Do you believe in the concept of "system bloat" in RPGs?

[Vic]

I feel like there are 2 camps here:

1) Luj, who seems to be closer to being a wargamer than a rpg player.
2) rusty & co. who are closer to rpg than wargaming.

What's the difference? One camp values immersion while the other wants intellectually stimulating gameplay mechanics.

If we think from an immersion perspective, then more systems are indeed better because they flesh out the game world, add more content and options and generally enrich the gameplay experience.

If we look at it from a, mh, challenge to be overcome perspective, ie I want to beat the game and move on, then indeed a more streamlined and polished core gameplay loop is prefered.

This is something I've been thinking of recently, that the only reason I'm playing RPGs nowadays is for the simulator aspect. I want to be put in the role of a character and do interesting things. If I want actually interesting, well-balanced combat, I do prefer to play strategy games, as RPG elements actually dillute the strategic gameplay and it becomes impossible to balance when you have unknown factors like equipment, levels etc.

 

[Zombra]

I feel like there are 2 camps here:
1) Luj, who seems to be closer to being a wargamer than a rpg player.
2) rusty & co. who are closer to rpg than wargaming.
What's the difference? One camp values immersion while the other wants intellectually stimulating gameplay mechanics.

The fundamental assumption here is that more shit = better immersion. That's simply not the case.

 

[Vic]

honestly? Just look at Bethesda mods

Graphic Content

If that is not immersive, I don't know what is.

 

[Vic]

Do you believe in the concept of "system bloat" in RPGs?

Of course. More is not always better; it's that simple.

Not every game's intended experience is for players to have a big playground of unrelated systems to goof around with at their leisure, and as a player, this is generally not what I am looking for. I want an experience with focus and direction; really good combat mechanics, or really thoughtful detective mechanics, or brilliantly diverse yet balanced party building, or really good psycho horror. None of these are helped by a fishing minigame, stacking dinner plates, or collecting floating gold coins hidden around the levels. That shit only serves to distract from why I'm really here, and saps the impact of what the game is supposed to be about.

Sure, sometimes a playground filled with a million toys can be fun, if that's the point; but for me it is almost never the point.

Oh, yeah, well you clearly don't fall into the immersion category. I'm interested what rusty_shackleford thinks about this, especially the horse vulva.

Just kidding about the horse vulva... what I'm trying to say is that more shit might indeed be more immersive for players who value immersion? If you have the option to raise your horse, manage a stronghold, craft your own armor, plow and manage a field, all of these things would simulate the life of your character better, no? None of this is interesting to players who approach an RPG like a game of chess of course.

 

[Zombra]

Not every game's intended experience is for players to have a big playground of unrelated systems to goof around with at their leisure, and as a player, this is generally not what I am looking for. I want an experience with focus and direction; really good combat mechanics, or really thoughtful detective mechanics, or brilliantly diverse yet balanced party building, or really good psycho horror. None of these are helped by a fishing minigame, stacking dinner plates, or collecting floating gold coins hidden around the levels. That shit only serves to distract from why I'm really here, and saps the impact of what the game is supposed to be about. Sure, sometimes a playground filled with a million toys can be fun, if that's the point; but for me it is almost never the point.

Oh, yeah, well you clearly don't fall into the immersion category.

You're still equating "big toy box filled with unrelated distractions" with immersion. Those two things are still not the same.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

in my pov:
immersive: NPC acknowledges I did something that wasn't mandatory to progress the game(especially if it wasn't obvious)
immersive: NPCs don't stand around doing nothing all day
immersive: enemies don't blindly ignore each other but actively fight against each other because the game has a well developed faction system
not immersive: horse vagina

hope that clears things up

 

[Vic]

so where do strongholds fall in that spectrum, rusty?

 

[Zombra]

so where do strongholds fall in that spectrum, rusty?

It's not a question of "are strongholds immersive Y/N". If a base building system is integrated well into a game and feels natural as part of whatever story the game is telling, and draws the player in and makes them feel like it's a consistent, sensible world, then it's immersive. If it's crap tacked on badly because the publisher says 'the kids are buying games with base builder minigame so you have to do it' then it is not immersive.

 

[Vic]

so basically what I and others have been already saying

Usually if a system is well developed people don't call it bloat, it's because they are shallow that people feel that way.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

so where do strongholds fall in that spectrum, rusty?

It's not a question of "are strongholds immersive Y/N". If a base building system is integrated well into a game and feels natural as part of whatever story the game is telling, and draws the player in and makes them feel like it's a consistent, sensible world, then it's immersive. If it's crap tacked on badly because the publisher says 'the kids are buying games with base builder minigame so you have to do it' then it is not immersive.

things like the nwn2 questline where a novice adventuring party comes to your stronghold to seek quests was cool and an obvious example of something very underdone

can't count the amount of rpgs I've played where I get tasked with some assignment of small importance despite being Very Important at the time storywise with no way to delegate it

 

[Vic]

so lemme get this straight, rusty.

if a stronghold system is not well integrated and overall poorly done, it would indeed be considered bloat?

