Gameplay - depth vs complexity vs fun

[kofeiiniturpa]

Hmmm.. it's still an rpg.. but in times where you are able to perform actions directly for your character (that's what computer games are really good at), why don't use it?

Because it provides a diluted experience. Once you remove the genre distinctions (here, the classic RPG staples - eg. playing and expressing the role by the terms of the role - how you've built it, skills and stats - as opposed to player substitution where those previously inherent physical and mental definitions of the role are thrown in the river in favor of an unrelated experience) all games of similiar posture become practically indistinguishable from each other, a direction where the industry is heading fast (what with half the market being posed as an RPG from Bioshock and Stalker to Saints Row and onwards).

It's richness to have the genre variety, and it would be a shame to lose it. There are plenty of games that strive for other kinds of experiences, why not try for something different from the norm?

There are plenty of first and third person shooters out there to answer to that appetite, and the current trend with RPG's is that each wants to be the best third person action game and each offering the exact same core experience and each being, if not downright flop, of average at best success (the latest being Ravens Cry). Would it not be time for RPG's to try out something else, something more creative, even if it was more risky than the tried and true "yet another action RPG wannabe in the back of the line"?

 

[chobe]

Mmmh.. I think my wording was a little bit too much black and white.. I try again.
(sorry if my English gets too weird, I'm bloody tired)

I didn't meant to substitute everything by the player's abilities... buuuuut for achieving a result that the stats would allow or promise, there MUST be some kind of additional effort made by the player.

E.g. increasing a character's precision, (less bullet spread, smaller crosshair) will buff a well aiming player.. but (please!) shouldn't automatically improve _any_ results of _any_ player.
Even in mmorpgs better gear rewards a better player more than the one who has never heard the term 'rotation' or 'priority'. In party-based old fashioned RPGs (Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Grimrock) it is the same, there it is the tactic that is the player's effort, hitting and wounding and surviving is the die's - but only both together do the job.

 

[Sardukhar]

Would it not be time for RPG's to try out something else, something more creative, even if it was more risky than the tried and true "yet another action RPG wannabe in the back of the line"?

Actually, right now there are quite a few games doing that. Shadowrun, PoE, Torment, Wasteland, etc etc.


I don't think CP2077 will be a wannabe. If it has strong action elements - and it will - it will be one of the finest.

I'd prefer stats to simplify and boost player skills - as well as limit them.

If you haven't bought Pilot AV, good luck flying that AV, or even powering it on. If you haven't bought Climbing or Swimming, thats doable, but it's gonna suck.

I think skill choices and boosts will also change the gameplay. The ability to correctly place and detonate C6 in order to bypass an obstacle that someone without that skill would have to take another way around... yeah.

But if you leave player skill out of the game, most people will feel disconnected. There is a reason Action RPGs are so popular and it's not some conspiracy of prejudice on the part of Devs. Running up walls and firing into your enemy as you do so is exhilarating. Watching a skill-point determined cutscene of your character doing that is not.

 

[Suhiira]

... and the current trend with RPG's is that each wants to be the best third person action game and each offering the exact same core experience and each being, if not downright flop, of average at best success ...

Look at the latest version of Dragon Age.
Origins was an RPG, you selected your characters class, stats, and skills and played them within those self imposed limits. You didn't take the Coersion skill? Then no fast-talking NPCs for you!
Inquisition still has classes, but you have effectively zero control over your character stats, and the only skills in the game are combat related ones. Game play wise there a nod to Origins tactical combat system but it's basically a third person action game.
While most players new to Dragon Age are quite happy with Inquisition many that have played since Origins are generally dissatisfied (to put it mildly).

---------- Updated at 03:49 AM ----------

E.g. increasing a character's precision, (less bullet spread, smaller crosshair) will buff a well aiming player.. but (please!) shouldn't automatically improve _any_ results of _any_ player.

Why not?
If I, who happen to be a semi-handicapped older person, what to play a character who's a sniper I should not be allowed to do so because my personal attributes and skills aren't up to it?
The whole point of an RPG is to play a CHRACTER, with their skills and abilities, not yourself controlling an avatar.

