Jagged Alliance The RPG genre is weak. Very weak. Probably the weakest traditional genre in gaming

[Cross]

Well, one could be hopeful and believe that the lack of quality RPGs after the 90s is merely due to some combination of developer sloth, bad luck and RPGs only barely being financially viable, so there weren't enough of them made to beat the odds. With the way the "Kickstarter renaissance" turned out, though, I think that may be wishful thinking. The thing is, one could very well think (and I think many people on the Codex did) that it should not be exceedingly difficult to improve on 90s CRPGs, because we know perfectly well that those games are deeply flawed and full of broken or halfbaked game mechanics. But, as it turns out, it is in fact very difficult to do so: the recent Kickstarter RPGs do in fact have a lot of polish and refinement in at least some aspects, and I think it would be unfair to say that they don't improve on 90s RPGs in that regard. However, that hasn't actually made for better games. Moreover, when they have their own flawed mechanics (as they, plainly, do), players do not treat such flaws with the compassion afforded to 90s classics. I don't know if having a lot more RPGs would really help, when it seems to be difficult to make even a passable CRPG, let alone a good one.

The phenomenon you're talking about here isn't unique to CRPGs. Or did you forget about Mighty No. 9? Broken Age? All spiritual successors to (sub)genres that had been on life support, even made by some of the same people who worked on the classics, yet they turned out to be major disappointments. Yet I don't see you concluding that there's something fundamentally wrong with those genres.

The specific issues plaguing some (but not all) of the modern CRPGs like Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera have been well-documented across hundreds of pages of discussion. When you can find old forum posts from Josh Sawyer talking about how much he disliked the Baldur's Gate games, it's not exactly rocket science to figure out why a Baldur's Gate spiritual successor led by him turned out to be a disappointment.

As for FTL, I think it's an interesting game to discuss from an RPG perspective because it possesses a coherence and interplay of systems that almost all CRPGs lack.

That's just indicative of good game design in general. It's as relevant to RPGs as it to any other genre of games. And FTL isn't an RPG, obviously.

And there is nothing there that couldn't be done in a more "CRPG-ish" form

Sure there is. RPGs are about controlling a character or a group of characters in physically tangible areas, not guiding a ship through text-based events and battle screens. The two are completely different in their structure and experience.

You could look at a game like Invisible Inc and take lessons for how to improve stealth-based gameplay in a CRPG. But you can't really apply the lessons fo FTL to a CRPG (or at least, only in a very limited way) since it's so wildly different in how it plays.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

if you like tactical/strategic combat so much maybe you should play strategy games instead of RPGs ?

i myself like challenging tactical combat but i don't play RPGs for the combat, if i wanted tactical turn-based combat i would play strategy games instead, they do it much better.

 

[JarlFrank]

There's no reason why an RPG can't do good tactical combat. Example: KotC2.

 

[Karellen]

The problem with the modern Kickstarter RPGs that try to recapture the feel of the classics is that they're too polished and balanced. Developers feel that balance is gonna make a single player game better, for some reason. And by balance I mean obsessive equalizing of everything.

I definitely agree that the Cult of Balance worships a false idol, and effectively sacrifices meaningful exploration, good itemization, encounter variety and character flavour on the altar of viable builds and combat. That said, I don't think the solution is quite as easy as not overbalancing games. This is partly because gamers are almost certainly more experienced now and will find exploits more easily, but mostly because there's a whole lot of design problems with no obvious answers that relate to balance in RPGs. For instance, what should be the impact of character creation choices versus character growth, equipment and player skill? How adaptable should builds be, how much stuff can (or must) the player do outside their selected archetype? How much content is locked behind character attributes? What's the appropriate level of difficulty for encounters if builds are substantially different? It's worth noting that Fallout, arguably the archetype of CRPGs where character creation matters, is a rather easy game where XP doesn't matter that much, and it's not simple to put its build variety in a game that's meant to have interesting and challenging combat, say.

