1eyedking Top 10 things that RPGs don't do anymore

[Gunnar]

In Fallout 2 you could become a porn star, a fluffer, a pimp, you could slaughter children, there was a blow up doll quest, hilariously brutal death animations, junkies, etc. Now all the devs are full on SJW mode and they don't make them like that anymore.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

A meaningful, reactive world that has some life of its own, not one frozen in stasis until you reach a particular quest stage (so it can enter a new stasis). If someone tells you to hurry, you should be required to make at least a token effort or fail the quest.

Related, you should be able to do stuff by accident/guesses/good thinking. There is no reason games should disallow legitimate actions just because you didn't reach some arbitrary trigger. If I want to spend 10 minutes guessing the door combination, fucking let me. Many games simply do not react to the correct combination until you found it somewhere written on a piece of paper (as in "We designed three extra hours of trash combat here, so you better sit through it!").

 

[Zombra]

A meaningful, reactive world that has some life of its own, not one frozen in stasis until you reach a particular quest stage (so it can enter a new stasis). If someone tells you to hurry, you should be required to make at least a token effort or fail the quest.

Is this "things RPGs don't do any more" or "random stuff I want"?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I could write a longer post on this, but I think the main thing on my list would be that it seems many modern RPG developers favor overall convenience, efficiency and accessibility more than other elements in the game. Most games don't require a large investment anymore, and that's not necessarily because developers want to do it that way, but more because of what gamers expect and how the market is. It's a necessity to keep the studio's employees and owners paid and the studio in business.

The convenience/efficiency/accessibility thing can apply to all game systems in a game. So rather than having a shop interface where you click the various items on a shelf like someone mentioned earlier, you get a somewhat sterile inventory list because it's faster for players to use. Instead of a unique-looking inventory screen with a lot of character, you get a basic spreadsheet-style inventory that maximizes speed and efficiency.

I had a thought that if someone had an unlimited budget and didn't have to rely on sales, reviews, a target demographic or anything else like that and they just made a game purely to see their vision through and not necessarily make a profit, I think that would be an interesting thing. Imagine the creativity that can be had when money and sales are a non-factor...

 

[Raziel]

Indeed. Efficiency is the death of creativity. While it's natural for developers to strive towards "cleaner" designs and more accessibility, too much is sacrificed in the process.

Probably been mentioned already, but lots of stuff from Wizradry should be a feature in every RPG where it makes sense. Competing adventuring parties, [actually type into a textbox to answer riddles/ask questions], skills affecting the minimap(and perhaps other features that are the norm).

 

[Kem0sabe]

I miss rpgs being fun.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Indeed. Efficiency is the death of creativity. While it's natural for developers to strive towards "cleaner" designs and more accessibility, too much is sacrificed in the process.

Probably been mentioned already, but lots of stuff from Wizradry should be a feature in every RPG where it makes sense. Competing adventuring parties, [actually type into a textbox to answer riddles/ask questions], skills affecting the minimap(and perhaps other features that are the norm).

Agreed on the riddle/text box feature. Skills affecting minimaps, for sure. These types of things are likely removed again for efficiency and lower investment level.

I also use the example of M&M III - Isles of Terra. The viewport UI has a dragon that is animated when enemies are near, gems glowing when your Thief notices a secret area nearby and more. While I'm not saying that's the ideal design or anything, it's creative, and those type of small features go a long way, IMO.

 

[naossano]

- Populating cities with more than a dozen people is murder on the console hardware

That always has been the case, regardless of platform. Curiously, immershunfags seem to dig that, just look at Ultima. Go figure...

New Reno in Fallout 2, Vizima on The Witcher, for instance, had many people in the same map, and quite some of them were unique.

 

[Old One]

cRPGs seem to have completely abandoned phase-based combat systems, even though they used to be quite common. The original Bard's Tale and Might & Magic games and Wasteland 1 all had early forms of phase-based combat: you issue commands to your characters, and they and your enemies all execute the commands simultaneously in an action phase. At the end of the phase, you assess the situation and, if necessary, issue new orders.

I was reminded of this as I was trying out Space Rangers HD, which has a nice phase-based system (even though I often see people saying it's turn-based).

Phase-based has a lot of advantages, and in some ways it's better than turn-based. For one thing, it does away with the problem of the player knowing the order of action. In TB, you always try to kill the enemies who haven't acted yet in order to prevent them from ever getting an attack during the current round. In PB, you can't do that.

It works well for computer games.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Phase-based combat, awesome. Thanks, Old One!

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I think Bard's Tale IV may be using phase-based combat. Brian also answered a tweet of mine awhile back saying that BT:IV will also have hardcore difficulty options. Probably some risk/reward saving options and things like this.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Today hardcore just means you have to manage your character's dietary needs as well.

 

[Goral]

Another thing are maps (which in most contemporary games work more like GPS than maps) for various reasons, e.g. aesthetic ones. Compare:

Betrayal at Krondor map:


with Bethesda shit:

bonus

 

[Jimmious]

Sorry if it has been mentioned in the previous 10 pages but for me one important thing RPGs don't do anymore is having actual fail states, meaning that you can actually make choices that will end up in you failing. Killing the wrong people, losing important items, missing important dates etc
Devs are way too afraid to make the players feel bad that they did something "wrong".

As an example, in games that you need lockpicks or a key to open an important door there will ALWAYS be something of the sort lying around there to make sure that you don't need to think about it before heading to that location.

 

[Goral]

for me one important thing RPGs don't do anymore is having actual fail states, meaning that you can actually make choices that will end up in you failing. Killing the wrong people, losing important items, missing important dates etc
Devs are way too afraid to make the players feel bad that they did something "wrong".