 

[Sardukhar]

While most players new to Dragon Age are quite happy with Inquisition those that have played since Origins are generally dissatisfied (to put it mildly).

Whoah. I'd say that was a sweeping and inaccurate generalization. I've played since Origins. So have my friends, the half dozen that are playing DAI. So have reviewers like Rock Paper Shotgun and Eurogamer.

We're not dissatisfied at all. I think DAI was more fun and more immersive and better written than DAO. Excepting some of the origins storylines in Origins, which I quite liked.

I would have -liked- a more RPG feel in DAI, things like actual skills or stats, sure. But those aren't the core of role-playing anything to me. I role-play when I pretend to be someone else in a world that sustains it.

That was easy in DAI.

The point of an RPG is to have fun pretending to be either a) someone else or b) someone like yourself somewhere else. Both are fine.

 

[Suhiira]

Whoah. I'd say that was a sweeping and inaccurate generalization. I've played since Origins. So have my friends, the half dozen that are playing DAI. So have reviewers like Rock Paper Shotgun and Eurogamer.

We're not dissatisfied at all. I think DAI was more fun and more immersive and better written than DAO. Excepting some of the origins storylines in Origins, which I quite liked.

I would have -liked- a more RPG feel in DAI, things like actual skills or stats, sure. But those aren't the core of role-playing anything to me. I role-play when I pretend to be someone else in a world that sustains it.

That was easy in DAI.

The point of an RPG is to have fun pretending to be either a) someone else or b) someone like yourself somewhere else. Both are fine.

I'll change what I said by adding "many".
While those that post on any games forums may not be a true representation of the average player the DAI forums tend to indicate many Origins players are less then pleased with DAI.

 

[Sardukhar]

I'll change what I said by adding "many".
While those that post on any games forums may not be a true representation of the average player the DAI forums tend to indicate many Origins players are less then pleased with DAI.

Sure, and I can see that. I do stare suspiciously atr nostalgia glasses, though. You remember all the complaints when DAO came out, right? COuldn't do this, stats were too limited, gear was too generic, classes were imbalanced, tactical combat was a joke, etc. All the usual.

The thing is, let's be frank. In an RPG, PnP or otherwise, some people are better at some things than others. They are. We've all played with the guy that wants to be a ladies man and is terrible at it. Most games don't even -have- a stat set for that, so the poor bastard fumbles his way through while we try not to laugh too hard. When there is a stat set, it becomes very mechanical, because the guy rightly wants his character to succeed when he so obviously sucks at talking to people.

So if no stats, he's bad and the GM tells him to play something else he's not bad at. If stats, it's boring and most of the work devovles onto the GM as he tries to make it believable. Which he can't.

In a CRPG, the game can do a lot for you, but if it starts aiming your guns and wall-running your character for you, it becomes less game and more movie.

I look for the happy balance. In your case, I'd like to see a snap-to crosshair based on player stats and bullet-time based on REF and Combat Sense.



....still waiting for the CRPG where we can write our own lines AND have all the graphics and gameplay pretty..

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Actually, right now there are quite a few games doing that. Shadowrun, PoE, Torment, Wasteland, etc etc.

Yeah. And most of them are great while operating with their relative shoelace budgets. Think about where those concepts and design goals could be taken with proper AA or even AAA budgets.

I don't think CP2077 will be a wannabe. If it has strong action elements - and it will - it will be one of the finest.

Sure. One of the finest of what's offered.

What's worrisome is that the design ideals these days are so entrenched that while it might have a cool setting, interesting story, nice visuals and audio, when ut comes to the core of what a game is, it won't be offering anything really... well, new or interesting and with those merits, it drowns in the grey mass of other similiar titles.

I'd prefer stats to simplify and boost player skills - as well as limit them.

If you haven't bought Pilot AV, good luck flying that AV, or even powering it on. If you haven't bought Climbing or Swimming, thats doable, but it's gonna suck.

I think skill choices and boosts will also change the gameplay. The ability to correctly place and detonate C6 in order to bypass an obstacle that someone without that skill would have to take another way around... yeah.