And there is nothing there that couldn't be done in a more "CRPG-ish" form

Sure there is. RPGs are about controlling a character or a group of characters through physically tangible areas, not guiding a ship through text-based events and battle screens. The two are completely different in their structure and experience.

This is an interesting and somewhat novel addition to the game of defining the RPG, and I can't quite decide what to make of it. I think there are very good reasons why computer RPGs generally do have physically tangible spaces (specifically, it is something that can be done well in a computer RPG, while it's often kind of a chore in a PnP RPG), but it's not self-evident to me that it's somehow essential. Tactical RPGs often have abstract terrain too except for battlefields, as (obviously) do PnP RPGs, in which it's not uncommon to use a "point-crawl" style where environments are abstract except for points of interest even in dungeons. But unless you think that dungeons are essential for RPGs (I think you can have a space RPG without dungeons, dungeons not really being a space thing), I think the only significant structural difference in FTL is that it is very typical (though not universal) of computer RPGs to allow areas to be revisited, which is something that FTL largely eliminates. Even that, though, isn't strictly a function of how tangible areas are.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

There's no reason why an RPG can't do good tactical combat. Example: KotC2.

For a tactical combat you need the encounter to be challenging and you need the strongest approach to not be too obvious, so that you can try you own strategy. Overall, you need to feel like you outsmarted your opponent, like in chess. The problem with RPGs is that they're really too unbalanced or too obviously unbalanced, in RPGs you always have obviously weak and strong approaches,spells or itens. Picking the obviously inferior option or making worse decisions on purpose is not tactical, is handicapping yourself.

There's also the problem of balancing the difficulty in a game based on stats gain and classes. On top of that, Strategy games are designed around that when you lose you need to do a fresh restart of a mission(RTS) or a campaign(4X). RPGs are typically not designed around a fresh restart when you die no matter how shitty your characters or past decisions were, just reload the save game, making hard to balance the difficulty of encounters, there are exceptions of course.

 

[Darkzone]

And VATS was mostly a hindernance, because the adversaries were still moving during VATS execution.

While using V.A.T.S., the otherwise real-time combat is paused.
The player character receives only 10% of normal damage in V.A.T.S.
To hit chances are unaffected by enemy' movement.
I see no point in further arguing with you. If VATS is a hindrance, then what else to say?

How about a sound and cogent argument?
Fallout 3 is an example that you algorithm correctly identifies as a FP-Action RPG, and by arguing about it i can understand what you understand under your loosely definition of an RPG. The problem are not the true positives like Fallout 3, but rather the false positives and false negatives. As an example you have given that damage potential is necesserly in a RPG is given by the skills (or perks) of the played character modifing the base weapon damage. But the attribute is not only in Fallout 3, but in many other games like Far Cry series or Assassin's Creed Odyssey or RT or TB Strategies or even in Civ 6 (i skipped 4-5) or Total War Games and i don't see this games as RPGs. Yes your algorithm in points 1, 2 and 3 applies to this games even by your extended (argued) definition. You were also saying that something which requires the players reaction ability is not a RPG (you went a little back in a later post by extending the definition by damage values modified by skills of the player character). But then again what is about RTwP RPGs, like Baldur's Gate? Because the combat outcome in vanilla is often very dependent upon the reaction ability of the player. The procedure to pause the game for action input is also comparable in principle to VATS in Fallout 3 (with a queue of actions).
Therefore going to back to my first post towards you: check always against false negatives and false positives. Naturally i always learn something new by arguing and this time i made my self something clear that i never wanted to admit despite knowing it: LARPing (Braunstein Games) predates tabletop RPG gaming.
Funny Thing to note:
One of the spoke persons of CDPR noted in CP77 last Wire update or so and compared the abilites / skill dependent shoting to Aimbot. (just saying)

 

[Ol' Willy]

As an example you have given that damage potential is necesserly in a RPG is given by the skills (or perks) of the played character modifing the base weapon damage. But the attribute is not only in Fallout 3, but in many other games like Far Cry series or Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Just compare to what degree skills influence the gameplay in average CRPG and average Ass-as-sin game. Big difference.

even in Civ 6 (i skipped 4-5) or Total War Games and i don't see this games as RPGs.

