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I'm looking for a game where I start out with 10s in every stat
- Thread starter the mole
- Start date
dacencora
Guest
Age of Decadence and Underrail both have very “Fallout” character building.
the mole
Learned
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- Aug 1, 2019
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I prefer being the chosen one and slaying the baddies
you start with 10 in every stat in ELEX
knights of the chalice bay bay. roll ur character with all 10s. then beat the baddies. thus securing your top spot on the score board. easy peasy.
FriendlyMerchant
Guest
Todd Howard says: "Play Skyrim. Buy it again. Or else..."
the mole
Learned
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skyrim is actually bad in this regard because you don't start out with attributes and have to keep swinging that boring sword over and over again until you get to 100, it doesn't start out maxxed
I want a god tier character from the start that has no weaknesses, the greatest rpgs in history had this as an option
FriendlyMerchant
Guest
Skyrim isn't even an RPG. But you could always just use console commands to set all your skills to 100.
The_Sloth_Sleeps
Arcane
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I wonder if it might work if you started out with all 10s and each level you advance you lose a few stat points, a bit like real life in that regard.
dacencora
Guest
It's not a good RPG, but don't be ridiculous. RPG isn't a measure of quality, just a grouping of gameplay elements.
typical user
Arbiter
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- Nov 30, 2015
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Bard's Tale from 2005 - on Easy you can start with 10 in each stat if you distribute them evenly.
FriendlyMerchant
Guest
It doesn't even have enough of those gameplay elements to be an rpg.
luj1
You're all shills
Gifted in Fallout is like cheating
dacencora
Guest
I mean whether you like the game or not, it does have RPG combat, RPG character-building, and exploration. It's far from a good one, but saying Skyrim isn't an RPG is one of the more retarded things I've read.
the mole
Learned
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being a chad irl is cheating as well but you cannot deny the existence of chads
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Devil May Cry
rusty_shackleford
Arcane
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To Ash is the only cRPG I'm aware of where you start out at max level and level down. You're an old hero who is past his prime who has to save the world one last time, and each fight makes you weaker.
FriendlyMerchant
Guest
You have the right to be wrong. But lets things about why:
1. There is no such thing as "RPG combat." There are a diversity of combat systems in rpgs. i.e. VTMB's arpg influenced system, rtwp versions of tabletop combat like in NWN1+2, literal turnbased combat games like AoD or ToEE. Is it just because the damage numbers go up? That doesn't make the game an rpg. Borderlands has that, but it's not an rpg. Though if you wanted to be pedantic something that is really "rpg combat," you'd be looking at the games that do either real time or turnbased adaptations of tabletop rpg systems or even make their own versions like Fallout, Arcanum, or Daggerfall as these system derive everything related to combat from the character stats.
2. Character-building is present here in the form of the perk system. But similar systems present in action-adventure games like Outward or Fallout 4 which just has you choose a sex and both predetermine your backgrounds for you. Fallout 4 is a looter shooter with attributes and a leveling system. Outward doesn't even have a leveling system but still has character building in the form of paying shekels to some trainers to get perks. Fallout 4 simply had attribute requirements for its perks instead of skill requirements Skyrim and omitted the tree. Outward only forces you to follow perk trees and use an unlock point for some of the higher level perks. Borderlands also had perk trees and levels. Perk systems don't really make games rpgs though they can be present. If the gameplay mechanically depended on the skill system, then it contributes to a game being an rpg. However, Skyrim gameplay in general does not strongly depend on the skill system. The only real effect those numbers have is increasing damage for weapon skills, decreasing magicka cost for magic skills, armor rating for armor skills. The only skills which have significant gameplay effects would really be the sneak and pickpocket skills. Lockpicking's effects are negligible in general and negated by keeping the Skeleton key. Alchemy, Enchanting, and smithing really don't change much about how you play. The only meaningful difference between level 15 and level 100 in those skills is just bigger numbers at higher levels and access to more crafting recipes for smithing. Whereas if you compare it to Fallout 3, higher small guns reduced bullet drift which made you more likely to hit your target with small guns. Skyrim has no such mechanics. If just bigger numbers is your standard for rpg character-building, cookie clicker might be a good game for you.
3. Exploration is not even an rpg element. It can be in rpgs. But exploration exists in any genre. GTA games have exploration, they're not rpgs. Borderlands has exploration and it's not an rpg. Ocarina of Time has exploration and you can say it's not an rpg. Exploration is just an element of a game that allows the player to move their character around whatever area you place the character in. You can even go to your local national parks and explore there while not even playing video games.
Skyrim itself is an action-adventure with some rpgs elements. Why is Skyrim not an rpg then? It is appropriate to compare Skyrim with a real rpg, Morrowind.
First off; there is little to no dependence the character when it comes to gameplay, story, or faction interactions with the pc. Morrowind based the player's combat effectiveness, how likeable they are to npcs, whether or not they could join factions or advance in those factions, and whether or not the player could get certain outcomes for quests on character stats. In Skyrim, you can do any quest, any dungeon, get any response regardless of your character's skills. All something like speechcraft does is give you a couple dialogue options in a small number of quests and these are usually trivial and really don't have anything to do with the character outside of the speechcraft number. All skills do in Skyrim and even Oblivion (barely an rpg or even not an rpg by this argumentation) is change damage numbers, effect magnitudes for crafting stats, and magicka cost for magic.
Let's talk about magic since what happens with magic in Skyrim is reflected in all other skills.
