Has C&C become the cancer of RPGs?

[Alexios]

JarlFrank has a fair take on it and makes a good argument for how C&C makes story into part of a game, but for me, even when 'done well', story cannot replace gameplay. So I prefer games that come down on the 'minimalist story, focus is on the gameplay' side of things. From that side of things, it's hard not to see C&C as little more than an excuse for devs to focus less on their combat systems, itemisation and area design, and more on dialogue trees and ending cutscenes.

Ideally, a game dev would set the C&C-heavy story upon a foundation of good gameplay.

I'm firmly in the gameplay-first camp, too, don't get me wrong. A C&C-heavy story is great icing on the cake, however, and when done right can propel the game to the next level.

If you focus on C&C only and leave out exploration and all that other jazz you get Age of Decadence, which is a good game and interesting experiment but can't hold a candle to Fallout and Arcanum because of how it streamlines everything in favor of the C&C focus, ultimately leading to the game being a more complex version of a gamebook.

I wouldn't really agree that AoD is solely a C&C game. There are substantive differences between the different classes and more reasons to replay the game beyond seeing how choosing to take one love interest over another impacts the game.

 

[Alexios]

With Cyberpunk and The Outer Worlds, they’re advertising major narrative and gameplay C&C. Whether they end up executing well is another story, but both games are pitching a level of interactivity that you rarely see in AAA video games, including RPGs. Well-executed narrative C&C is uncommon, well-executed gameplay C&C is very rare. They’re not hyping this stuff to bamboozle idiot journalists into giving them fawning coverage, they’re hyping it because it will probably be the best thing about either title.

There has been nothing to suggest that TOW or CB2077 are going to have any, much less well-executed, gameplay C&C, though.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

CnC is something that is always good to have because it supports the key design philosophy of RPGs in several ways.

Sure badly done CnC can be a detriment just like every other aspect of RPG if done incorrectly. For example Witcher 3 leveling and character advancement is absolutely subpar and the game would be better off it it was removed from the game completely and replaced with something like Zelda. It would allow the devs to balance combat encounters better, it would allow players to do quests in any order they want and would let them explore the world more freely, it would make more sense for the story. Not being able to enter an ancient tomb because it's guarded by liches and having to to train more is interesting. Not being able to get a chest containing random loot because it's guarded by level 70 bandits and Geralt despite being a veteran warrior can only take on level 50 bandits is simply crap. However no many how many AAA games fuck-up leveling the character development won't become cancer.

Getting back to CnC and how it makes sense for RPGs to try to get them right. First of all it supports RPGs as being a tabletop RPG simulators. The main difference between pnp RPGs and other tabletop games is that things can go in unpredictable ways if players desire to. They are free to join, backstab and use everyone they want. It's great if RPGs reflect that. But yes, it should be better integrated in the gameplay than just turning the game into CoA.
The RPGs were always about sacrificing quality of the gameplay for the sake of choice. Dungeon exploration and combat could be much more challenging (in a good way) if players were handled a premade unchaining party. That way fully knowing what players can be capable off, the devs could really force the player to utilize every party member to the limit. Now combat can't be too hard because players might fail completely at character creation. Fallout bosses won't make you to fully utilize all the options of your 10 AGI combat god with all the best perks because players with unoptimal characters also need to finish the game somehow.
If a games offers players a choice to create their own character, they should give them a choice of playing that character. If I play Doom where I control a space marine I will naturally run around gunning down monster, since that's what that type of character would logically do. If I can create all kinds of characters I should get options that fit all of the archetypes. If a DnD explicitly offer me a choice to play an evil character by asking me if I want to be evil at character creation screen then I should be able to act mean in game. If a game allows me to make either a dumb psycho or an intellectual Samaritan then it should allow me to act like that in game. Make your own story is a logical conclusion of making your own character. Since differet chars fir different stories.

In addition to all the above. RPGs are story driven games and having a choice in the story can often make it more fun by itself. Hate how hero always just put villains in jail? Kill them at the first opportunity. Can't stand cringy romance subplot? Tell the thot to go fuck herself.

 

[RNGsus]

It seems that nearly every new big-budget game that is marketed as an RPG is marketed with a heavy focus on C&C.

Same marketing as pornsites, throw as many keywords as you can to catch the crowd's eye.

Not a teenage not blond 18yo daughter being willingly gangraped by not her 7 not dwarves not brothers ...

Replace the keywords by C&C, RPG, ACTION, TURN-BASED, STORY, UNIQUE CHARACTERS and SKILL TREES and you got every other wannabee RPG marketing plan ...

