Decline RPGs substitute offering strategic constraints for purported "character expression"

[AwesomeButton]

That's why such games often have very tedious, repetitive, boring combat or puzzles. "Guys who like combat like to kill lots of enemies so let's put in a lot of enemies to please that crowd" thinks the designer who doesn't understand encounter design.

That's part of the reason. I imagne that in many cases lead designers see combat as something that if you make it too difficult may block player progress and lead to frustration with your product, whereas with the story it's the opposite - it can't block your progress, and can even pull you into playing some more, "to see what happens next". The thinking is maybe that players get "immersed" in stories but not in combat.

Also, designing innovative and addictive combat is more difficult and a rarer skill than what's needed in order to write another derivative Chosen One story.

Ultimately, this seems to be a correct assumption, for those who are chasing the lowest common denominator among players and are financially equipped to chase it, because it comes down to production values.

Yet, I think that demoting games into CGI interactive movies is a dead end street, because it's marrying games to a creatively stagnant medium. The big question is how can you marry a game to a movie so that you utilise the strengths of both - impactful visuals but also interactivity and the exercise of problem-solving skills.

 

[Infinitron]

AwesomeButton Devs aren't setting out to make interactive movies, the games are just easy.

Actual "interactive movie games" are a mostly dead and frequently mocked genre (remember Ryse: Son of Rome and The Order: 1886?)

 

[AwesomeButton]

the games are just easy.

Ok, but why are they such?

remember Ryse: Son of Rome and The Order: 1886?)

Only from trailers.

The devs aren't setting out to make interactive movies

I believe they are feeling for the right formula, but that's where they are going. It's the ultimate experience - you sit in front of your 40+ inch TV and you watch an amazing adventure movie, but it's you in the leading role - I believe that's the experience they are after, because that would catch the majority of the "vote".

 

[vortex]

What about walking simulators? They're also a dead end, imo.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'd wager that anything that's running on an interactive platform but doesn't utilise its interactivity is doomed to suffer the same way that cinema is suffering.

BTW, Infinitron, only you know what you mean by your ratings, don't know if that's fine by you.

 

[V_K]

Actual "interactive movie games" are a mostly dead and frequently mocked genre

Interactive books, on the other hand, seem to be all the rage.

 

[Infinitron]

I believe they are feeling for the right formula, but that's where they are going.

I really don't think so.

We very definitively went from a situation a decade ago where the median blockbuster single player RPG was something like Mass Effect to one where it was something like Skyrim. The genre actually ran away from being an interactive movie, and is only now hesitatingly attempting to add some of the old cinematic flourishes back (often with intense player backlash, eg the Fallout 4 dialogue wheel).

The majority of the vote? Who is that, the millions of kids playing Fortnite? This isn't 2010, the world isn't awed by Call of Duty single player campaigns anymore. Nobody wants an interactive movie.

 

[AwesomeButton]

What would you call a Cyberpunk which follows the Witcher 3 formula of "dialogue scenes with occasional distractions"? That's what I mean under "interactive movie invading RPGs". I also mean the more general emphasis being put on narrative.

More of what I mean in the realm of RPG-to-interactive-movie: the assasin's creeds. I don't see them increasing the complexity of their systems in the viking-themed one, but they seem to be adding some sort of rudimentary interactivity to how you solve quests.

If we broaden the conversation to console games, you have interactive movies there parading as platform-sellers.

 

[laclongquan]

RPG has gone past the phase of exploring new grounds. We all know what new grounds look like: it littered with failed attempts. New is no longer new.

Now RPG is... stagnanting, awaiting the new push in computing AND hardware. Even graphic advancement is awaiting new development from those aspect.

Example? Say, real time change in game world's economy (like Patrician3 and Port Royale2) for instance. The changes equivalent to variables, just need hardware strong enough and codes optimized enough to run them. The ideas are already existing with working examples.

Another? Say Academagia (and earlier KODP) about a character with hundreds of skills, hundreds of quests, and huge amount of texts. It prove that when such variables are that much, the game will be run to the ground. It need codes optimized and hardware advances to proceed to the next step.

Continue? Say, 3D combat the like of Homeworld with massive number of combatants (like an EVE Online space sector battle). This time with close up graphic, minor change of players, and the whole massive battle react to those change. Again: code optimized and hardware advances.

