Gameplay - depth vs complexity vs fun

[Suhiira]

Man, that would be cool.

And totally appropriate.

 

[En-en]

I always adored smaller and straightforward numbers in RPG systems. Health(HP) that ranges from 40-80(that you cant increase during playthrough), damage 20-50, armor 1-40(direct reduction, not %). Age of Decadence is a good example I guess. In real-time RPG combat high toughness should alow you to survive few more scary hits compared to squishy guy, but not turn you into sponge-monster. Unless its sword vs plate armor or crappy pistol vs kevlar.

I dont know why there is trend nowadays to have thousands and thousands of health and damage. I also dont why almost every RPG insist that you should increase your HP just because you lvl up, or have an option to increase HP by just casualy puting points somewhere. Why in BG by lvl 10 my barbarian became 10x spongier? I would think that system with fixed Hit Points is more realistic and easier to balance.

Basicaly, I want stats that make sence and more or less accurate realism wise, not artificial stats that are there because ''lol RPG''(quite common nowadays).

 

[tropit9]

No, that guy is now a real threat to elite units, absolutely. They are upper tier threat, either combatant or hacker or networking style of operator.

But Black Ops aren't "Super Squads", they are, in the Dark Future, a pretty standard part of any major Corp's military personnel.

A "Super Squad", which they also have, are a whoooooole other ballgame. Now you're talking a very expensive Corporate crew indeed - vat grown tech ninjas, cutting edge cyberware, top of the line gear and weapons and commo and transport and...blah blah blah. Scary, scary people. You do not see these people on the Street. Hopefully.

You know, they very best of what the Cyberpunk world can provide. That's what the elite Corporate units get. Because that gear is provided by the Corporations.

Second only to the Cybercircle ( some of whom are -in- those units as well) and of course the Angels.

so if i get it correctly. cybercircle gear is the runewright enhanced grandmaster gear equivelent of witcher 3? is that the gear to strom the araska HQ with?

provided of course you did a heist earlier with a well paid insider, and got yourself some of that fancy shiny gear.

 

[Suhiira]

I dont know why there is trend nowadays to have thousands and thousands of health and damage.

I chalk this one up to Asian MMOs. They could easily drop three or so zeros off everything in combat and the game would play exactly the same. But some people like big numbers, strokes their ego.

 

[Corewolf]

What I don't want is a level 3 Constitution Cyclone, and a level 9 Constitution Cyclone, and a level 15 Constitution Cyclone, etc. and on an on for all of the other weapons and armor.

What honestly could work is a simple "Threat assessment level" option "Blue-Green-Yellow-Red" or something like that based on the type of equipment that you see on an individual.

Honestly though I don't think you necessarily "need" RPG health/level mechanics in an open world RPG style game. I could point to stealth sims like Metal Gear Solid V for this. Lethality is all about how well trained/equipped the group you are fighting against is. An Afghani town militia isn't as deadly as the Russian PF's in the game. And the DIFFERENCE in the lethality is mainly in tactics and speed.

They all have guns, and those guns will all kill you equally dead very quickly. But the better trained/funded/equipped groups flank faster, react to changes in your strategy faster, and have the option of using things like suppressing fire (due to having higher ROF guns or more men), Artillery Strikes (Due to having resources others don't) or calling in backup/vehicular support (Again, funding).


You want an easy way of making it so "town guards" can wreck you easily, just make it so that after you catch that ONE NCPD officer off guard, they respond overwhelmingly to the point you have to either retreat or die, or have an absurd level of planning/backup/support to weather the ensuing firefight.

Plenty of ways to raise lethality or lower it without using idiosyncratic levels or HP, or making fights a nonsensical "HP chipping" thing. Don't want players to be able to fight in an area easily? Put armored tanks/bots/whatever there before they have the equipment to deal with it.(Assuming they are going to remove the Armor Stacking issues like most people do, so we won't see armor stacked sec forces). They either don't fight, or find an alternative way to deal with the targets that may not be direct combat. One of my favorite gaming sessions was when a creative player made a car into a "paint bomb" using modified plastic oneshot launchers. and rammed it into a corporation lobby. The driver was banged up a bit but managed to get out of the line of fire and the rest of the team got through and in while the guards on site were still trying to shoot straight.