Of course! That's why Elon Musk was so awkward on stage with Todd Howard. They're making a porno in a tesla in space. Now I understand.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

I've never seen an E3 like game actually talk about choices and consequences. People on console can't read the text from the couch they absolutely don't care

I could go on and on. My point is that C&C has seemed to become the defining feature of the genre, and much to the genre's detriment. It seems to me that developers are compensating for their total lack of innovation by shoving something in our faces that has been a given in RPGs for decades. Since the braindead masses and gaming journalists know no better, it works.

People post on reddit gaming forums. Half these people have read Steam forums, and thus think New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 (it is), and perhaps the greatest RPG of all time (which it arguably could be). However, these redditors don't know why New Vegas is excellent -- they merely parrot what they read on Steam forums. And what do they parrot? "New Vegas is the best modern Fallout (note that they've not played 1 and 2) because it has C&C." Why is the C&C good? Because it exists, silly!

The redditors who shout the C&C slogan consider themselves "hardcore."

Enter gaming journalists. They take the opinions from this "hardcore" reddit crew in an attempt to make themselves seem "hardcore," thus building their street cred. These gaming journalists parrot the redditors who parrot the Steam forums. None of them know what they're talking about, but they all have strong opinions.

Game companies hire faggots and talentless hacks. Why do they hire faggots and talentless hacks? Because faggots and talentless hacks are:
(1) easy to control, because they are fundamentally incapable of thinking one molecule outside the pre-packaged box, and
(2) conversely, people who are actually talented and have vision are often very difficult to work with, because they know they are talented and have vision.

The faggots and talentless hacks read articles written by gaming journalists, which is nothing but transplanted reddit drivel, which is in turn nothing but Steam forum drivel. The feedback loop continues, and we get shit as aresult.

 

[†††]

Mass Effect's C&C became a fucking joke in ME3. Please don't talk to me about C&C and fucking Mass Effect.

The real C&C were the friends we made along the way

 

[Covenant]

Covenant fanfiction is a weird comparison. CRPGs that let you make narrative choices are trying to approximate the feeling of playing pen and paper RPGs that theoretically let you do anything.

The narrative choices that you can actually make are very limited, though. I appreciate the freedom of P&P RPGs, as it can make for pretty cool and unexpected experiences. Look at this story about a D&D group who abandoned their quest to focus on founding a Morgan Enterprises style empire built on selling massive quantities of salt (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tale_of_an_Industrious_Rogue,_Part_I), for example. That stuff's awesome. It became its own real adventure, with twists and turns and challenges. But we're decades from anything like that level of depth and complexity being possible in CRPGs.

Honestly, I don't think we've progressed significantly past MMVII (1999!) where you choose Light or Dark and can only use the type of magic of the side you chose. Everything else is just window dressing. Rather than the last quest being to go to map X and kill Flobius Zentrume, you have to go to map Y and hack Hrathi Beardsson's magic iPod instead, and then you get a blue ending instead of a green ending. Neat, but... so what?

I mean, what's the ultimate goal? What are you expecting 'great' C&C to be? If your RPG is about you being a bodyguard to a young heiress, but you decide to sack it off and go fishing instead, should the game become something more like Sega Bass Fishing, or Rune Factory/Harvest Moon? If you and the heiress decide to stop investigating the huge conspiracy against her and just go live under fake identities in backwoods Florida, should it become a dating game where the two of you slowly fall in love?

Or do you just want those options to be available, but if you take them you get a couple of lines of 'But that's... another story' and a faux-ending? Because that's shallow as fuck; it's purely the illusion of choice.

If anything, I think that what a lot of people claim to want is directly contradictory. The more focus there is on narrative, the less C&C there can possibly be. The more reaction there is to your unexpected decisions, the more development time grows until it quickly becomes unreasonable. Every path you add has its own branches that just increase the possibilities until you start arbitrarily limiting them. Ultimately, the requirements of the Consequences make the Choices unfeasible.

Say I kill a king's advisor, a friendly NPC I wasn't expected to kill. Nowadays, that just means I'm arrested and I have to pay a fine or I just get killed by the guards. But in this theoretical ultimate C&C RPG, I can run my own trial. I can use my vast gold resources to hire top-notch legal representation. I choose one of a number of lawyers to head my team. I naturally pick the one with the biggest tits. Then I choose to seduce my lawyer through a complicated romance path. As we're nearing the culmination of the trial I choose to cheat on her with a dwarven prison guard who offers to polish my axehead. If my lawyer finds out, she tanks my trial on purpose and I go to jail. Luckily, she doesn't; I'm free. As I'm standing on the steps of the courthouse giving my triumphant speech, I chop her head off, killing her in front of everyone. I'm arrested again. Do the same crew of top-notch legal representatives offer their services to me after what happened to my previous counsel? Will even more gold work to convince them despite their better judgement? Would the fact that I'm the destined Marked hero who is the only one that can defeat the Superdragon work as an indefinite Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card?

