Comfortable length for RPG games

[Lilura]

It wasn't that sort of game - there are multi-level areas like the Mortuary with not a single hostile enemy.

You have to kill a zombie in the mortuary (initially non-hostile != monocled), but do tell me about the other multi-level areas like that, that aren't just hubs? The mortuary is an exception, a starter area. Many RPGs have tame starter areas with little or no combat.

 

[Athelas]

It wasn't that sort of game - there are multi-level areas like the Mortuary with not a single hostile enemy.

You have to kill a zombie in the mortuary (initially non-hostile != monocled), but do tell me about the other multi-level areas like that, that aren't just hubs? The mortuary is an exception, a starter area. Many RPGs have tame starter areas with little or no combat.

Well, killing the zombie is the tutorial on how to fight. It also bothers to give you dialogue options where you can express you'd rather not like to do that, but you are forced to. The rest of the game obviously doesn't turn out to be entirely like that, but like I said in my previous post, that seemed like a result of the expectation that RPG's must have lots of combat and the general rushed nature of the lot of the later areas.

 

[Lilura]

Almost every area had lots of bland, uninspired combat:

Alley of Dangerous Angles
Trash Warrens
Catacombs
Dead Nations (potentially)
Drowned Nations
Warrens of Thought (probably)
Modron Cube (intended to be bad)
Under Sigil
Ravel's Maze
Curst Prison
The Outlands
Curst Again
Carceri
Fortress of Regrets

Incidental combat in the hubs is also poor.

It tried to be a well-rounded RPG with solid everything (the basic encounter layout is there), but the combat let it down.

 

[tuluse]

I believe the only forced combats are the zombie, Ravel, and Trias. You can avoid or run from every other fight if you are so inclined.

 

[Lilura]

I believe the only forced combats are the zombie, Ravel, and Trias. You can avoid or run from every other fight if you are so inclined.

Passive runs are possible in many RPGs (including combat-heavy action RPGs), but new players will generally engage with trashmobs in Sigil and get bogged down in the Warrens and Catacombs, where it requires meta-knowledge to click past swarming packs (in search of Bronze Sphere). The same goes for many of the above-listed areas, you need to know map layout and that Kill Exp and loot doesn't matter - passive runs in PS:T are veteran runs.

 

[adddeed]

Last time I played Torment was with a fighter character, had lots of fun with it. Im sure there are games with better combat, but that doesn't mean that whats in Torment isn't any fun.

 

[Lilura]

Last time I played Torment was with a fighter character, had lots of fun with it. Im sure there are games with better combat, but that doesn't mean that whats in Torment isn't any fun.

A level 13 fighter TNO can potentially have 25 Str, 25 Con, grandmastery and 3.5 ApR - combat-wise, the game has ended. But yeah, power-gaming aside the encounters are just really poor and don't feature even Baldur's Gate 1 level tactics. Not particularly fond of mid-combat cutscenes, either (Final Fantasy nonsense).

 

[tuluse]

Plus you are playing and immortal so there is literally no tension at any time. "fun"

 

[Modron]

A level 13 fighter TNO can potentially have 25 Str, 25 Con, grandmastery and 3.5 ApR - combat-wise, the game has ended. But yeah, power-gaming aside the encounters are just really poor and don't feature even Baldur's Gate 1 level tactics. Not particularly fond of mid-combat cutscenes, either (Final Fantasy nonsense).

Some of the level 7 and 8 spells had no ceiling on damage per level bonuses meaning they were way better than any of the JRPG magic spells of the highest level anyways. Autist could really go full Disgaea under sigil if they were compelled such.

 

[Athelas]

Plus you are playing and immortal so there is literally no tension at any time. "fun"

Well, you can die in the Fortress of Regrets. Interestingly enough, dying often throughout the game actually increases the amount of shadows that appear there, so the designers do appear to have put some thought into what implications being immortal would have for combat.

 

[Lilura]

Some of the second to highest level spells had no ceiling on damage per level bonuses meaning they were way better than any of the JRPG magic spells of the highest level anyways. Autist could really go full Disgaea under sigil if they were compelled such.

Well yeah, level cap is 999999999... but back to mundane stuff, the tattoo perma-buffs are ridiculous and Morte and Dak'kon are obscenely OP even early on (Dak's buffs & karach, Morte's DR) so it isn't just TNO.

I would dearly love to see a PST: Tactics or a Planescape: Stratagems.

 

[octavius]

So why is the encounter design so absymal in PST?
Were the designers not able to do better? Or were they too much storyfags to bother?

 

[Ellef]

MCA on what they could have done differently with PST

"Probably start off with more combat - the beginning is very slow and exposition-heavy, and I don't think that helps get the player into the mystery of his character. This is something I tried to correct in the future opening levels of Black Isle games (notably IWD2, where you're in trouble the moment you step off the boat in Targos). Also, I would work more extensively in creating more dungeon and exploration areas, and do another pass on the combat mechanics in the game - the story and quest structure in the game ended up becoming the primary focus of design, and I think the game suffered as a whole when it came to combat"

 

[Amn Nom]

20-30 hours. Generally speaking here, RPGs lose their steam between the 30-40 hour length for me and quickly devolve into rushing to finish the game instead of having fun. By this point everything has been explored and there is really no reason to continue playing when I could just look up a plot synopsis and youtube the ending, like I did with Dragon Age: Inquisition at 50ish hours (I like the world a lot). The RPGs that can keep me playing for 60-100 hours are the likes of Baldur's Gate 2 with its infinite replayability thanks to the quest quality and encounter design throughout.