In Morrowind, no magic skills meant you could do the mage's guild quests or even join the guild until you started improving those skills. On top of that, you would be barred access from duties and ranks if you didn't meet the skill requirements. It also meant you could joint the House Telvanni. Both of those factions even with their shortcomings are there to simulate the operation of the factions in the region from their politics to their day-to-day work in Morrowind.
In Skyrim, all you have to do is cast a spell that some lady gives to you which every character is allowed to successfully cast even if they didn't have enough magicka by using a scroll or fortify magicka potions they bought from a trader or even if you simple pass an out of place persuasion check. If you follow the main quest, you get let inside simply by doing something anyone could cast. The College of Winterhold exists only as a mage themed alternate main questline. The only thing resembling a guild is the randomly generated radiant quests that don't even require you to be a mage or have any magic skill to complete. You even can make an illiterate barbarian character with no magical aptitude into the archmage just for doing this alternate main questline. The only thing that checks it in that faction are the five master level spell quests.
In Morrowind magic skills effected your chance you were able to cast the spells with stamina giving a modifier to the casting chance. So if you had 5 destruction and you tried to cast a strong version of the fireball spell, your character would fail because he doesn't have the skill. Morrowind powerful spells necessitated more powerful wizards just to even cast the spell. A Barbarian isn't going to be casting spells any time soon without a lot of work.
In Skyrim, so long as your magicka was high enough or if you even just got the gear to reduce magicka cost, you could cast any spell you want so long as you could find the skillbooks to learn it 100% of the time even at the lowest skill level. The only hard skill requirements are what spellbooks are available at vendors.
In Morrowind, you had a large variety of options to function as a mage and you had the magic system to support it. This lead to a variety of playstyles and nuances as a mage. From the alteration mage using levitation to render warriors unable to compete in combat as well as well as having access to a variety of spells for utility purposes like water walking or water breathing and even open to open locks. An Illusion mage had a variety of utility spells that allowed him to manipulate npcs, improve his stealth abilities, completely disable spellcasters and paralyze npcs, and even help in navigating the world. Destruction was just a variety of damage spells. But you could at least make your own if the ones you could buy weren't strong enough. Conjuration allowed you to become an armored knight at a whim or even build a character around binding a weapon to get an advantage early game though it's usefulness fell of later. Restoration provided the usual healing spells and also provided a variety of buffs and utilities such as the cure disease spells and fortify attack, resist fire, etc. Mysticism exists in Morrowind and functions to give the caster a large variety of utilities such as mark+recall, interventions, absorb magic, and reflect. All of these have tangible and distinct benefits to the mage's playstyle. With spellcrafting, you could even make spells that had effects from a variety of schools. Spellcasting was useful both inside and outside combat.
In Skyrim alteration mostly just functions as armor spells or paralysis. You do have access to utilities like magelight or transmutation. But it's missing swift swim, jump (because it could break the dungeons; morrowind allowed players to break dungeons), etc. Illusion is pretty much just invisibilty, charm, frenzy, and rally. It lost things like chameleon, sanctuary (allowed for dodge builds in Morrowind), and silence which made illusion worth using in Morrowind. Destruction is now just a much more limited and much weaker version of Morrowind destruction. In vanilla there's not much difference functionally between a melee or ranged character and a destruction mage other than the magicka cost. You can't make extremely powerful custom spells that incinerate enemies anymore. Restoration is now just healing spells and turn undead. Conjuration, though introducing necromancy, lost a large variety of its summons and lost bound armor, shields, and most of its bound weapons. Mysticism is no longer in the game with soul trap going into conjuration and absorb health being put into Destruction for vampires only. Other than stealth and waterbreathing, there is nothing magic really does for you outside of combat. It's literally just another combat playstyle. As said earlier as well, there really is very little mechanical difference between level 15 in a magic skill and level 100.
Morrowind is how a sandbox rpg would do magic.
Skyrim is how an action-adventure game does magic. In this way, Skyrim has some things in common with arpgs and seem as if they could be derived from arpgs but it doesn't have enough in common with arpgs to actual be an rpg. Arpgs actually have a strong dependence on the character chosen and its builds as far as how magic operates with its gameplay. Skyrim doesn't have that dependence.
Skyrim and the rpg genre are quite distant from each other which is why its so distinct from Morrowind and other games in the genre. Skyrim and the action-adventure game or looter-shooter generes are quite close. If you played Fallout 4 (a looter-shooter), you pretty much Skyrim with guns.
dacencora
Guest
No, this is the thing that most separates RPGs from other games. In games like Mario/Metroid/Arkham/etc, enemies are more difficult to dodge and require more precise button-pressing on the part of the player. A key element of RPGs is abstracting prowess in combat away from player skill. This line is blurry in Action RPGs like Skyrim, but still applies. In other words, you can defeat enemies more easily in Skyrim by leveling up your preferred weapon skill tree. I don't disagree that it is a poor system. It is in no way representative of GOOD RPG combat, but it is still more stat-dependent than reflex dependent.
Exploration is the heart of an RPG. Whether you think that RPGs should be inspired by D&D or by retaining similarities to Wizardry, exploration is a key element of RPGs.
The three pillars of RPGs are usually phrased as "combat, exploration, and role-playing". I agree that Skyrim's combat, exploration, and especially role-playing leave a lot to be desired, but it seems silly to say it's not an RPG, when it very clearly is one. It just happens to be the most watered-down RPG I've played.
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