Zanzoken
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2014
- Messages
- 3,585
Kind of moving this in another direction...what are everyone's thoughts on the necessity of trash mobs?
I like interesting and challenging combat. However, going from hard combat to hard combat to hard combat, etc. for the entire game can be exhausting. It'd be like the equivalent of playing 20 hard chess matches in a row back to back. At some point you need a break.
I think a bit of trash mobs (encounters less than level 7 on a 1-10 scale) here and there is ok if you can vary and sprinkle in a bit of everything. Some tactics games feel like I need to take a break after 2 battles. Especially if they last long.
I don't mind smashing a few trash mobs here and there. Easy fights do have their applications... like in the early game when you are just learning the systems, after your characters get new abilities, or when new enemy types are introduced.
Probably the more salient point, though, is that modern RPGs just have too much combat. Kill things, kill things, maybe pass a skill check or something, kill things. That's what the genre has devolved into and by the way, each playthrough takes 100 hours so it's not humanly possible for even a simple majority of that to be meaningful.
Anyway, not trying to rant but anybody remember Ocarina of Time on the N64? Think of all the shit you could do in that game that didn't involve fighting. You could explore secret passages, catch fish, collect masks, do a shooting gallery, plant sprouts and then ride around on magic leaves later. Dungeons were a mix of combat and puzzles -- hard enough to challenge you for a bit, but not a slog. Boss battles were tough and took skill to beat without resorting to HP bloat and all the gimmicks we see nowadays.
There was even that quest to construct the Biggoron's sword that had like a dozen steps and could almost be considered an easter egg. Forget quest markers, I don't think there were even any instructions period -- you just had to figure it out on your own.
So I'm not saying RPGs should mimic Zelda -- in fact, I wouldn't even call it an RPG series -- but do you see the point? In many ways, Ocarina has better role-playing elements than modern "legit" RPGs like Pillars or even D:OS. They didn't have to pad the game with tons of excess fighting because there's a lot of other shit in the world that is genuinely interesting and fun to explore. It shows that a game can be centrally and fundamentally about conflict, without being consumed by it.