I agree but it's for a good reason, just look at the Age of Decadence reviews (on Steam fro example). ALL negative ones are of the "it's too hard" or "game won't let me do what I want unlike Skyrim" sort.

 

[octavius]

Sorry if it has been mentioned in the previous 10 pages but for me one important thing RPGs don't do anymore is having actual fail states, meaning that you can actually make choices that will end up in you failing. Killing the wrong people, losing important items, missing important dates etc
Devs are way too afraid to make the players feel bad that they did something "wrong". .

I quit Adventure games due to "fail states".

As an example, in games that you need lockpicks or a key to open an important door there will ALWAYS be something of the sort lying around there to make sure that you don't need to think about it before heading to that location.

Yes, that's rather lame, but better than make the game unwinnable because you broke your only lockpicks on the Princess' chastity belt. Instead there should be alternative routes. If the obvious one doesn't work due to the player doing something not optimal, there should be alternative, harder ways of doing things.

 

[naossano]

There is a difference between to being unable to move forward in any directions (especially the directions that will allow to win the game), because of silly meaningless things that the developers probably didn't account for (Lands Of Lore is full of that) and game in which you could fail the main quest because some important things mentioned by every npc ingame (like the time limit in Fallout 1), or the possibility to fail many, many quest, and piss off almost everyone, but still be able to end the game. (like New Vegas, in which you still can get Yes Man even if you failed everything else) or game in which you can die easily, but are still able to reload a bit before and move into another direction, without having the whole playthrough screwed. (Wasteland 1 if you crash to desktop at death)

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I agree, the fail state aspect of RPGs isn't equivalent to any traditional computer game fail state cliches. RPGs are not meant to be fail-sensitive games, they are supposed to be oops, think you might have to reload back a bit games. Or, well you've really fucked up that party configuration, guess its back to the ol' drawing board for a reload kinda games. Failing for piddling little stuff in a 100 hours continuous narrative-structure where reloading is mostly discouraged and the gameplay doesn't tend to have aspects such as 'lives' and 'one-ups' and alternative options are wholeheartedly encouraged, is where people tend to get grumpy about fail states in RPGs.

 

[octavius]

There is a difference between to being unable to move forward in any directions (especially the directions that will allow to win the game), because of silly meaningless things that the developers probably didn't account for (Lands Of Lore is full of that) and game in which you could fail the main quest because some important things mentioned by every npc ingame (like the time limit in Fallout 1),

But you know of the time limit in Fallout.

 

[Jimmious]

Tbh I'm not saying it was always done right in older games. But it is definitely something that RPGs dont do anymore

 

[naossano]

There is a difference between to being unable to move forward in any directions (especially the directions that will allow to win the game), because of silly meaningless things that the developers probably didn't account for (Lands Of Lore is full of that) and game in which you could fail the main quest because some important things mentioned by every npc ingame (like the time limit in Fallout 1),

But you know of the time limit in Fallout.

Which is specifically mentionned in the sentence, to make a point that you couldn't possibly ignore it.

 

[octavius]

There is a difference between to being unable to move forward in any directions (especially the directions that will allow to win the game), because of silly meaningless things that the developers probably didn't account for (Lands Of Lore is full of that) and game in which you could fail the main quest because some important things mentioned by every npc ingame (like the time limit in Fallout 1),

But you know of the time limit in Fallout.

Which is specifically mentionned in the sentence, to make a point that you couldn't possibly ignore it.

 

[SionIV]

Immersion.

I don't know if it's the fault of new RPGs or if it's because I'm getting older, but I'm having a really hard time losing myself in the game world when it comes to the newer games.

- I miss digging through trash cans in Arcanum, trying to find materials to craft with.
- I miss reaching the city of Baldur's Gate with wide eyes, thinking for myself "Oh my god, this journey has just begun"
- I miss getting lost in Morrowind, picking up mushrooms, finding all kinds of neat things and running away from Mudcrabs, Cliff Racers and anything else that looked at me with malice, only to end up inside a random tomb and having some nasty undead one shotting me.
- I miss exiting the Mortuary in Planescape: Torment, carefully looking around the city with wide eyes, taking in the unique setting and then running for my life once a group of thugs tried to steal my money.

Back in the days I would wake up a Saturday morning, starting my computer while getting something to eat for breakfast, and then preparing myself for an entire day of losing myself in an amazing world. The closest I've gotten to this with the newer games have been Fallout New Vegas and Darksouls. I did enjoy Skyrim with mods (Requiem, etc), but it never gave me the feeling that Morrowind did. I sadly can't say if it's my age or if it's the games, what I can say is that I just can't immerse myself into newer games anymore, and I really miss that.

The worlds just don't have soul anymore, they feel so cold, empty and dead. I might have had a hard time getting into Gothic I+II because of the controls, and that helped shape a somewhat negative opinion on the games for me, but there is no denying that the Gothic I + II game worlds had soul, and a lot of it.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

- I miss reaching the city of Baldur's Gate with wide eyes, thinking for myself "Oh my god, this journey has just begun"

That is such an underrated moment. It's creative genius IMO to introduce such a huge, sprawling city much later in the game. Yet it was visibly on the map but you weren't sure if you were actually going to get to explore it, and when you do it's huge, atmospheric and just an awesome thing. I'd like to see more RPGs do that rather than front-loading their games.

But as for soul in games and immersion, that's got to be on your end as well. I try to approach games like I did when I was a kid and with a child's mind. The games are still full of wonder and awe but you have to find it in yourself first.