Why first person perspective is becoming rarer and rarer among RPGs?

[rusty_shackleford]

Never liked first person perspective in video games, it's impossible to properly represent a first person view without VR. Human field of view is significantly larger than you can represent using standard perspective projection and a single camera without extensive distortion. There are some tricks to work around this(curvilinear projection) but are rarely used, most likely due to being unknown, and because it would probably feel wrong to a lot of gamers now despite it being closer to being right.
e.g., panini projection, which is fairly optimal for human FOV.

 

[Ladonna]

Just ran across this for sale. Never played it so cannot comment.

https://af.gog.com/en/game/conglomerate_451?as=1649904300

 

[unseeingeye]

I just want to mention that the signaled vanity of players who want to see their characters on-screen as they play is not necessarily an extension of the nauseating self-indulgence exacerbated by smart phones and social media so rampant among the selfie generation (and practically all of the rest). RPGs in general have involved large numbers of grown men spending a significant amount of time hand painting personalized figurines and even giving them names, to then move around on a table like toddlers toys, for decades before the selfie plague began.

The psychology of relating to a third-person perspective character is fairy straightforward I imagine, and possibly why so many narrative focused games that resemble movies default to it, but there is an interesting relation to oneself and to the character(s) in first-person perspective that occurs in parallel. For people who don't engage in immersive role playing and lack the creative imagination for theater of the mind spontaneity it might be distracting, perhaps even disorienting. Motion sickness is a more extreme kind of physiological response but I think is related to the more mild type of what appears to be an almost dissociative state. It hasn't happened to me but I've known people who cannot even look at a screen while first-person games are displayed without becoming ill, and I've wondered how they are perceiving the same stimuli so differently. Also important to take into consideration is the compulsive tendencies for violence practically inherent to video games. As combat mechanics are further refined and become as critical among criteria in review as sound design or graphics, and designing third-person comprehensive combat mechanics must be significantly easier (or if not, at least more possibilities are readily open) to do than in first-person, the trends that arise tend towards this approach. One of the more peculiar examples of both perspectives existing in alternating form that reveals how difficult it must be to design first-person combat mechanics and animations is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. In my opinion that game would have been much better had it maintained only one or the other perspective, in this case first-person.

 

[Bad Sector]

Consoles

Consolification and gamepads.

Consoles are nowadays just heavily locked down PCs and gamepads didn't stop first person perspective games like Halo and Call of Duty from being system sellers, so they certainly have nothing to do with less first person RPGs being made.

Personally i think it has more to do with what mentioned elsewhere - people simply want to see their characters in the game world instead of just the inventory screen (assuming even that is possible). Well, that, and many AAAArgh developers simply copying what other AAAArgh developers made that happened to become commercially successful - and in recent years that'd be 3rd person games.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Personally i think it has more to do with what mentioned elsewhere - people simply want to see their characters in the game world instead of just the inventory screen (assuming even that is possible).

I just like to see what's around my character more than what's directly in front of it.

 

[Bad Sector]

I just like to see what's around my character more than what's directly in front of it.

You can look around in FP games :-P assuming the FOV isn't tiny of course.

Personally i never had issues "seeing the world" form a first person perspective. If anything the only perspective i can think of having issues with is isometric/bird's eye with a locked camera.

 

[Cryomancer]

Are you playing Project 1999 or some other version?

NOpe. Retail. I will only test p99 AFTER playing a lot of retail

Even subbed into EQ(never did it in a mmo before)

-----

Unseeing eye, amazing answer.

 

[thesheeep]

Kingdom Come or Enderal are fantastic first person RPGs though. Nothing pseudo about it.

Those are really good games.
But they are mostly just action games with some RPG coating.

Still, as others said, better than no RPG at all I guess

 

[unseeingeye]

Kingdom Come is a fantastic game that I truly love, but it is a perfect example of how awkward so many people find any experimentation in first-person combat mechanics. For me it was excellent, I thoroughly enjoyed the sensation of becoming proficient with sword fighting by training, though to this day I've never landed a single combo successfully (or if I have I wasn't aware of it).

 

[Tacgnol]

Kingdom Come is a fantastic game that I truly love, but it is a perfect example of how awkward so many people find any experimentation in first-person combat mechanics. For me it was excellent, I thoroughly enjoyed the sensation of becoming proficient with sword fighting by training, though to this day I've never landed a single combo successfully (or if I have I wasn't aware of it).

Kingdom Come also really leaned into limiting your vision during combat, whether that was through visors and helmets or just generally being paranoid about being flanked in the middle of combat when dealing with multiple opponents.

Probably would feel like a very different game if it used a third person perspective.

 

[Lord_Potato]

In late 80s/90s, we had Ravenloft:Strahd possession, Ravenloft : Stone prophet, Anvil of Dawn, Lands of Lore 1/2/3, Menzoberranzan, Eye of the Beholder 1/2/3, Might & Magic IV/V/VI/VII/VIII, Wizards and Warriors, TES Daggerfall, Dungeon hack, Ultima Underword, Black Crypt, Bards Tale 1/2/3 to name a few iconic RPG's. In the most recent years, we got almost no FP RPGs. With the exception of few good games like Grimoire, we got only boring pseudo self identified RPGs in first person perspective. I ask this question cuz recently I started to play EQ and fell in love with the game and don't remember the last time that I got so immersed in a RPG, with few moments of immersion breaking, like when I could cast boil blood in a freaking skeleton.

Why we are having so few RPGs in FP? My guess? Consoles + The fact that immersion is no longer valued by gamers and rpg developers.