It all depends on to what degree that works. General idea usually seems to be "the less, the better". One could almost argue that RPG's in general are considered to be pretty damn boring games, 's why nobody really bothers to make them properly anymore.

But if you leave player skill out of the game, most people will feel disconnected. There is a reason Action RPGs are so popular and it's not some conspiracy of prejudice on the part of Devs.

Player skill is always prevalent in some manner. Elsewise it's not even a game anymore. RPG's in general are in an unfavorable position because what is expected of them nowadays is to deliver a genuine "genre-experience" of what ever features they offer; combat on the level of dedicated combat game, narrative on the level of a dedicated cinematic adventure game, etc, and on top of that the mechanical depth of a dedicated RPG and this one is usually the most expendaple part because hey, people don't like "number crunching" (which I find a somewhat odd argument because that's not really how RPG's should be approached for the optimal experience).

There's no conspiracy. There's just how things are. Normal action adventures offer what a lot of people like, but there's also that conventional RPG gameplay didn't really go through a dedicated evolution (in a manner of speaking - things just shifted away instead of being refined and improved), nobody's trying move that stuff forward, it simply got substituted with other form of gameplay. Who knows what people would think about a game that actually made an effort at trying to build upon the traditional and actually managed to raise it up a level.

Running up walls and firing into your enemy as you do so is exhilarating. Watching a skill-point determined cutscene of your character doing that is not.

Why should it matter? If the offered experience is not what one is looking for, they should move on to where their desires are catered to. You don't expect an RPG experience from a shoot'em up even if it had a hamfisted skilltree, why should an RPG be expected to deliver that experience for that audience either (at the expense of its own)?

While most players new to Dragon Age are quite happy with Inquisition many that have played since Origins are generally dissatisfied (to put it mildly).

Yeah. I've heard as much.

 

[chobe]

(..) You don't expect an RPG experience from a shoot'em up even if it had a hamfisted skilltree, why should an RPG be expected to deliver that experience for that audience either (at the expense of its own)?

To be honest, I expect both from a rpg, I absolutely don't see this strict separation that you're are mentioning so frequently.
Thinking about past times, playing p&p rpgs with different groups, for all of us the game granted two things.. about 3/4 storytelling/acting/characterizing.. and 1/4 the thrill of physical conflicts. But one without the other wasn't fun at all, at least not at long sight, we tried.
And the feelings and experiences that those conflicts gave us are almost exactly the same that now action-based combat in digital games do.

For me there is no difference, in the past I rolled for evasion, see the gamemaster failing with his attacks and in my metal cinema, my character jumped behind a crate, accompanied by the sound of ricocheting bullets. Now I can do that directly.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

To be honest, I expect both from a rpg,

Yeah. And that's kind of a problem. Not that you specifically expect that, but that it's expected in general. When you cram all these systems and intents in one package, some, if not all of them are bound to suffer. If you want a good shoot'em up the RPG part will hinder that goal, if you want proper RPG mechanics, the shooter part is bound to suffer in the process. Oil and water.

I absolutely don't see this strict separation that you're are mentioning so frequently.

It's rarely even present anymore. These days these games are made largely with one specific mechanical goal in mind, and that most usually means mitigating the role of the character in the gameplay in favor of more conventional action gameplay. It doesn't make much of a difference if you have a few token skill checks if the core of the experience is about something else entirely.

In my opinion of course.

 

[Suhiira]

These days these games are made largely with one specific mechanical goal in mind, and that most usually means mitigating the role of the character in the gameplay in favor of more conventional action gameplay.

I blame Mario and Sonic :sofa:
The thing is almost anyone can play a PnP RPG and do well in the game (yeah, some players just plain suck). While anyone can play an action game you need better then average reflexes/coordination to do well at them. And if you happen to Joe/Jane average (or goddess forbid less then average) you can study the game mechanics and practice all you want, you simply cannot do well at the game. And some games you just plain cannot play no matter how much you might wish to.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I blame Mario and Sonic :sofa:
The thing is almost anyone can play a PnP RPG and do well in the game (yeah, some players just plain suck). While anyone can play an action game you need better then average reflexes/coordination to do well at them. And if you happen to Joe/Jane average (or goddess forbid less then average) you can study the game mechanics and practice all you want, you simply cannot do well at the game. And some games you just plain cannot play no matter how much you might wish to.