 

[TemplarGR]

AwesomeButton Devs aren't setting out to make interactive movies, the games are just easy.

Actual "interactive movie games" are a mostly dead and frequently mocked genre (remember Ryse: Son of Rome and The Order: 1886?)

Don't care what people say, Ryse was awesome.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

YOU DID. YOU GREW UP. The person who played Fallout in 1997 is not you anymore. That person does not exist anymore. You outgrew him. You just failed to realise this, and think that modern games are somehow worse just because you are not 12 anymore.

First time I played Fallout 1 and 2 in 2007.
First time I played Fallout 3 in 2008.
First time I played New Vegas in 2010.

Fallout 3 is no match to the first two at any circumstances, at any time. New Vegas is solid third.

Your argument is invalid, your trololo is lame, and you are boring.

First time I played Fallout 3 was in December 2014.
First time I played New Vegas was in 2015.
First time I actually gave Fallout a proper go and beat Fallout and Fallout 2 was in 2018.

I also agree with what you said. New Vegas is much better than Fallout 3, but GameBryo and inherited Fallout 3's assets and visuals really harm the game. If it was made in the classic engine, to me it would be New Vegas >>> Fallout > Fallout 2, not even a contest.

actually, why has nobody made a fallout new vegas in fallout 2 engine mod? Too hard? Seems like that would be very popular.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Just a reminder to spergs here, roleplaying is not about tabletop wargaming. Also, video games are not tabletop games. CRPGs are not tabletop simulators, like a chess or backgammon video game. In video games you can do a lot of stuff without the need to throw a dice. In proper role playing video games like Skyrim, you don't need to roll a dice to jump, you just press spacebar and jump. You don't need to throw a dice to figure out if you will accurately hit, you just move close to your opponent and mouse click. Dice are needed in tabletop CRPGs because there needs to be a set of rules to structure the LARPing around. When you try to hit someone with a sword in tabletop, how do you know if you succeeded? Do you get a wooden sword and actually physically try to hit him? No, you just throw a dice, and well, if it is in your favor, you hit. If not, you don't. That is for tabletop. In VIDEO GAMES, this is not needed. You can just do that easy peasy in real time. And that is just one of the things that video games do differently.

What i am trying to say is that people here want something that makes no sense, they hold unto an ideal for CRPGs that is quite frankly retarded, but they still cling to it because that is what they grew up with. They want games to be like 20-30 years ago, despite technology moving forward. In fact, like modern ludites, they think that any game that actually utilizes current hardware capabilities, has to be "decline" and "garbage". Especially if that game has mainstream appeal. They ignore that the games they loved 20-30 years ago also had mainstream appeal.... Back then, when they were kids, they didn't discover these "hardcore crpgs" because they were so niche and tough to find. Fallout was advertised on all gaming magazines. Diablo too. Baldur's Gate likewise. It is not like those games were niche or hard core. They were actually quite the mainstream AAA endeavors of their day. They were among the top contenders of their respective years for all-around GOTY, not just rpg-GOTY. And this on major game publications and sites. It is just that, you know, the world moved on since then. THE WORLD MOVED ON, SPERGS. We don't game on Pentium 1s @133Mhz with 16MB of RAM anymore. We need better. Hardware became vastly better and allowed for better experiences.

People here on the Codex resemble JRPG faggots in a lot of ways, just for WRPGs. Just like JRPG weeaboo masochists, they cling to the same retarded game styles because that is what they grew up with. Back in the NES and SNES ages games couldn't do any better, so the JRPG template was formed as the best way to utilize the hardware to make RPGs with. Then PS1 and PS2+ came, and japanese developers just improved the graphics, but left the game style intact. On the other hand, WRPG developers decided to actually embrace the hardware advancement to provide better RPG experiences, and they ran circles around JRPG spergs. That is why after a certain point JRPGs became extremely niche and mostly a japanese-market-thing, while WRPGs dominated. Yet we see the same thing here with codex spergs, they cling to the rpg style of the 90s like it is some holy grail of role playing that can't be improved upon.