 

[Corewolf]

so if i get it correctly. cybercircle gear is the runewright enhanced grandmaster gear equivelent of witcher 3? is that the gear to strom the araska HQ with?

provided of course you did a heist earlier with a well paid insider, and got yourself some of that fancy shiny gear.

Which will be useful to a point, but shouldn't make the game a cakewalk.

Maybe your next heist or two down the line can use it, but eventually it breaks or is rendered useless for one reason or another. Maybe it gets taken due to you needing to get through a metal detector/secure checkpoint and have to use concealed plastic weapons or something.

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

One of my friends accidentally got into a fight with some Nilfgaardian guards near the beginning of the game, and he was infuriated that the legendary Witcher easily fell from one blow by a common soldier. While Geralt could only chip away at their health slowly, feeling for all the world like a mouse clawing against a cat. Why? Because Geralt was level 2 and the guards were level 14. This type of distinction felt completely out of place in this universe, and shattered his immersion. I remember when I was gifted a legendary sword by my friends in Skellige for my great deeds....and it was worse than a common sword in higher level areas. The Wyvern that looked so intimidating at the beginning of the game, could have easily been taken out by a single one of Cleavers thugs, only because they happened to live in a higher level area. I don't know why Novigrad has any trouble facing Nilfgaard, since in game a single Novigrad soldier could've have taken on a dozen Nilfgaard soldiers. Having to wait 8 levels in order to wear the next armor or weapon was silly.

.

Any RPG needs to have barriers, otherwise the game will have no sense of progression. Take Fallout 4 per example, a game where you can find a Power Armor (literally the most important piece of armor in the game) in the first 10 minutes of the game, this is not fun at all since it takes away all felling of reward the player could have. Marcin Iwinki said that the main character in Cyberpunk 2077 will come out of the streets...so it will make total sense to have levels or at least enemies that are incredibly superior to yours. But at the same time it would be great to have enemies with powerfull A.I instead of bullet sponges, Cyberpunk 2077 should be more Dark Souls and Less Fallout 4 in terms of difficulty.

 

[Zagor-Te-Nay]

Any RPG needs to have barriers, otherwise the game will have no sense of progression. Take Fallout 4 per example, a game where you can find a Power Armor (literally the most important piece of armor in the game) in the first 10 minutes of the game, this is not fun at all since it takes away all felling of reward the player could have. Marcin Iwinki said that the main character in Cyberpunk 2077 will come out of the streets...so it will make total sense to have levels or at least enemies that are incredibly superior to yours. But at the same time it would be great to have enemies with powerfull A.I instead of bullet sponges, Cyberpunk 2077 should be more Dark Souls and Less Fallout 4 in terms of difficulty.

Different types of rpg's need different type of "barriers". It is more difficult to pull it off in open world...they need to feel more intuitive than, clerics can't equip swords or massive damage resistances like in old Infinity games.
In this case, it will come down to area and enemy design.
For locations they could vary on surveillance level, tech( for example: how easy it is to hack/disable security), reinforcements response time, road blocks, environmental hazards.
When it comes to enemies: AI ( aggression factor, speed, etc), armor, morale, weapon quality, type of cyberware, auxiliary tools( stimpaks, smoke bombs...), etc.

To be fair all open world rpgs struggle with this...from Gothic ( massive and unrealistic damage ratios), Oblivion ( global level scaling, Witcher( enemy de/buffs tied to player level)..
Linear progression( player, equipment, even storyline) that is common for most rpgs does not work well in this setting.

 

[Suhiira]

Just another example where a human GM has the advantage over any game yet (or probably ever ... unless they manage to fit a full AI in a console *laughs*) created.
Games can't adjust on the fly to "fit" the situation to the character, and in most cases have either whimp or demigod guards/police.

Just one of the many things we all have to live with in open world games because there is no solution.