 

[Vic]

So maybe the question is not are strongholds bloat, but do you think they are well designed? To which I would say heck, no. If I want good base building I go and play strategy games. It would be very challenging to integrate good base building like in strategy games with good RPG gameplay.

 

[Zombra]

so basically what I and others have been already saying

Usually if a system is well developed people don't call it bloat, it's because they are shallow that people feel that way.

Pretty much. luj talks about "core gameplay" which is an important concept. To me if enough development resources are invested to seamlessly dovetail a system into the whole picture ... that's pretty much core gameplay, or at least so complimentary to the core that it can't be considered bloat. Like a solid RPG with well integrated party building and base building, to me that's all "core" and it's all "immersive". If the same game also has a crappy QTE shoe shining minigame that doesn't fit well, that part is neither "core" nor "immersive" and can be considered bloat.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

so lemme get this straight, rusty.

if a stronghold system is not well integrated and overall poorly done, it would indeed be considered bloat?

did you read my first posts in this thread?

 

[Vic]

so basically what I and others have been already saying

Usually if a system is well developed people don't call it bloat, it's because they are shallow that people feel that way.

Pretty much. luj talks about "core gameplay" which is an important concept. To me if enough development resources are invested to seamlessly dovetail a system into the whole picture ... that's pretty much core gameplay, or at least so complimentary to the core that it can't be considered bloat. Like a solid RPG with well integrated party building and base building, to me that's all "core" and it's all "immersive". If the same game also has a crappy QTE shoe shining minigame that doesn't fit well, that part is neither "core" nor "immersive" and can be considered bloat.

I completely agree, I'd just like to add one thing, for players who are after immersion, like Bethesda fans, I think the "core gameplay" might be very close to a sim, in which case I do believe that more possibile activities add to their enjoyment of the game, all the mods on the nexus that try and the fact that the latest re-realease of Skyrim came with a fishing and hunting mod, among other things might be evidence to that claim.

 

[Radiane]

Too sophisticated system bloat leads to retardation of the actual gameplay, therefore a careful balancing by the game devs is mandatory; you may want a bit of system bloat because the game gets too stale if you don't, otoh too much of it just confuses the standard gamer-it's also important taking into consideration how much of a niche game you have at hand, the more niche, the more bloating is typically accepted by the player base. Also don't bloat just for the sake of bloating.

 

[Vic]

so lemme get this straight, rusty.

if a stronghold system is not well integrated and overall poorly done, it would indeed be considered bloat?

did you read my first posts in this thread?

sorry, I had to delete my post just now as I was derping out.

So to you there are bad systems that might be added to otherwise good gameplay, but you wouldn't consider them bloat, ok..

 

[Vic]

the more niche, the more bloating is typically accepted by the player base.

I have to disagree here, bloat usually is a marketing descision as the company wants to appeal to a wider userbase. If a game is niche, it has by definition a specific audience it tries to appeal to.

This is why going mainstream for RPGs was the cause for a lot of bloat being added to games.

 

[gurugeorge]

The immersiveness/simulation idea can definitely work, there's nothing intrinsically problematic about having fishing in a game as a side-activity, but it has to have a "place" in some sense in the gamey side of the gameplay.

The standard example along these lines that always comes to mind: Skyrim has tremendous scope for realism fluff, the sense of realism, of a wide open space to explore, is initially quite attractive, and it's been exploited by modders quite well. And in terms of useability, most of those realism mods for the Bethesda games are great. But the problem is the world isn't set up for them, they're not integrated. The game world of Skyrim is relatively cramped, you can't walk for a minute without coming across a "point of interest" because that's how the game is designed - you do a dungeon or a quest, have a quick wander and move on to the next POI in short order. That's the loop, and the realism mods don't really fit in well with it. One tries them, has a bit of fun with them, but eventually one goes back to playing Skyrim as Skyrim, because that's how it was designed.

However, if the world of Skyrim was much more spread out, with lots of really wide open wild spaces, then you'd have a necessity to hunt to survive, to be able to camp to survive, to have a horse (and look after it, feed it, etc.) to be able to get across those wide open spaces. Then the realism mods would be meaningful in gameplay terms, they would be woven into the adventure in a truly immersive way, with each "fluff" aspect being a potential solution to a problem that engages the gamey part of the brain (e.g. resource management) as well as the feeling of "being there." It's always both together that's the ideal, I think.