I mean, back when BG came out, i was salivating on the possibility to have VR open world photorealistic CRPGs in the far future. Now that i can have those experiences, according to CODEX SPERGS, i have to call open world VR photorealistic CRPGs "decline" and just accept poorly made indie clones of the original BG as some kind of "best crpg incline".

I generally agree with this, but I'd just like to say on the other side that the problem with realtime control is the limitation of inputs (mouse, keyboard, etc.).

The problem is the more you try to make the thing a realtime simulation, the more you bump up against having only one "action" input at a time, the more you bump up against conundrums like how much to simulate physics purely (e.g. Exanima) vs. how much to leave settled motion subsystems stimulated at the level of AI (e.g. one learnt to step over things as a child, and that's now automatic).

The upshot is that until you have true holodeck simulation you're always going to have to abstract quite a lot, so it's just a question of what you abstract and when. And because all the genres are just artifacts of being "stuck with" some previous level of technological development, in pursuit of the perfect simulation, they all have valid and interesting ways of abstracting certain things. For example, a turn-based game gives you a chance to simulate really weird, complex and interesting abilities that you'd need that higher level of input (that's missing from realtime) to do in realtime. Stats and dice rolls are a neat solution to problems that can still (or something like them can still) have a place in gaming.

So while it's true that a lot of disgruntlement is due to nostalgia for what one grew up with, what first grabbed one's attention, etc., and we're all getting older, all the various snapshots of solutions to problems of abstraction that were key functionalities in earlier phases of the pursuit of the ultimate simulation are still valid, so long as the ultimate simulation is still out of reach on account of limited inputs and the fact that most of the time we just want to do these things sitting on our asses in chairs.

randomization and 'dice' make a simulation more realistic, not less, even computer ones. And they often exist in very complicated models, otherwise its an arcade game. The guy you are responding to believes space-invaders is an improved military simulation over something like Advanced Squad leader.

 

[Jackpot]

As a pea-brained tyke that has never played a tabletop RPG and grew up playing Oblivion, I'd like to see more compromises between modern and classic design.
I enjoy older games like Baldur's Gate and Planescape for the less streamlined experiences that make me feel that I'm in a real world rather than a themepark catering to my whims, as well as the personalization I can bring to my character through the wide variety of builds and decisions.
However, I also like more modern UI design and quality of life changes. Hate me all you want, but I absolutely despise the constant inventory management present in a lot of older RPGs.

I feel like games like Pathfinder: Kingmaker or even Age of Decadence do these things to some extent, but there is a bunch of opportunity for more.
Ultimately, I see games like The Witcher 3 or Outer Worlds being classified as RPGs the same way JRPGs are classified as RPGs. They're unrelated entities only related by a name association that's been forced on by the industry.

 

[gurugeorge]

randomization and 'dice' make a simulation more realistic, not less, even computer ones. And they often exist in very complicated models, otherwise its an arcade game. The guy you are responding to believes space-invaders is an improved military simulation over something like Advanced Squad leader.

It's an interesting point, and quite a deep one - RNG, like in science, merely represents our ignorance of the minutiae of the causes (or perhaps the lack of any need to know that much detail). e.g. when one says "evolution by random mutation and natural selection", of course the mutation isn't random at all, but the result of causes that could in principle be determined precisely if we were omniscient and had infinite time to work out the chaotic maths or whatever.

But short of that, yeah, RNG represents (e.g.) the fact that even the most highly trained archer will miss sometimes, etc. - perhaps the light glinting off someone's armor out of the corner of his eye just threw him a little bit; but the game doesn't need to simulate to that level of detail, some kind of relevantly constrained RNG will do quite nicely. I've actually always admired the way it was done with dice in PnP, it's really simple, clever and effective. For example, when I have PFK in RTwP for trash groups, the antics of the characters do really "feel" quite realistic, at least as realistic as systems that are bespoke designed for computers do.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

randomization and 'dice' make a simulation more realistic, not less, even computer ones. And they often exist in very complicated models, otherwise its an arcade game. The guy you are responding to believes space-invaders is an improved military simulation over something like Advanced Squad leader.

It's an interesting point, and quite a deep one - RNG, like in science, merely represents our ignorance of the minutiae of the causes (or perhaps the lack of any need to know that much detail). e.g. when one says "evolution by random mutation and natural selection", of course the mutation isn't random at all, but the result of causes that could in principle be determined precisely if we were omniscient and had infinite time to work out the chaotic maths or whatever.