The above is ridiculous, obviously, but my intention is to argue that any degree of freedom offered in a narrative-driven game is by its nature both arbitrary and limited. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but that it will forever be a poor fascimile of either the freedom you'd get in P&P or the narrative you'd get in an actual decent book. A sprinkle of it can be a nice addition, like salt on your meal, but focusing on it to the detriment of important gameplay elements is a fool's errand.

If you really want to evoke the feeling of pen and paper RPGs that let you do anything, perhaps a better genre to look at would be sandbox games like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. There's less narrative, but the freedom is there, and it doesn't suddenly vanish at an arbitrary point. But then, with barely any consequences, how much is that freedom worth?

 

[thesecret1]

Do developers do this simply because C&C is very easy to do
Discuss.

What? It's one of the most difficult things to do in any game, since it increases workload exponentially. Every branching path means new content you need to make, yet without actually lenghtening the game's length (only replayability). Try making something as simple as a VN with branching paths and you'll find out how much work it adds very quickly. Modern RPGs do not implement C&C. They implement C&nothing – they throw some choices your way, but ignore the consequences, since that way, they do not actually increase their workload and avoid the entire problem. The only RPG in recent memory that implemented C&C properly was Witcher 2. Everyone else nips C&C in the bud by making consequences inconsequential or only matter in some ending slides or whatever, since that's much easier than actually having the game react.

 

[Carrion]

The story of a game is only as good as the amount of interactivity it offers to the player.

I wouldn't go that far, but I do agree with the general sentiment regarding interactivity (in RPGs, that is). I think "gameplay vs. story" is a false dichotomy, and you've probably failed in your game design if it even comes up. Gameplay and story should go hand in hand instead of being some kind of opposing entities. Fallout's "story" can be summed up in a couple of sentences (you go looking for a water chip, discover mutant threat, destroy the threat by blowing up stuff), but the actual story is formed through the players' actions between those few mandatory story beats, which may vary drastically depending on the player and the character he's playing. In Deus Ex every mission and quest objective is directly tied to the story in some way, and large parts of the story unfold simply via exploration (e.g. breaking into a secret lab and seeing what kind of experiments are going on in there, or hacking into someone's computer and reading his mails, or sneaking around and eavesdropping on a conversation, or talking to an NPC and realizing that he's probably lying), rather than everything being spoon-fed to you in some cutscene. This is the type of storytelling games should be striving for instead of copying books or movies or other non-interactive mediums.

I think the whole idea about C&C being a problem comes from newer Bioware games and the likes, where gameplay is basically just something you have to go through between cutscenes (i.e. "the story"). C&C is — or at least should be — a lot more than just choosing between two or more dialogue options and being rewarded with a different cutscene or a throwaway line of dialogue. That's one form of C&C, yes, but I often find systemic reactivity much more interesting, like the faction mechanics in New Vegas, where the game world reacts to your actions in an organic manner.

 

[Yosharian]

Mass Effect's C&C became a fucking joke in ME3. Please don't talk to me about C&C and fucking Mass Effect.

The real C&C were the friends we made along the way

Who made barely any difference to ME3's ending and, until the patch, weren't even featured in the endings. What a joke.

 

[sullynathan]

What do you guys mean by gameplay c&c? Which games are you talking about?

How do the later ME games compare to the first one? No spoilers, please.

ME2 was a better game that forwent stats determining playstyle and more of equipment choice.

Thing is most codexers are dumb and believe being an rpg or having rpg mechanics, even if they're bad, is better than removing them and putting in better action mechanics.

This is usually better for most action rpgs.

 

[Raghar]

I still don't get why Command & Conquer is even relevant to RPGs.

It's one of the early and popular RTS games which eventually led to RTwP RPGs and games like Baldur's Gate and other Biodrone games.

Checkmate.

Are you sure he's czech?

 

[Raghar]

It's just a buzzword, developers don't actually understand what it means. Developers of Wasteland 2 said they would use MrBtongue video as inspiration, and the first quest makes you choose between 2 arbitrary things in the most heavy handed design possible.

Also endgame slides are very over used too.

