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How to do open world RPG the right way ?

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
Realism doesn't help with intuition because it always breaks at some point, you're just changing it from one thing to another, like in your Morrowind example. If the game didn't have a day/night cycle to begin with, you'd never make the assumption that your targets are going to leave the tavern, just like you don't make the assumption you can burn the tavern down or poison their food because there's no destructible terrain or requirement to eat. You know what else would make sense, fighting them in the doorway of the tavern so they have to fight one at a time. Oops, building entrances are magical warp gates and people phase through each other.

Real world intuition isn't worth shit. Anyone actually interested in video games has just as much if not more 'game intuition' anyways, like expecting powerful enemies to carry valuable loot and expecting the guards to be irrationally powerful. The various tricks you can pull with the spell/item/potion crafting systems were one of the highlights of the game, not the fact that it got dark outside sometimes or being able to get better at swimming with 'practice'.
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Why fuckin bother? No ones gonna make a well simulated world, no ones gonna be ambitious or implement or iterate on features we saw rolled out a quarter century ago, we're just gonna get usual shit we always do.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
The various tricks you can pull with the spell/item/potion crafting systems were one of the highlights of the game, not the fact that it got dark outside sometimes or being able to get better at swimming with 'practice'.
Yup. I mean, is there anyone out there who actually buzzes off waiting round to a certain time?

Can someone give me examples of the most fun they had repairing degrading equipment? Or wonderful memories of dropping various items because they're over encumbered?
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
Only games where encumbrance for backpack stuff was a good mechanic are roguelikes, because it forces you to make the tradeoff of carrying more silver bullets for various sticky situations vs hauling more loot to sell vs being overweight and slower and getting hungry faster vs carrying more food in case you can't find a corpse to eat. In pretty much all other games, it's a shit mechanic that just makes you choose between backtracking through a totally safe area to move all your loot or abandoning shit that only serves as clutter since you're not using or selling it.

On the subject of equipment degrading, it's only ever been good in action games (think streets of rage or the new zelda) where the weapons are basically consumables, so having them break means you're actually happy when a good one drops instead of it just being a useless 5th copy of something you already have. FNV seemed like it tried to do this but it didn't really work out because you generally got to a point where you had more than you needed just like with ammo.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
In pretty much all other games, it's a shit mechanic that just makes you choose between backtracking through a totally safe area to move all your loot or abandoning shit that only serves as clutter since you're not using or selling it.
It worked in RoAs in much the same way you described it working in roguelikes. Plus the loot you didn't immediately pick up after the battle was gone for good.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Unreal World

It's happening on a Scandinavian piece of land, random generated yet still follow certain directives (sea there, major river here....)
If you are crazy enough to visit every maptile, the game will remember terrains and items of that maptile.
After a long time not revisit, that maptile will get wipe and return to basic state.

of course, it's basic ice age wilderness with maybe 5% in settlement, so how many variation of those you can get? Surprising many, but since you play for years of game time, you can remember many (basic game moment is like 1 minute tick)
 

bloodlover

Arcane
Joined
Sep 5, 2010
Messages
2,039
A good open world RPG is one that does not feel like a freaking theme park. We've had a lot of so called "sandbox" games from different genres over the years but even with all the realism they try to bring in, they just feel like a simulator.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Theme parks are generally fun. And they are not simulators; people can die.

If only people who played Skyrim and Fallout 4 could die, too.
 

Artyoan

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
632
1. Most areas should be accessible from the start.
2. Each area should be diverse in the types of enemies there as well as the difficulty involved.
3. Variance in area difficulty means some areas require avoiding enemies until you've progressed enough but that it is still possible to 'stealth' around said areas and explore/loot
4. Loot should always make you feel as if there is something potentially great in any given area. Exploration should constantly be rewarded with both big and small rewards.
5. A day/night cycle that makes difficulty skyrocket at night. This can make even basic traversal of areas require some planning.
6. Do not scale enemies but keep the progression curve low enough that poor play is still punished even after 'out-leveling' or completing the area.
7. Enemies and random loot should respawn after a significant amount of time.
8. Static loot should be handplaced but never respawn.
9. Gold currency should be kept extremely low. Most consumable items should require crafting.
10. Not entirely sure whether I'd want Quick Save/Quick Load system or in-game revival on death with harsh penalties. Might throw a wrench into what can be done in terms of story and quests without a manual save system. But having a manual save system can really hurt tension of exploration and combat, I think.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
1. Most areas should be accessible from the start.
2. Each area should be diverse in the types of enemies there as well as the difficulty involved.
3. Variance in area difficulty means some areas require avoiding enemies until you've progressed enough but that it is still possible to 'stealth' around said areas and explore/loot
4. Loot should always make you feel as if there is something potentially great in any given area. Exploration should constantly be rewarded with both big and small rewards.
5. A day/night cycle that makes difficulty skyrocket at night. This can make even basic traversal of areas require some planning.
6. Do not scale enemies but keep the progression curve low enough that poor play is still punished even after 'out-leveling' or completing the area.
7. Enemies and random loot should respawn after a significant amount of time.
8. Static loot should be handplaced but never respawn.
9. Gold currency should be kept extremely low. Most consumable items should require crafting.
10. Not entirely sure whether I'd want Quick Save/Quick Load system or in-game revival on death with harsh penalties. Might throw a wrench into what can be done in terms of story and quests without a manual save system. But having a manual save system can really hurt tension of exploration and combat, I think.

Some good suggestions, and think that the day/night cycle one is interesting, but would have to be balanced with incentives to travel at night at times too. Maybe a rare monster appearing which carries a rare item?
Otherwise it'd soon become a repetitive chore just to keep waiting round. There's have to be regular variety in choices of what to do to keep it interesting, as the novelty of it being dangerous at night would soon wear off.
 

T. Reich

Arcane
Joined
Apr 15, 2013
Messages
2,714
Location
not even close
Why do you faggots keep bunching up "open world" with other inconsequential stuff like "realism", "day/night cycle" etc? These are entirely separate aspects of gameplay, not intrinsically tied to openness of a world in any way.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
Can someone give me examples of the most fun they had repairing degrading equipment? Or wonderful memories of dropping various items because they're over encumbered?

That stuff gives you a sense of achievement and sense of appreciation for what you've got. Getting skilled or rich enough when you don't think about repairing equipment or hoarding every goblet makes you really feel that you've became something in the world.

NPCs never acknowledge you are now all-powerful demigod with no material desires - at least encumbrance system does.
 

madrigal

Augur
Joined
Oct 23, 2012
Messages
249
Weapon durability does little but add busy work to RPGs. I don't get the fun in having to always fuck about managing & repairing items, it's chore-like. The only games I've felt it worked fully in are the Fallout ones, as in that case it adds to the whole survival/resource aspect.
Don't get why, in these worlds filled with magic, we can't just have magic items enchanted so that they don't degrade. Or degrade at a very, very slow rate so that you're not constantly repairing them.
I didn't mind the repair element in Betrayal at Krondor, wasn't too tedious and made money management and loot more interesting.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I think the level/difficulty curve can be solved by changing an area "state" after the story progress.

Lets say, around the beginning, the whole world is open, and you can explore anywhere and have enemies around the same level.

Progress trough some story quest, shit happen that changed the area ans start filling it with stronger enemies and slightly changed layout and content.

It is kinda like how hollow knight change forgotten crossroad into infected crossroad.

Basically manual pallete change/ level scaling given enough context for the change to make sense and flow better.

Of course, this isnt perfect solution because either your create missables, or make the change too unnoticeable and mske it feel not impactful or natural.
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
Turn based action combat?
 

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