That's a legit argument, finally: by my definition game like Crusader Kings 2 are RPGs. But I've seen people claiming that before.

Question to local experts: does Crusader Kings 2 qualifies as RPG?

But then again what is about RTwP RPGs, like Baldur's Gate? Because the combat outcome in vanilla is often very dependent upon the reaction ability of the player.

Do you think that I would miss the opportunity to flex on RtWP and declare that RTwP is less RPG than TB?

 

[Lady_Error]

4 characters? RPG. 6 characters? RPG. 8 characters? Yeah that's still an RPG. 10 characters? Now we're stretching it but it still qualifies. Anything more than 10? LOLNO now it's a strategy or tactics game LMAO.

It makes sense though. In an RPG you are supposed to be roleplaying, that is identifying with the characters. The more there are (beyond a certain point of around 8-12), the less roleplaying or identifying with those characters there is.

In the case of JA2 the player character (whom you identify with) also has no stats. JA2 is closer to HoMM, which nobody considers an RPG as far as I know.

 

[The Red Knight]

Your IMP has no stats? Sounds like a bug with your version of the game. There should be this screen near the end of character creation:

Spoiler

The game could be over if they die but it's nice enough to let you play out the gameover epilogue instead of calling it a day and showing some early ending slide.

Or they forgot to code in some game over states.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Your IMP has no stats? Sounds like a bug with your version of the game. There should be this screen near the end of character creation:

Spoiler

The game could be over if they die but it's nice enough to let you play out the gameover epilogue instead of calling it a day and showing some early ending slide.

Or they forgot to code in some game over states.

You can beat the game without ever making the character.

 

[Sweeper]

The problem with the modern Kickstarter RPGs that try to recapture the feel of the classics is that they're too polished and balanced. Developers feel that balance is gonna make a single player game better, for some reason. And by balance I mean obsessive equalizing of everything.

 

[Curratum]

I just clicked the "Who is Lilura" in the signature and ran into this self-quote (how unexpected!) on the blog page:

RPGs consist in combat. And the more there is combat, the more it is RPG. - Lilura.

At first I used to think Lilura is some sort of clinical-grade retard, then my opinion almost improved to the point where I had some sort of respect, I guess. But now we're back to square one - Lilura is very likely a high-functioning autist.

 

[Sweeper]

RPGs consist in combat. And the more there is combat, the more it is RPG. - Lilura.

She's not wrong about that though, she's just wrong about everything else.
Including JA2 being an RPG.

 

[JarlFrank]

In the case of JA2 the player character (whom you identify with) also has no stats.

Actually she does cause I created her at the start of the game. I always considered that custom merc to be my character.

 

[Mortmal]

There's no reason why an RPG can't do good tactical combat. Example: KotC2.

Thats no good tactical combat, only the underlying mechanisms and the AI are good, the stats of npcs are overbloated CR over the roof, everything is wrong and rely on initiative and reloads.

 

[JarlFrank]

There's no reason why an RPG can't do good tactical combat. Example: KotC2.

Thats no good tactical combat, only the underlying mechanisms and the AI are good, the stats of npcs are overbloated CR over the roof, everything is wrong and rely on initiative and reloads.

It also has mod tools so you can make better encounters.

The underlying mechanisms and the AI are good, yes. That's the big point. It's an RPG with really, really good tactical combat mechanics.

 

[mondblut]

I'm curious about people's arguments who explicitly determine JA2 as RPG.

Let's see:

You gather a party of characters (any kind of combination of created characters and hired pregenerated characters) who have a number of attributes, skills and traits, as well as individual inventories containing all kinds of weapons, armor and utility items, and go adventuring across a vast open-ended world, where you fight turn-based battles against enemies, explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests, in any order you wish, all depending on your characters' stats.