But short of that, yeah, RNG represents (e.g.) the fact that even the most highly trained archer will miss sometimes, etc. - perhaps the light glinting off someone's armor out of the corner of his eye just threw him a little bit; but the game doesn't need to simulate to that level of detail, some kind of relevantly constrained RNG will do quite nicely. I've actually always admired the way it was done with dice in PnP, it's really simple, clever and effective. For example, when I have PFK in RTwP for trash groups, the antics of the characters do really "feel" quite realistic, at least as realistic as systems that are bespoke designed for computers do.

exactly. We can fire a tank gun at a 200 mm plate of Armour from 600 yards away, but it won't always penetrate the same amount, and we don't really know why necessarily, although we can study each shot and make good guesses. It might not even always hit the target depending on the size of the target. You can take an average of all the attempts, and have the computer add some randomization and then you can do this across the simulation and you end up with a better representation of reality from a simulation perspective than not having randomization. Because we don't know, and maybe will never know every single factor effecting an interaction, since if you think about it, it could involve things you would never consider, and would be extremely hard to simulate. Trying to actually simulate every single one of these things is probably not really worth it, and can even make a simulation produce results that make less and less sense. In any event, not having randomization at all, often just means the game is an arcade game.

 

[Ayreos]

What is this thread about? Lots of convoluted notions, it seems.
What's a game? A bunch of art assets to sell a fantasy and a fun game loop to trick the brain into thinking it's living it enjoyably.
What's an RPG? Nothing really. A poor attempt at a subcategory and a marketing buzzword. RPGs are not about mechanics, they're a diverse group of games a specific type of player craves, who are the real category. "RPGs" were always just a way for marketing to catch the attention of this specific player type. A very apt term, actually, just for the wrong thing.

So what does an RPG player actually crave? To impersonate a (power) fantasy, rather than to interact with it. Not saving princesses or defeating dragons as much as being a knight, a wizard, even a rogue capable of doing so. With experience, skills, detailed equipment, backstory. Defeating a dragon is not the real purpose. It's playing the role of someone who does. in a world so lavishly detailed and characterized the player can be in awe at himself being in it. A dragon slain or two is perfectly fine, but as a component to the identity, not the other way around. The RPG player doesn't care for the quest, nor the result. He cares for the ability to take it. For an RPG player with an IQ sadly above the norm the quest is rarely fun: with trash mobs, dumb puzzles and cliché plots, but if the world is well-crafted enough, having embarked on it is.

So what's the deal with today's "RPG" games? Yeah, they copy the oldies and try to "get" the RPG player. They pick at the library of games they studied from the "genre", grab the cool stuff and add some ideas. They make an interesting battle system (or lift it from tabletop, where it's true and tried after all), crank up the art. Do focus studies on what the players say they want... and the result is mediocre, if not abysmal. Papamole trash. The RPG player doesn't give two shits about it and only begrudgingly plays because it's all that he has. Then comes the moaning on Codex. The years-long spite threads.

Turns out the RPG player doesn't exactly care for your bullshit over-complicated tabletop battle systems, interminable narratives, breakthroughs in RtWP, Graphics, triple-multi-classing or anything else, if he is not entirely sold on the role he is playing in the game! If the world he's supposed to play isn't 100% convinced it is real, even obnoxiously so, how can the RPG player be? He likely knows all the tricks by now, so he is not going to let himself be fooled by anything other than an unapologetic fantasy that isn't afraid to get morbid or cheesy in equal measure just to convince him that indeed, what the player spent time investing himself in matters.

Today's RPG developers are yesterday's RPG players. They have deluded themselves that they need to create games. They have deluded themselves that players crave a custom challenge and multiple choices and technical complexity. The players themselves are deluded and tell them the same. And to be fair they're saying the correct things: a detailed world, meaningful choices, unique NPCs, customization. But those things are just descriptions of comfortable delusions and the developers don't seem to know what any kid who tried to write a fantasy story knows: it's all about the self-insert. All those things have to exist for the player, to validate the process of building up the identity of his choice. They're not there to please the player, or even to stimulate him. They're there to make the player feel they are real. That's the point of Role Play. The detailed world must be consistent and coherent, not necessarily full of graphical detail. The meaningful choices need to have meaning to the player, not seem meaningful to the writer. The unique NPCs must be unique to the player character, not be unique individuals. Customization must be there to characterize the player, not to complicate the gameplay.
Developers today completely miss these points that used to be natural when they or their mentors were amateurs.