 

[LegateLaniusThe2nd]

First of all I wanted to quickly say that the Witcher 3 was my favorite game of all time. It made me laugh and cry in ways that no game ever has before or since, and it made me fall in love with it's beautiful world and it's fascinating characters. How you managed to pull off a game this massive with such a high level of quality blows my mind on a daily basis. My only issues with the game were a few gameplay design decisions which felt very out of place for the narrative it was crafted for.

One of my friends accidentally got into a fight with some Nilfgaardian guards near the beginning of the game, and he was infuriated that the legendary Witcher easily fell from one blow by a common soldier. While Geralt could only chip away at their health slowly, feeling for all the world like a mouse clawing against a cat. Why? Because Geralt was level 2 and the guards were level 14. This type of distinction felt completely out of place in this universe, and shattered his immersion. I remember when I was gifted a legendary sword by my friends in Skellige for my great deeds....and it was worse than a common sword in higher level areas. The Wyvern that looked so intimidating at the beginning of the game, could have easily been taken out by a single one of Cleavers thugs, only because they happened to live in a higher level area. I don't know why Novigrad has any trouble facing Nilfgaard, since in game a single Novigrad soldier could've have taken on a dozen Nilfgaard soldiers. Having to wait 8 levels in order to wear the next armor or weapon was silly.

It creates a version of scaling where enemies are arbitrarily much more powerful than you, or pathetic, and for no in game reason. It discouraged me from investigating more of the massively fun side content, because I didn't want to get too over leveled for the main story, which was already becoming far too easy even on the highest difficulty setting. I feel like an upgrade system more similar to Deus Ex: Human Revolution would be much more fitting; in that the game should offer solutions to improve your character in ways that evolve and improve your chosen gameplay style overtime, not just scale numbers up. Having a level 14 weapon be exactly the same as the level 2 version, but with better stats, is the most unimaginative way to do scaling. That scaling method is used for MMO's, it has no place in a single player RPG epic.

Yup I hated the games whole leveling system it didn't make sense. Leveled enemies, gear and quests made the game feel more restrictive than it should have been. It was also immersion breaking. The games leveling system only hurt the game rather than helping it.

 

[tropit9]

Which will be useful to a point, but shouldn't make the game a cakewalk.

Maybe your next heist or two down the line can use it, but eventually it breaks or is rendered useless for one reason or another. Maybe it gets taken due to you needing to get through a metal detector/secure checkpoint and have to use concealed plastic weapons or something.

you can always reapir gear via yout friendly tech master. and yes obviosly for low profile misson you can't dress as gungrave. but for "securing" a shipment of expansive nano medicine from a top zaibatsu it should make the job easier than to go in shirtless wih a pee shooter.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

So, from the thread that got pruned....

From everything I have read from Kofe over the years, Kofe does not want a mix between the different styles... but would rather want them to pick one and stick with that.

That's true, but I like to think about it as a "sliding scale". If you had a scale that went from one to one hundred - where 1 woudl be pure action (like Serious Sam for one) and 100 would be RPG (Fallout, Wasteland and the like) - I can see myself being content when the pointer goes somehwhere betwee 60 and 80.

I've yet to see an rpg have the combat of Ninja Gaiden, Onimusha, Devil May Cry and Bayonetta.

Who would ever want that in an RPG?

That quote of yours and dogfood parts I cut out, really exemplify the problem. You do not like RPG's, you find them dull and stale. You only prefer some choice bits. When I was a wee kid I used to pick all the vegetables out from my plate and just eat the stake becaue "yuck, veggies". I've later learned to appreciate the full plate, of course.

No I meant you destroy all enemies with ease because your character skill is 100.

Isn't that what you are supposed to do when you are top of the line at your skill?

And that's still simplifying the matter. You ignore what was going on before you got your skill to 100, what made you choose that skill to begin with, and what other skills and attributes you need to become that killing machine, and.... but I digress. Do not play games you don't like.

Well its more of an rpg than the Witcher series.

What difference do you think that makes? The game sitill what it is.

But I don't think it has to be either/or. You can blend the two. The simplified version of the "sweet spot " for me would be dialogue & stealth are mostly skill & stat based and combat where abilities are skill based, and specific actions are at the control of the player.