Well, yeah. That's true. RPG's are fair games to all but mentally deficient, every player is in principle on the same starting line by the virtue of the given role being the governing factor on how things are done. The players job is to make all decisions - all decisions - for the character (where to go, what to do, who to talk to, who to shoot, how to progress the skills...) and the character, according to the players intent on who s/he is and has become thus far, is the one who does as told to the best of his/her ability; to play a role is to submit to its weaknesses and strengths that may go way below or way over what the player is able to do. Makes no sense for a master swordsman to fumble like a baby because the player is not adept with controlling him, nor an inept sharpshooter to have dead on aim because the player has the precision with his mouse. Player substitution reduces the role to a mere virtual costume no different from the conventional action adventures.

I don't have anything particular against "action games". If I ant to play one, I play one, and I quite enjoy some of them. But that experience is not something I think should be related to the intended experience of a proper cRPG. As few corners should be cut in that regard as possible.

...yeah, I have the tendency to ramble.

 

[Suhiira]

Player substitution reduces the role to a mere virtual costume no different from the conventional action adventures.

I hadn't really looked at it from this perspective before but I think you hit the nail squarely on the head.
This is really what most of the recent supposed RPGs on PCs and consoles are, virtual costumes for the player. It also helps explain the increasing emphasis on character customization and replacement of character driven skills for player controlled ones. What "skills" exist in many games is merely a choice of weapon emphasis or spell selection ... see Fallout, Skyrim, or DA: Inquisition ... or some "bonus" ability (+XP for kills, extra loot, etc.) that's fluff totally unnecessary to completing the game.

 

[chobe]

This is really what most of the recent supposed RPGs on PCs and consoles are, virtual costumes for the player.

See? And _exactly_ that (of course, only imho) is the main reason why computer games exist, the greatest benefit of them.

If I read a book, watch movies or series, I'm observing some beings experiencing an interesting story, versatile events, etc... Of course there will be characters you like and whose emotions you understand or even share at that moment. But you will NEVER feel like BEING them, to be even more involved in the plot or the setting.
At that point computer games appear on the scene and enable you to do this.

If the only benefit of games had been that you're able to decide things, they would have failed... I guess.


....I have the tendency to exaggerate and write in a more figurative way my second language supports .
Oh, and because this is an exception nowadays: I like this interesting and reasonable discussion. *thumbs up*

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

There's a context to observe, though. When you distance your point if view far enough to lump all videogames in one pile, of course any game where you control a "being" fits the bill. On a closer inspection, though, the differences and contexts become more apparent. First person shooters need first person shooting, otherwise they are mislabeled; puzzlegames need puzzles, and so on. RPG's need their specific mechanics to provide the role, the play and the roleplay, otherwise there's no real need or call to lable them roleplaying games as they do not distinguish from other games.

It sounds polarising and it kinda is too, but the point should come across.

This is all just talk, of course. I don't expect CDPR to make their Cyberpunk precisely in the image of the blueprint I would provide or prefer the most. But I would expect them to adhere to the mechanics of the PnP and the demographic who plays their PnP by the rules in at least somewhat heavy manner, seeing how adamant they've been on advertising their respect for that foundation and stating how their game will be a "true RPG" with printable character sheet and all. That, rather than just taking the setting and and aesthetic and stamping them over a game that only has some loose resemblance and reliance to those mechanics.

 

[Harthwain]

Player substitution reduces the role to a mere virtual costume no different from the conventional action adventures.

I agree, but many cRPG games do treat the role of a player shallower than they should. If I am a fallen paladin who breaks law while fighting for what I believe to be right it should be reflected in game better than adding another line of text or two extra choices that are static, because feedback is fixed by narration. It's not enough for me to feel unique and world alive. In my opinion many cRPG genre as a whole should start thinking about creating an entirely different model of role-playing. Sui Generis goes in an interesting way about this and I hope it will work out for them.