I played wasteland 2 recently, and the story is really bad. No clue about actual proper free form interesting story. In fact for that game, in first desert going from location to location and kill people would largely suffice.
Then they add weird weapon damage and combat as if they had no clue about how to design actual combat.

First stuff was AG vs Highpool, and they didn't add safety net to direct player to proper route to get to the Ace investigation.
Second stuff was temple of, which resulted to 3-5 different states only 2 sane. Person who didn't knew stuff from first playtrough will not get more than a I got a hunch excuse why he chose certain ending combination.
(BTW I'd be less talking bad about story, when the character for hire would say a lot of shit about low CHA party. Like "why didn't I stay with these mutants there, they are much more cheerful folks and they are using entrails for decoration only rarely". Or "And now I'm stuck with them, and they are insisting to me to join them. Well, I missed that choice of exploding in nuclear blast, now I'm with worse alternative. Well it's better than starvation.

Frankly they could do nice CnC with making low and high CHA party a different playtrough, and point it on character creation.

It more looked like cash cow aimed at fans of original wasteland, or these who imagined they would get proper game in that setting, than properly designed game. (BTW fallout combat system was designed and programmed in about 7-10 days they got when GURPS licence was revoked because animations were too drastic.) It says something about Wasteland 2 developers. (Fallout developers kinda screwed up in Lionheart, but it likely wasn't whole crew of original developers.)

 

[Black Angel]

What do you guys mean by gameplay c&c? Which games are you talking about?

Don't know which games they're talking about, but to me, gameplay C&C, specifically in a cRPG, is this: you build a character with certain set of stats and skills, a fighter archetype for example, and that's how the character can be played as, a fighter. You can't use that character for sneak and/or diplomacy, but it's VERY good at fighting.
More specific example would be, you create a character with low INT, that character is going to be a dumbass who can't speak properly and thus gets dismissed by NPCs as a retard, like in Fallout and Arcanum.
Or you create a character with low STR, now that character can't carry as much items as characters with average or high STR.
And then there's an example of certain moments during combat. Say it's my character's turn. The gameplay C&C here plays out on whether I use regular attacks to dish out damage, or I use aimed attacks to cripple my target. Based on the situation, just using regular attacks might result in my character's death if their health happens to be low, or being safe from any attacks because the target has been crippled from the previous aimed attacks to their arms.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

 

[sullynathan]

What do you guys mean by gameplay c&c? Which games are you talking about?

Don't know which games they're talking about, but to me, gameplay C&C, especially in a cRPG, is this: you build a character with certain set of stats and skills, a fighter archetype for example, and that's how the character can be played as, a fighter. You can't use that character for sneak and/or diplomacy, but it's VERY good at fighting.
More specific example would be, you create a character with low INT, that character is going to be a dumbass who can't speak properly and thus gets dismissed by NPCs as a retard, like in Fallout and Arcanum.
Or you create a character with low STR, now that character can't carry as much items as characters with average or high STR.
And then there's an example of certain moments during combat. Say it's my character's turn. The gameplay C&C here plays out on whether I use regular attacks to dish out damage, or I use aimed attacks to cripple my target. Based on the situation, just using regular attacks might result in my character's death if their health happens to be low, or being safe from any attacks because the target has been crippled from the previous aimed attacks to their arms.

So gameplay c&c is what rpgs typically have but with more restrictions?

 

[Morkar Left]

There can only be good c&c when it's supported by the game mechanics and not just a dialog option.

 

[Carrion]

Don't know which games they're talking about, but to me, gameplay C&C, especially in a cRPG, is this: you build a character with certain set of stats and skills, a fighter archetype for example, and that's how the character can be played as, a fighter. You can't use that character for sneak and/or diplomacy, but it's VERY good at fighting.
More specific example would be, you create a character with low INT, that character is going to be a dumbass who can't speak properly and thus gets dismissed by NPCs as a retard, like in Fallout and Arcanum.
Or you create a character with low STR, now that character can't carry as much items as characters with average or high STR.
And then there's an example of certain moments during combat. Say it's my character's turn. The gameplay C&C here plays out on whether I use regular attacks to dish out damage, or I use aimed attacks to cripple my target. Based on the situation, just using regular attacks might result in my character's death if their health happens to be low, or being safe from any attacks because the target has been crippled from the previous aimed attacks to their arms.

Most games are about making choices, though, regardless of the genre. While decisions regarding character building could definitely be seen as a form of C&C, the meaning of the term easily gets muddled when used too liberally. Is it C&C if you use up your BFG ammo in Doom and have to make do with other weapons for the rest of the level?