You can, but it'll cost both sides some. I don't think it's good to separate things so that you have the RPGness in dialogs, some utilities and stuff, and then you switch to an action game once diplomacy ends and shooting starts.

Walking in the shoes of a character is at the heart of a RPG. That does not mean you have to be passive within the character. Getting to choose how the character progress, what choices they make, and when and how they fight is central to the game. To be immersed within the character it is part them and part you. That's what playing a role is IMO. You make the choices as them. You aim the weapon as them. You cannot take the player out of the player character.

This is a good premise, but the conclusion you seem to draw from it is wrong, in my opinion. When adopt a role to play, you also adopt the weaknesses and mannerisms of the role. "You aim as him" means that if he is a bad shot, you are too, and the same applies with everything else. The point of playing a role is indeed stepping into someone elses shoes with what ever comes with that, you shouldn't be able to compensate for the role as a player too much, because what kind of roleplaying would that be anymore if you didn't embrace the character as a whole.

Thus controlling the character within the combat. Having responsibility for each swing or shot, is more immersive for me. And having enemies adapt to what you doing only enhances the experience more. You can have both fun combat and fun characters. If pushed to choose, I would rather them focus on the character ... but I don't think we have to choose. We can have both.

I don't quite understad... I'm not arguing for choosing between fun and unfun. Or removing responsibility from the player. Just how the characterbuild affects your gameplay.

If a player has no skill in guns, bullet isn't magically gonna change course and fly into orbit, instead of hitting right in front of you...rpg or not, that's poor design, inconsistency with the rules of the world.

Missing a shot is not an "inconsistency in with the rules of the world". I remember - if I remember correctly that is - once reading about the battle of O.K. Corrall between the marshals and the outlaws. It was close quarters and the rate of accuracy was abysmal. Mike Pondsmith said (again, if I remember correctly) somewhere that there are some statistics of police shootouts that tell that most bullets miss their mark in a moving situation even regardless of close distance.

That aside... The conveniently placed example is always that the target is "right in front of you" (and presumed static) and you are practically pushing your barrel against him, and then cue in "oh, awful design" blanket statement. This ignores 95% of what happens in combat, very rarely are you that close to an static target that let's you shoot him (barring games like Fallout 3 where you and the enemy can stand still face to face and shoot eachother to the head to your hearts content).

 

[Calistarius]

That's true, but I like to think about it as a "sliding scale". If you had a scale that went from one to one hundred - where 1 woudl be pure action (like Serious Sam for one) and 100 would be RPG (Fallout, Wasteland and the like) - I can see myself being content when the pointer goes somehwhere betwee 60 and 80.

I think my scale, with what I find acceptable for RPG-ness levels, is much larger then yours... but... like you I still prefer it when all aspects of an RPG has an RPG-ness level that is above medium levels.

I think I would be inclined to divide such a sliding scale into multiple ones though, where each would deal with one aspect each of what makes up an RPG. So that I could illustrate that I would want each aspect of an RPG to be above medium levels of RPG-ness... since a combined scale can potentually hide things like that several aspects of the game has low levels of RPG-ness because one or two other RPG-ness aspects are very high. But that is my extremely detail oriented brain talking... and my wish to not be missunderstood... and my aspergers in general as well on top of that... XD

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I think my scale, with what I find acceptable for RPG-ness levels, is much larger then yours...

Yeah, well, "content", not "happy". 60 is a bit lowish (I'd consider it to be somewhere close to the original Deus Ex, though).

I think I would be inclined to divide such a sliding scale into multiple ones though, where each would deal with one aspect each of what makes up an RPG. So that I could illustrate that I would want each aspect of an RPG to be above medium levels of RPG-ness... since a combined scale can potentually hide things like that several aspects of the game has low levels of RPG-ness because one or two other RPG-ness aspects are very high. But that is my extremely detail oriented brain talking... and my wish to not be missunderstood... and my aspergers in general as well on top of that... XD

Hah. I thought speaking of "scales" and numeric values on such an abstract concept was already pushing it... Didn't remember your aspergers.

