your time (and budget) even if you take extreme shortcuts. Of course, you could try a different way -- draw invidual body parts and use skeletal animation, but AFAIK this method is mostly viable for sidescrolling (Darkest Dungeon) / top down RPGs (can't think of any at this point) / sometimes 3D RPGs (Soulbringer), but the results are somewhat uncanny in my opinion and I have no idea if it's even viable for a tiny team without a decent budget.

What you've just described reminds me of pre-rendered 3D, except... why bother, when you can use 3D models instead to get the same results?

It's a clumsy description of one of the cheapest ways to increase enemy variety: a palette-swap...

I think palette swapping can work if it's used sparsely, but only if the base roster (without swaps) is varied enough on its own, otherwise it might feel cheap as fuck.

 

[J1M]

and then force a fixed view camera, eliminating most of the advantages of 3D in the first place.

Fixed-camera view means designers only have to design for exactly one camera view and know exactly where the camera will be placed. I don't see any advantage to being able to rotate a camera in bird's eye view games, it's just annoying.

You could've had gorgeous 2D art and painted backgrounds.

Most "gorgeous 2D art and painted background" games you can think of used prerendered assets which were sometimes handpainted over -- mostly due to technical limitations.

The downside? It's not a real 3D world. No real-time lighting or shadows, in general no environment interactions, physics issues, etc.,
PoE used extensive hacks to get around these limitations. Even Sawyer has admitted it was too much effort to be worth it.

PoE(deadfire, at least -- first PoE probably used a similar but simpler system) is just a pre-rendered 2D background draped over a real 3D world. It was easily the most extensive "2D pretending to be 3D" system in any cRPG, and possibly the last time it will ever be used by a big budget game.
To fully understand what I mean, watch this video to the end:

You'll even see that the interactable objects are actually real 3D objects and not prerendered. They stick out ingame like those old cartoons where the animated things would be of a different color.

Collision meshes are invisible, but I wish they would have toggled them on to give a better idea of what's going on here. PoE is a real 3D world with a semi-2D presentation.

They used various rendering tricks to enable things like real-time lighting and shadows(entire scene has one giant normal map baked for it.) And, IIRC, static objects don't cast dynamic shadows -- only dynamic objects can.
All this just to claw back the things they lost by not actually being 3D.

Based on what I've heard about other technical decisions at Obsidian, I have to assume that they overcomplicated things.

An example of the same technique, done by one person by combining color, normal, and height images using a pixel shader (see end of video for normal/height maps):

 

[InSight]

Yes. Gameplay as mechanics>as rules>what allowed/can to not allowed in the game.
Dungeon and Dragon at least the 2nd and 3rd and its variants are complex which many good regarded CRPG and are based upon.

Fallout,Baldurs gate 1&2 ,Arcanum are complex games even if the challenge/trails/tests in them are easy. Overworld map, dialog tree, skill checks, management (item, character),Character growth/modification , distance/trajectory and more/so forth/at cetere... Together they make complex game. Complex is often many simple things woven.

Additional examples aside these mentioned and have been played:
Mount and Blade, Disgaea 4, Kingdom Come Deliverance, even Pillers of Eternity 1&2 provide a diverse character builds thus making it decent game thus good.

Complexity add/multiply variety thus add simulation/stimulation of the mind/brain for a lengthier periods compared/contrast to simple games. There is more to play with.
Generally all good games and above are complex games. Even good detailed graphic are of complexity(many simple shapes form a detailed shape) and are part of the complexity of games (lighting system, field of view)

The scope creep should not cause:

• Overall tediousness: Cause high repetition per time spent. The less clicks per more variation provided the better per time spend (action/results/time). There need to be an option to quicken/skip/automate these.
• Slow down the flow of the game, bog/clog/lag the engine. Unless the many/multitude of these feature/system cause lag, make the game performance slow, they are not an issue.

Note:Game systems should be limited by what Zed Duke of Banville(resources) and Crispy(game/world settings) mentioned. Or create world/settings that would fit the game system/mechanics/rules.

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm glad to say none of this discourse has dissuaded me from packing more mechanics into my game like a weary hooker during a 3-for-1 special. I'm adding a relationship mechanic that became a fullblown dialogue rework. Now companions have unique dialogue depending on a number of triggers, such as being pissed for at you for having sex with the party nymphomaniac.

 

[Newfag-er]

If the system doesn't have any cohesiveness then without a doubt it can be awful

To give a more blatant example alot of terrible action diablo like hack and slash are like this. You can find them quiet a few places