I mentioned New Vegas earlier, and for me the faction mechanics there are a pretty good example of gameplay C&C*. How you tackle a specific quest might affect your relations with a particular faction, potentially pissing them off and causing them to attack you on sight, as well as shutting you off from that faction's quest lines — at least until you can find a way to get back into their good books. In Deus Ex you have (mostly cosmetic) consequences for finishing a mission in a certain way, like characters starting to dislike you because of your gung-ho approach. It's also possible to kill some important characters earlier than you're "supposed to", without any prompts or other indicators that you're about to make some kind of a choice, and the game reacts to your gameplay decisions appropriately. If you look for more common examples, several party-based games have recruitable party members potentially turning on each other or leaving the party because of your actions. Many reputation and alignment systems also fall into this category.

* Of course, choosing dialogue options is technically gameplay too. It just isn't the only way to do C&C, and focusing too much on it can definitely make a game suffer on other areas. Ideally, all choices you make in the game should matter, not just the ones that come up in cutscenes accompanied by dramatic music.

 

[aweigh]

If you remove the combat from Age of Decadence, it stops being an RPG, however the opposite doesn't happen; if you leave only the combat it will still remain an RPG.

Combat is the primary characteristic of the RPG genre. Period.

 

[sullynathan]

If you remove the combat from Age of Decadence, it stops being an RPG, however the opposite doesn't happen; if you leave only the combat it will still remain an RPG.

Combat is the primary characteristic of the RPG genre. Period.

you're usually a dumb ass but I agree.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Ah yes, the amazing choices. Two endings and a slideshow. Can't wait to see if I got the best ending or the almost best ending.

(Fallout developers kinda screwed up in Lionheart, but it likely wasn't whole crew of original developers.)

I doubt there was any of them on the team. It's made by a completely different company. If there was anybody from Black Isle involved I think they were "advisors" or some other bullshit made-up thing.

 

[Nano]

If you remove the combat from Age of Decadence, it stops being an RPG, however the opposite doesn't happen; if you leave only the combat it will still remain an RPG.

Combat is the primary characteristic of the RPG genre. Period.

Then it's settled: visual novels are better than RPGs.

 

[Thonius]

I've never seen an E3 like game actually talk about choices and consequences. People on console can't read the text from the couch they absolutely don't care

You just made me realize why consoltards so pushy about voice acting...

 

[Thonius]

Do developers do this simply because C&C is very easy to do
Discuss.

What? It's one of the most difficult things to do in any game, since it increases workload exponentially. Every branching path means new content you need to make, yet without actually lenghtening the game's length (only replayability). Try making something as simple as a VN with branching paths and you'll find out how much work it adds very quickly. Modern RPGs do not implement C&C. They implement C&nothing – they throw some choices your way, but ignore the consequences, since that way, they do not actually increase their workload and avoid the entire problem. The only RPG in recent memory that implemented C&C properly was Witcher 2. Everyone else nips C&C in the bud by making consequences inconsequential or only matter in some ending slides or whatever, since that's much easier than actually having the game react.

He probably ment fake CnC aka end game slides... And that's true those suck and overused.

 

[aweigh]

Branching paths or mutually-exclusive content is not C&C. If it was, then you can just go play a Visual Novel and get all the C&C you want, or go play one of those games by David Cage, those Beyond Heavy Rain pieces of shit.

God, it's such a dead meme at this point. Half the people who talk about C&C don't even know what it is they are talking about, or what it is they want. Being able to pick between two different story states is not a meaningful player choice; it has to affect the way the game plays. This is why "real C&C" is usually comprised of different character build and conflict resolution integration.

(This is why The Witcher games don't feature any real C&C).

Good example of a game with "real C&C", off the top of my head, would probably be Deus Ex 1. Traditionally we used to use another word for C&C back in the day, it was "gameplay". The game mechanics need to inform the choices, and the consequences needs to inform the gameplay.

There is definitely room for melding more narrative or plot-focused integration with the C&C meme, of course, I think Arcanum is one game that did it well enough, or at least enough so that I remember a few moments of going "huh, that's cool", because the the game's allowance for player arbitration were sufficiently coincidental to create brief emergent scenarios that dovetailed with story or quests.

However, the Arcanum examples serves another purpose here, well for my purposes anyway: it is a great indicator that gives lie to the fact that C&C makes an RPG "good". It's neither necessary for an RPG to be good, but I would go so far as to say it isn't necessary for an RPG, period. If the underlying mechanical foundation is crooked then you can't have "real C&C"; you can only have "fake C&C" which is mostly comprised of mutually-exclusive story states or branching nodes.