There are numerous fpp rpgs released every year,much more than in 90s. Most of them are indies though. Check Steam with appropriate tags. Do Legends of Amberland, Conglimerate 451, Inferno: Beyond the 7th Circle or Islands of Caliph ring any bells?

 

[Cryomancer]

Halo and Call of Duty from being system sellers

Yep. But most of console titles are third person action adventure with stealth elements. Also, if you look into 90s console RPG's, you wound't find many first person games.

Do Legends of Amberland, Conglimerate 451, Inferno: Beyond the 7th Circle or Islands of Caliph ring any bells?

Yep. Nice point. This games are great(not as 90s). Another modern FP RPG which people say that is amazing is Aeon of Sands.

 

[Shadenuat]

What strengths does 1st person offer to already very bloated and expensive genre like RPG, that has to before doing anything, solve an extremely complex task of interpreting what "roleplaying" for it even is?
KCD is cute game but it also somewhat of a baby game, aside from combat that quickly becomes routine, it really does nothing with its "3d" when compared to, say, Thief. It's a pretty ez game in believable medieval decorations.
First person and 3d seem to be best when the actual geometry of a thing is used. While main traditional RPG values usually are about choices of some kind, very often about things, that aren't by their nature physical, but more social, which traditional gaming struggles to replicate.

When there are so many things players demand from the genre from the start (story, interactive dialogue, strong setting, choices, interesting problem solving), it really can seem foolish to also try and invest into expensive 3d engine which is also harder to make look attractive than a simple 2d graphics.

Seems to me historywise, first person RPGs hit a bit of a wall in the end, as amount of expected things one has to do to be considered True RPG TM while also realising all that 3d thing in a nuanced manner requires either some very savvy design or a pretty good amount of cash (or both).

 

[Bad Sector]

Yep. But most of console titles are third person action adventure with stealth elements. Also, if you look into 90s console RPG's, you wound't find many first person games.

The point is that consoles by themselves are not the reason for not many FPP RPGs - a developer wont decide to not make an FPP game because they want to target consoles (i mention all FPP games because aside from the perspective there isn't really any other difference between FPP RPGs and TPP RPGs as far as mainstream game developers are concerned - in most TPP RPGs you rarely even get to control a party).

That decision is more likely to come from "what game the designer wants to make" (in the best of cases) or "what is popular right now" (in the AAAest of cases), with the latter being (IMO) the most likely and most self-reinforcing - until some trend-ignoring runaway success causes things to change (a bit).

TBH i don't think there is anything more involved than what is currently "fashionable" really - during most of the 2000s, there were more mainstream games that were futuristic sci-fi than nowadays (probably due to Halo's success), 2010s saw fantasy becoming more common (Skyrim most likely helped a lot there) and in recent years a lot of games have this wacky, overly colorful style. Like monkeys, humans like to mimic what each other does after all.

 

[Reinhardt]

Yep. But most of console titles are third person action adventure with stealth elements.

games like etrian odyssey still sells pretty good on consoles. when was last time decent blobber was popular on pc?

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I think we should distinguish between FP games with free movement and grid based blobbers. The latter are indeed now more popular in consoles/handhelds than PC.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Becoming rare because people want to see tits and ass and more jiggle and bounce and gyrate. I guess that FPP panty shots and morphing through npcs is just out. FPPPS is a thing of MMO past and SP past. And with games offering more sex and shit you just gotta see that porn er romance blooming.

Bleck!

Bring back my damn old school Vector line FPP damnit!

VECTOR MOBS!

Although..... 3rd person vector? Hmmm....

Anyway, I looked at Conglomerate 451 and there are no mods to make you dungeon crawling deeper and longer and more varied. Not much at all..
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Conglomerate_451

85% off though. Eh might as well snag it.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Yeah the squeeze is from both sides - 3rd person dress-up and isometric nostalgia.

Blobbers just seem to me to be an artifact of older technology. I guess if you grew up with them you'll have a fondness for them, but that's the same for all of us who have a fondness for gaming constraints we grew up with due to some tech limitation. The fondness for fixed isometric is just from a different, slightly later school of nostalgia for old tech limitations.

Zoomed out birds eye view is a very convenient way to let the player take in all the information from his character's surroundings at a glance. This functionality is very important for reducing drudgery, which is a major design goal of a lot of RPG devs. You can't boil it down to just "nostalgia".

 

[Cryomancer]

games like etrian odyssey still sells pretty good on consoles. when was last time decent blobber was popular on pc?

Not a blobber, but Cyberbug 2077 was very popular despite all bugs...

What strengths does 1st person offer

More immersion.

 

[Reinhardt]

Not a blobber, but Cyberbug 2077 was very popular despite all bugs...

it's thread about potato shooters?

 

[Shadenuat]

games like etrian odyssey still sells pretty good on consoles. when was last time decent blobber was popular on pc?

Not a blobber, but Cyberbug 2077 was very popular despite all bugs...

What strengths does 1st person offer

More immersion.

immersion (atmosphere) in reality depends more on art direction of a game, not tech or is it first person or isometric.
well written text can be more immersive than picture.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Some games just hack n slah. No puzzles, no difficult maze, no npcs, not much of anything. And that doesn't just have to be FPP.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

A real question: Why haven't rpg developers learned that Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python is in fact the perfect writing for a high level wizard?

 

[Lim-Dûl]

A real question: Why haven't rpg developers learned that Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python is in fact the perfect writing for a high level wizard?

Maybe they don't want to participate in perpetuating a harmful stereotype.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

A real question: Why haven't rpg developers learned that Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python is in fact the perfect writing for a high level wizard?

Maybe they don't want to participate in perpetuating a harmful stereotype.

Now that just sounds like typical left-wing babble.