If it helps you, do it. Characterbuilding options, combat, story and dialog branching, reactivity and C&C, hands-on gameplay and mechanics... in what all ways you can chop it up. Then count an average.

 

[Zagor-Te-Nay]

Missing a shot is not an "inconsistency in with the rules of the world". I remember - if I remember correctly that is - once reading about the battle of O.K. Corrall between the marshals and the outlaws. It was close quarters and the rate of accuracy was abysmal. Mike Pondsmith said (again, if I remember correctly) somewhere that there are some statistics of police shootouts that tell that most bullets miss their mark in a moving situation even regardless of close distance.

No...it is Exactly that. No "analogies" of "people tend to miss" can save it...unless the player is blind, it is a direct contradiction.
It's like in Morrowind where you swing your weapon and see you've managed to hit the target, but rpg mechanics decide "Sorry, you actually missed!".
This is not an issue in isometric rpgs as they do not give the same control as third person action/rpgs. When games change their settings, so must their rules...this is Not the "dumbing down".
Rpg mechanics here should direct availability of different "builds" and influence player actions, but never to the point of bluntly overriding basic rules, simply common sense and contradicting player input. High difficulty/skill ceiling should make them a requirement to succeed ( example of how not to do it: Skyrim lockpicking, requiring no skill investment).

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

No...it is Exactly that. No "analogies" of "people tend to miss" can save it...unless the player is blind, it is a direct contradiction.

This assumes that the player has direct control and exact knowledge of where the barrel of the gun points, that the reticle pinpoints the bullets landing exactly as opposed to just showing the general direction and/or genral area where the bullet shot by that particular character with his particular skill might land. That may not be the case -- and in my opinion, shouldn't, not even with a fully invested skill.

I've seen people so unfamiliar with guns that they held an assault rifle like a bazooka and would've certainly missed even at close proximity. The characters skill is, and should be, an abstract of precisely that; his ability and knowledge of the usage of the weapon in question, if he is not allowed to be bad, the metric there is useless.

It's like in Morrowind where you swing your weapon and see you've managed to hit the target, but rpg mechanics decide "Sorry, you actually missed!".

This is only due to Morrowinds lack of visual response. Even a floating "Miss" would've made it more acceptable.

This is not an issue in isometric rpgs as they do not give the same control as third person action/rpgs. When games change their settings, so must their rules...this is Not the "dumbing down".

I don't see why the premise of the rules should radically change even if the control scheme and camera placement does. They still dictate the characters efficiency at any given task; how that is translated into the hands-on experience can be debated. And if it really wants to be an RPG, it doesn't let the player overcompensate the characters inefficiencies. That again would play against the implementation of a character system in the first place.

but never to the point of bluntly overriding basic rules, simply common sense and contradicting player input

That's, again, dependent of how much input the player is given and how much does he really need; and whether or not the level of input the same all the time. You speak like we already knew it's gong to basically be a Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! shooter that absolutely requires all the same traits as you other favorite action/adventure games. I don't think that needs to be such a strict case, there's a lot of leeway in favor of comprehensive RPG mechanics and versatility of gameplay and pacing; and "action" need not mean what - for example - you showed in the Forlorn Hope thread.

 

[Rawls]

The point of playing a role is indeed stepping into someone elses shoes with what ever comes with that, you shouldn't be able to compensate for the role as a player too much, because what kind of roleplaying would that be anymore if you didn't embrace the character as a whole.

I might get booed out of the forum for saying this ... but maybe something like the last of us could make this work. If you don't have any abilities invested in a type of firearm, it's difficult to aim the weapon (the spot where you're aiming moves on you). Maybe it also takes you longer to load that type of gun. I really DON'T want it to just be % increases, so I would like it best if it literally effected how easy it is to use the weapon. I'm not sure it's the ideal solution ,,, I'm just trying to think how you can control your actions within combat and feel like you as the player are of consequence, and still make the skills and stats you choose feel consequential.

Because I 100% agree ... if you don't have a skill ... you shouldn't be able to do what that skill lets you do.

Just how the characterbuild affects your gameplay.