That's why a game that rambles about how insane your powers are going to make you ends up not following through.
That's why female NPCs bitch and moan about how competent and strong they are despite being worthless compared to the weapon you just bought.
That's why an entire kingdom of nameless NPCs bow to the player and utter "my liege!" while your 100 hour companion doesn't even fucking give you an heir in the written ending segment dedicated to her.
That's why a game heavily based on a legitimate fantasy novel can slap a modern TCG "minigame" on the players without an inkling of doubt or cognitive dissonance.
And worst of all, that's why dialog is simplified, meaningless NPCs and the player are voiced, the loot made perfectly balanced and the game world's coherence and creativity put second to its elaborate design, all in the name of good gameplay and progress!

If i were to make an RPG today? I'd give the player a companion that might be or not be his own father: an old wizard who fried his brain trying to cast high level magic and now casts low level spells that don't match the description they have in the game UI. Make the world rest on a cloud that's really the condensed thoughts of the sleeping(?) god of lust, war and comedy, make it RTwP with only one highly customizable playable character (Maj'Eyal comes to mind for gameplay) and AI party members. The player would gain as many experience points reading the lore of monsters as fighting them, the only fast travel mechanic is the back of insectoid wyverns that don't always follow orders, all women have a knack for acting demure and impressionable, and magic progress is exclusively the result of sleepless nights in the towers of godless arcane heretics, health hazards included, in a world where deities can be found running the bakery next door more or less incognito. And all of that would be taken with the tragic seriousness of a historical drama, all humor resting on the absurdity of how real it all is.
I would do it, but a developer never would. They take themselves very seriously now, which is why they can't take their worlds quite so seriously. Hence why the next wRPG will be mediocre again.

 

[AwesomeButton]

For a moment I pictured myself among the crowd gathered near the old fountain in Theron.

Joke aside, what I understood from your post is that developers are not innovating in their worldbuilding and this drags everything else with it - writing and mechanics both?

 

[Mastermind]

That's what you get when you have the "hurr durr if some option is inferior to others it shouldn't be there at all" people in charge.

That's what you get when you're a shit designer.

An option should be relatively inferior depending on your build and fucking up your build should involve picking options that don't harmonize well. no two options with equivalent requirements (prereqs, skill points, etc.) should have one of the options blatantly superior to the other regardless of situation.

That's what "if some option is inferior to others it shouldn't be there at all" means.

 

[Lilliput McHammersmith]

I actually love all the games that have been derided in this thread. Maybe it’s because I never backed these games on Kickstarter, but I really really loved Pillars of Eternity. I fell in love with its world and pretty much everything about the game. I loved the quests, the combat, the leveling, the items, the encounters. I definitely saw some of the flaws (there was definitely some trash combat, but overall the combat was very fun to me, so I didn’t mind at all).

I was surprised when I came to this site and saw that Pillars was most hated of all. I wonder what they promised and did not deliver on. I did not look at anything, personally. I played Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 for the first time last year, and I wanted more of that, so I grabbed Pillars and played the heck out of it. I can still hear Maerwald’s dialogue in my head.

I played through all of D:OS2 and liked it quite a bit. I played a bit of Wasteland 2, but ultimately dropped it because I was super hyped about the mutant man-eating plants but they were a major disappointment (from the game itself, I didn’t get hyped on any promotional materials). But I did really enjoy my time with Wasteland 2 prior to that. (I’ll certainly give it another go)

I guess I haven’t actually played BT4 or TToN yet, but I am excited to play them one day.

But I definitely agree about The Outer Worlds. That game is Blandness to a T. It lacks soul.

 

[gurugeorge]

What is this thread about? Lots of convoluted notions, it seems.

ITT: person complaining about convoluted notions offers convoluted notions.