 

[chobe]

I though about that while I couldn't reach the forum. And I think I realised one more important parts of this discussion, some reasons why cRPGs perhaps shouldn't follow their analogue ideal

The less player substitution happens, the more luck dependant your success will be. Aside that I'm a heavy boardgamer that always would prefer less luck-dependant games, there is a reason why that that's okay in a (p&p-) RPG:
The tension that your character can (permanently) die.
In those games your char is part of a story.. if a bunch of bad luck ends his life, it continues. Perhaps the story alters, if the GM wants that..you can rejoin with another character, etc. Many possibilities how a death have impact, perhaps even enriches the story.

cRPGs want to tell ONE(!) story.. their purpose is to let you enjoy and influence it. So if you fatally fail a encounter, what's the consequence?
Reload, retry, restart.
On the long run this will me more frustrating than funny, expecially if you can't do anything about it. (A fact that made Dragon Age 2 and Shadowrun Returns more frustrating for me than most other games I've ever come across.).
The only game I know that fits the real-RPG-statwise-aspect (TM) described by kofeiiniturpa is Darkest Dungeon, but that's a very different game.

I agree with you, Safe-r,that would be awesome.. but I'm afraid, a human GM will never be replacable.

 

[Harthwain]

I think we are much more likely to develop a game that imitates living world than we are to develop games using human GM + players. The latter requires a good GM - absolutely vital - and requires players that aren't bent on ruining the game for other people. It also means more people are needed for the experience. The first is fair game whatever you do, because it's solo. It also means you can play it anytime, at your own pace. Crusader Kings 2 is amazing in terms of interactions happening between characters. It's an RPG game on its own and it's anything but static, with fixed outcomes.

 

[Suhiira]

They said they want it to be "action based", so no "turn-based" system.

Actually, with a game like Cyberpunk 2077, being really street based, with all the implants, augmentations and equipment you can get, I figure the game will be much more "dynamic" and action packed then, which is a pretty cool thing for a badass cyberpunk game.

As long as it's not so "action based" it's a "twitch" or your typical FPS game.

One thing Pillars of Eternity is doing that I find VERY interesting is including an option to run combat at 2/3rd speed. Something similar for CP2077 would be fantastic, that way the twitch/FPS crowd can get what they want and so can everyone else.

But yes, I'd still like some sort of pause option, at least an auto-pause when combat starts.
In real-life each person can see and move for cover on their own, in a party-based game you have to tell them where to go one at a time and you could easily wind up with half the team shot to hell before you can tell them to duck for cover.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

People mentioned: "Look at Witcher videos..."

I don't know what everybody else thinks, but from my point of view Witcher shouldn't be of any predictable indication on how CP works. It's a completely different franchise [hopefully] for a different audience. I wouldn't want CDPR to become the sort of Bethesda like one trick pony whose all games in all practical senses are the same with cosmetic and insignificant differences.

It's a wonderful opportunity they have with CP, with its pre-established systems and rules and the awesome setting, to explore different designs (of which there is a full universe of) and broaden their output, stand out from the crowd. It'd be a terrible shame and waste to have the game only nominally similiar to the source through merely the setting and some familiarly named stats; to have the game a "scifi-GTA with some RPG-lite stuff down there somewhere" or rightfully earning a nickname "Witcher 2077" because, for all intents and purposes, it plays the same.

Despite that they said they want CP to be more of an action title (that "dicerolls are superboring" and that they "try to avoid skills affecting combat much at all the best they can"), I still hold some hope (for some reason) that they back track from that at least a bit. Stat based activities and combat (turnbased, semi-, or some kind of mode...) is not some sort of boogeyman to scare people away (the intended audience shouldn't be "everyone" to begin with); it offers a wonderful way to provide ever changing situations, reactivity and gameplay opportunities, and most importantly: consistent roleplaying through the character. It's all in the implementation and core design.