I think we agree more than our conversation lets on then. Your role, skills and stats should effect your ability to do things well. But you the player should still be responsible for actually doing them and feeling like you are of consequence in the combat.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I think we agree more than our conversation lets on then. Your role, skills and stats should effect your ability to do things well. But you the player should still be responsible for actually doing them and feeling like you are of consequence in the combat.

Ideally, in the case that the game is in 3rd/1st person, the player is given the responsibility to point to the right direction and choose when to pull the trigger (this would also mean "no iron sights" which I dearly hope for); the rest is of the characters doing (as per how you've built him): he does the end aiming, he handles and recovers from recoil. That does not need a % indicatiors (though they might be there to give the the numeric probility at which the character puts the bullet in the "dead center" of the dynamic reticle - if there is such - and otherwise the bullet goes where it goes within it). There are mechanics that can control it such, that there's never a "full screen reticle" and then people getting confused.


One more thing, though. People often complain about "curving bullets" that happens due to the RPG mechanics. That is because they usually see the bullet curve because it is designed to be a tracer. Hide the rounds - no more tracers - and the problem is solved.

 

[Zagor-Te-Nay]

This assumes that the player has direct control and exact knowledge of where the barrel of the gun points, that the reticle pinpoints the bullets landing exactly as opposed to just showing the general direction and/or genral area where the bullet shot by that particular character with his particular skill might land. That may not be the case -- and in my opinion, shouldn't, not even with a fully invested skill.
I've seen people so unfamiliar with guns that they held an assault rifle like a bazooka and would've certainly missed even at close proximity. The characters skill is, and should be, an abstract of precisely that; his ability and knowledge of the usage of the weapon in question, if he is not allowed to be bad, the metric there is useless.

But they will have a standardized shooting mechanics like in every similar shooter...rpg mechanics can change basic "feel" ( from recoil to retina) but not override bullet trajectory.

This is only due to Morrowinds lack of visual response. Even a floating "Miss" would've made it more acceptable.

No, it would make no difference. Player skill should affect animation/actions, but not the effect. If you're not strong to wield a weapon or lack the skill, attack animations should be different. But "hit" would still remain a "hit".
Any difference should be conveyed directly to the player visually.

I don't see why the premise of the rules should radically change even if the control scheme and camera placement does. They still dictate the characters efficiency at any given task; how that is translated into the hands-on experience can be debated. And if it really wants to be an RPG, it doesn't let the player overcompensate the characters inefficiencies. That again would play against the implementation of a character system in the first place.

The whole decade of history contradicts that...Morrowind, Witcher, Alpha Protocol, Mass Effect. They all did that and if judging by player reactions, by a proverbial mile were worse for it. And unsurprisingly, they all moved away from it. ("Insanity is an act of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".)
And again, you're looking at things from "it must be Rpg!" perspective.
What Cyberpunk should be is a well designed game where rules of the setting, player control and rpg mechanics are consistent and coherent with one another.

That's, again, dependent of how much input the player is given and how much does he really need; and whether or not the level of input the same all the time. You speak like we already knew it's gong to basically be a Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! shooter that absolutely requires all the same traits as you other favorite action/adventure games. I don't think that needs to be such a strict case, there's a lot of leeway in favor of comprehensive RPG mechanics and versatility of gameplay and pacing; and "action" need not mean what - for example - you showed in the Forlorn Hope thread.

But the basic logic should still apply as we know what basic type of game it will be. For example, In BG II mages cannot even equip a sword, because "reasons". These kind of rpg strict rules would be silly and out of place here.

On the other hand, Cyberpunk's advantage over other shooters can actually be it's rpg mechanics, giving a feel of more elaborate, plan your next action ahead gameplay, interlocking rpg stats, skills and secondary mechanics( stamina, adrenaline, etc) with player actions.

 

[Suhiira]

Bullets curve all the time, that's why there are tracers. Gravity, the wind, at ranges over about 200m both are significant factors in hitting your target.

I could certainly support mechanics where the player points weapons and pulls the trigger and the characters stats/skills determine if it hits or not. But we both know the FPS crowd would go ballistic.