 

[Ravielsk]

Bloat can absolutely exist anywhere and in anything. The only question is whether its more a nuisance or a hindrance.
In worst cases it can completely sink the game. However the worst example that comes to mind is not a RPG but a card game. Yu-gi-oh used to be this seemingly uber-complicated game that was actually really simple with the only really complicated mechanic being chaining effects(a.k.a the order in which card effect are triggered). But then they started adding new summoning mechanics that effectively were just bypasses for the core mechanics and the game fell apart into utter obscurity because it became impossible to balance a game where every other card may as well say "screw the rules, just do whatever" with the only half counters being cards that may as well say "nu-uh, fuck you".

The game has become so bloated that a new player straight up has no chance of building a functional deck themselves simply because that is no longer a process centered on what the deck can do for itself but on what it can stop your opponent from doing. Because the only way to play is to straight up block your opponent from playing and praying that his BS deck does not contain a counter to your BS.

Its a classic example of bloat that is so obnoxious that unless you play the game yourself its effectively impossible to explain in detail how it fucks the game in every way possible.

 

[Zombra]

players who are after immersion, like Bethesda fans

I'm going to REALLY try to stop harping on this, but I think you need to check your use of the word "immersion". You lean on it a lot but I don't think it means what you think it means. Moving forward, please consider using a different term. It's driving me up the wall.

 

[Zombra]

I completely agree, I'd just like to add one thing, for players who are after immersion, like Bethesda fans, I think the "core gameplay" might be very close to a sim, in which case I do believe that more possibile activities add to their enjoyment of the game, all the mods on the nexus that try and the fact that the latest re-realease of Skyrim came with a fishing and hunting mod, among other things might be evidence to that claim.

Leaving aside your use of "that word" , sure, if the core intended experience of a game is playing with a bunch of toys scattered on the floor, then I agree that more toys can't really be considered "bloat". The question then kinda becomes "Well what IS the core gameplay here?" Bethesda is honestly a really weird case, because their games are all designed by a huge committee, and yes, redesigned by a bunch of different modders ... I bet none of them can say in 10 words or less what Skyrim is. It's just a scattered grab bag of hilarious stuff, with no vision or purpose. It's certainly not a quest to hunt down a big world eating dragon (and if it is, then yes, Skyrim is 80+% 'bloat' because it mostly has nothing to do with that). Modders only fragment the center of the game even more. In this light one might say with some validity that Bethesda games are all bloat.

 

[Vic]

I bet none of them can say in 10 words or less what Skyrim is. It's just a scattered grab bag of hilarious stuff, with no vision or purpose.

I can tell you in a handful of words what Skyrim is: A medieval fantasy life sim. You become a dude in a fantasy world and live your life there. Fishing, fucking, anything you might wanna do, there's a mod for it.

At the end of the day immersion = escapism. That may be achieved with systems that simulate a real breathing world, with narrative, a reactive world, etc. It's not really important how we become immersed, my point was more that for players who seek to have a more, ahem, engrossing experience, like rusty the closet Bethesda fanboy, that more systems that add more aspects of a fantasy life might be appealing.

For people, and I was of them, who play RPGs for the tactical combat, all that stuff might stand in the way. All of this is just conjecture of course, but the way luj and rusty were arguing, this is the feel I've got, that they reall want different things from an RPG

I do believe that RPGs are trying to do too much, systembloat is inherent in the RPG genre going back to its roots, but modern cRPGs are the worst offenders, and the reason is because they try to appeal to the largest audience. So you have storyfags and combatfags who play the same game for different reasons, each of them might consider certain aspects of the game as standing in the way of their core gameplay loop.

This is why I also agree with luj that games should be simpler. To have a clear core gameplay loop that appeals to a certain audience. Why have a game that is an RPG and a base builder? Why not just make 2 games? Why add tons of dialogue to a game with a deep combat system? Would great combat have made PS:T a better game? I think the opposite, in fact. The same for Disco Elysium. These games know what they're trying to achieve. There's a reason why people call Skyrim shallow, because it's a mass-appeal product, it can't by definition have any meaningful depth in any one dimension. It's RPG fast food.

But at the same time, that's not the reality, RPGs are a mainstream form of entertainemnt that a wide variety of people enjoy. So, I guess just accept it and move on with the times? Or go play indie games, I guess.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

To concretize the "bunch of toys" example, consider Tabletop Simulator. This essentially simulates playing card and board games over the net. For a game like that there is a real sense in which more is better - a wider variety of playable games in the simulator is better than fewer, and adding a new game isn't experienced as bloat.

In this case the simulator itself doesn't really have a core gameplay loop. The way systems bloat could happen there would be through the addition of unnecessary systems to the simulation layer (e.g. player avatars, a musical score, etc.)

 

[Vic]

a few people don't realize that the word "bloat" is inherently negative, like this retard:

you may want a bit of system bloat because the game gets too stale if you don't, otoh too much of it just confuses the standard gamer

If it's a game for a combatfag, you can't have enough combat centric systems, just look at the success of Paradox games.