 

[mondblut]

no two options with equivalent requirements (prereqs, skill points, etc.) should have one of the options blatantly superior to the other regardless of situation.

That's what "if some option is inferior to others it shouldn't be there at all" means.

Classes are also options with equivalent requirements. You must love 4th edition.

 

[Mastermind]

no two options with equivalent requirements (prereqs, skill points, etc.) should have one of the options blatantly superior to the other regardless of situation.

That's what "if some option is inferior to others it shouldn't be there at all" means.

Classes are also options with equivalent requirements. You must love 4th edition.

I don't play tabletop games (I'm straight) but if some classes are blatantly better than others then it's a problem. Why play the shitty classes? Each class should have strengths and weaknesses. Player skill should be in combining them into something greater than the whole, not just blatantly discarding the shit ones.

 

[Ayreos]

For a moment I pictured myself among the crowd gathered near the old fountain in Theron.

Joke aside, what I understood from your post is that developers are not innovating in their worldbuilding and this drags everything else with it - writing and mechanics both?

Sorry, was trying to make a more elaborate point. It's not that they don't innovate, they literally can't make anything really awesome, let alone innovative, because they're not designing a game that tries to give an awesome fantasy to the player. When a kid writes a story he thinks "Oh man, it would be awesome to ride this dragon!". Older devs had more of this mentality. For modern devs all that matters is "To have an awesome dragon set piece" instead, as if the dragon itself was awesome because it is a dragon. The design stopped being player-centric. You can still make okay games, but you can't make something that people fall in love with, unless you think of the player as if they were yourself. A small change in mentality and culture can rip an entire layer of the human experience away from a generation, it seems.

The cause of it is complex, but the process and the result are plain to see in my eyes. An enormous game like Pathfinder has so much cool stuff in it, and yet not a single piece wastes any real time to make the player feel good. It's like the game doesn't really give a shit for the player, in fact. It just knows what the players wants, conceptually, and does it, like a prostitute does love. Only the writing saves it occasionally, but it's not enough. The other recent wRPGs have the same issue. You can let a whore fool you and think it's love if you really crave it, but for how long?

 

[Ashigara]

Just a reminder to spergs here, roleplaying is not about tabletop wargaming. Also, video games are not tabletop games. CRPGs are not tabletop simulators, like a chess or backgammon video game. In video games you can do a lot of stuff without the need to throw a dice. In proper role playing video games like Skyrim, you don't need to roll a dice to jump, you just press spacebar and jump. You don't need to throw a dice to figure out if you will accurately hit, you just move close to your opponent and mouse click. Dice are needed in tabletop CRPGs because there needs to be a set of rules to structure the LARPing around. When you try to hit someone with a sword in tabletop, how do you know if you succeeded? Do you get a wooden sword and actually physically try to hit him? No, you just throw a dice, and well, if it is in your favor, you hit. If not, you don't. That is for tabletop. In VIDEO GAMES, this is not needed. You can just do that easy peasy in real time. And that is just one of the things that video games do differently.

This is not totally wrong, I mean Ultima 1 basically if it had a button you could press to automate a big process in tabletop it allowed it - a GUI is basically already a visual shorthand of a GM+rules.

I think maybe modern games in trying to mimic the imperfect ones of the past are keeping RPGs from getting experimental in how they translate tabletop freedom to games. They aren't evolving into greater simulations of fantasy/sci-fi life.

What if to simulate climbing checks you could climb any surface in an RPG engine? Just as an example. Have a climbing tool in inventory, a check, and you can use any surface or physics to gain an advantage.

Because tabletop aims to translate anything you can conceive doing into a game - all of physics and biology and the humanities. Why not be able to craft a political pamphlet and put it in someone's pocket and watch them kill a passing guard? Crafting is just mixing potions in most games, but wordsmithing is a real skill.

A modern RPG might end up looking like Dark Souls's atmosphere + Breath of the Wild's climbing with lockpicking and dialogue, if it really simulated the principle of giving people a fantasy world and letting them do as they will. Maybe one game needs to unify all the fractured systems.

The genre is obsessed with isometric clones and Bethesda clones. But Baldur's Gate wasn't a full implementation of the variety possible in tabletop to begin with. And Scrolls type stuff isn't either.