I think I have just described every RPG in existence (every proper RPG, at least).

Your turn. (and no, having a few sources of passive income or having combat that is too good for an average RPG does not a strategy game makes)

 

[Jason Liang]

The truth is that JA lacks systems that are found in rpgs like magic system, class system, alignment system, level system, etc... and instead has systems you find in squad tactics games like sophisticated firearm systems, etc...

I don't get why some people keep making the JA is rpg argument when no one makes that argument for X-Com or HoMM.

 

[mondblut]

The truth is that JA lacks systems that are found in rpgs like magic system, class system, alignment system,

Oh. Fallout, wherefore art thou a strategy game?

level system

Did you even play it?

and instead has systems you find in squad tactics games like sophisticated firearm systems, etc...

Aha, the "RPG combat must be dumb and shitty" argument again

I don't get why some people keep making the JA is rpg argument when no one makes that argument for X-Com or HoMM.

X-Com, as do other pure squad tactics games, completely lacks the "go adventuring across a vast open-ended world... explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests" part. It's a sequence of set-piece combat scenarios, glorified chess with strategy elements (base-building and research) on top.

HoMM is a strategy game about raising armies in your production centers and conquering enemy production centers. A game wouldn't even change if there were no "heroes" with a couple of stats and a few skills leading those 5000 skeleton mobs. People who bring this game up even when discussing "RPG hybrids" are retarded.

 

[Jason Liang]

X-Com, as do other pure squad tactics games, completely lacks the "go adventuring across a vast open-ended world... explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests" part. It's a sequence of set-piece combat scenarios, glorified chess with strategy elements (base-building and research) on top.

What you describe is the characteristic of Adventure games, whether they be King's Quest or GTA or Red Dead Redemption. This doesn't make JA an rpg.

 

[Viata]

X-Com, as do other pure squad tactics games, completely lacks the "go adventuring across a vast open-ended world... explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests" part. It's a sequence of set-piece combat scenarios, glorified chess with strategy elements (base-building and research) on top.

What you describe is the characteristic of Adventure games, whether they be King's Quest or GTA or Red Dead Redemption. This doesn't make JA an rpg.

Nigga, he is comparing X-com to JA2 as a way of showing why people don't call x-com RPG.

 

[mondblut]

X-Com, as do other pure squad tactics games, completely lacks the "go adventuring across a vast open-ended world... explore and loot places for items and money, converse to NPCs and do quests" part. It's a sequence of set-piece combat scenarios, glorified chess with strategy elements (base-building and research) on top.

What you describe is the characteristic of Adventure games, whether they be King's Quest or GTA or Red Dead Redemption. This doesn't make JA an rpg.

What separates RPGs from adventure games? Hmm... Strong elements typical for squad tactics games?
What separates RPGs from squad tactics games? Hmm... Strong elements typical for adventure games?

You are on the verge of achieving self-awareness now, don't blow this opportunity.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I have an Uncle Witherjar who decorates grounds professionally. He has become known all across his hometown as the Garden Gnome, and I understand he makes quite the fair living at it. I don't know if I would like to work all those hours during the day, as Uncle Witherjar does, so I think I would have to turn down your mother's suggestion. I could always refer her to my Uncle, I suppose, although it is such a far way. He wants to spread his work amongst all the gnomes, but I don't think he's made much headway, yet. If your mother would rather decorate her kitchen, I suppose I could give it a whirl even if I haven't got the Witherjar touch.

 

[Ol' Willy]

magic system, class system, alignment system, level system

None of these are necessary for a RPG. Magic applies only to fantasy and PSI inclusive settings, classless>class based, alignment or karma is always optional, levels per se don't matter as long as you have skills (see AoD for a level-less example).

 

[Lady_Error]

HoMM is a strategy game about raising armies in your production centers and conquering enemy production centers.

Aren't you conquering enemy production centers in JA2 as well? Though yeah, the mercs with stats are definitely more personal than armies in HoMM.