 

[mondblut]

- Great replayability. Two playthrough aren't the same and all your actions have some impact. Playing Fallout 2 as a smart guy and a moron, as a sexy woman or a ugly being make the whole game totally different.

Bullshit. It makes about 0.01% of the game different. You still pass through the same locations, fight the same encounters and collect the same loot. "Replayability" via changing a bunch of dialogue triggers and making a pair of levels mutually exclusive is just a cheap gimmick to entice the gullible and the storyfags.

Not a single character would have the same things to say to you.

Like it matters for the sake of enduring the rest of content more than once. And then these people call properly paced games "repetitive" and "full of filler" I'd rather have filler than the vacuum of going through the fucking Arroyo 10 fucking times.

- Times between you replay it. You remember you had a great time playing Planescape Torment five years ago. You miss that time and your memory of it tend to become blurred. Time to replay it now.

True dat. Except that since I had a great time the way I had played it, I'll probably play it a second time precisely the same way as the first. "No same things to say" my ass.

 

[naossano]

- Great replayability. Two playthrough aren't the same and all your actions have some impact. Playing Fallout 2 as a smart guy and a moron, as a sexy woman or a ugly being make the whole game totally different.

Bullshit. It makes about 0.01% of the game different. You still pass through the same locations, fight the same encounters and collect the same loot. "Replayability" via changing a bunch of dialogue triggers and making a pair of levels mutually exclusive is just a cheap gimmick to entice the gullible and the storyfags.

Not a single character would have the same things to say to you.

Like it matters for the sake of enduring the rest of content more than once. And then these people call properly paced games "repetitive" and "full of filler" I'd rather have filler than the vacuum of going through the fucking Arroyo 10 fucking times.

- Times between you replay it. You remember you had a great time playing Planescape Torment five years ago. You miss that time and your memory of it tend to become blurred. Time to replay it now.

True dat. Except that since I had a great time the way I had played it, I'll probably play it a second time precisely the same way as the first. "No same things to say" my ass.

Did you play the game i mentioned at least once ? (Fallout 2)
Dialogs are the game. Combat, are optionnal and represent like 5% of the game. 95% of the game is about dialogs and quest. If those change, i effectively change 95% of the whole game, which is like playing another game.

It would never have been so famous without the level of liberty it provived.


Also, i mentioned games with great replayability, and you are mentioning games in which your decision change only 0,1% of the game. You are refering games with awfullly poor replayability, games with travesty of replayability. Why mentionning those poor games that are barely RPG, to answer a sentence about great replayability. I told you that i liked to swim in the sea, and you tell me that the river near your home is dry. Try to swim in the sea and we will talk.

About people not having the same things to say to you, you say "like it's matter". Why the helll are you on a website about ROLE-PLAYING-GAMES if you don't care that your several playthrough are different ? Just play an hack'n'slash, like Diablo, or an open-crap like Skyrim then. You will be sure to have the same exact playthough each time you play the game. Just be prepared for the game world to refuse to aknowledge your agency.


About games you replay after 5 years, it is an entirely different exemple, that works with all game, no matter their level of replayability.

 

[MicoSelva]

My favourite RPGs are on the longer side, so I voted 50+, but do not mind a shorter game if all the content is interesting, and I do not have the same resistance for padding I had when I was young. Anyway, if the game is good, I want it to be long (but not infinite, mind you), and when it eventually ends, I want to feel the charateristic disappointed and emptiness that the adventure is over and I now need to get back to the real world. Although that might be problematic nowadays, because such games require playing them in longer sessions to really get lost in the experience and my free time is fragmented as fuck.

 

[mondblut]

Dialogs are the game.

LOL, I rest my case

Why mentionning those poor games that are barely RPG, to answer a sentence about great replayability.

Black Isle invented RPGs in 1997, amirite?

Why the helll are you on a website about ROLE-PLAYING-GAMES if you don't care that your several playthrough are different ? Just play an hack'n'slash, like Diablo, or an open-crap like Skyrim then.

Diablow and Skyrim don't have a party and the "end turn" button.

Also, you can have different playthroughs in Halo.

 

[naossano]

What about starting to answer on-topic ?

Let me rephrase.
I say it is worthy to replay a game that has GREAT replayability. You answer me about games in which replayability is 0,1% of the game. It tell you that it is off-topic, as my comment was about great replayabiliy. You don't have great replayability if it represents 0,1% of the game. It is poor replayability. In the end, you still didn't answered why you don't find worthy to replay a game that has GREAT replayability. (= Much much more than 0,1%) You answered about an unrelated something else.

I mentioned Fallout 2 as an exemple of great replayability and game in which you spend more time interacting with people, than fighting critters. That doesn't mean that the game is better than any other games. It just means that it has those features, and YES, you spend more time talking with those people than fighting mindless beast. If you change the dialogs, the entire game is different. It doesn't mean that it is better than other games. Just that my point remains, asthe playthrough can be entirelly different.

And this is a huge part of this game success, which defined a lot of people view on how RPG should be, and is (amongs other) partially responsible of the big disapointement of subsequent games that failed to live up to the expectations it created.

PS: if you answer about something totally unrelated to my comments, just don't quote me. By quoting me, you seem to imply that you are answering me, which doesn't seem to be confirmed by your post.

 

[polo]

I don't care at all. If the game is really good i like it to be very long, cause i enjoy it so much. If it is decent, i won't prob. even finish it if its longer than 20hs.
Depends on the game, also single playtrough is not the same as first playtrough. Once you get to know the game systems, maps, enemies, etc. the game starts to get shorter for you.

 

[StaticSpine]

recent attempts...tons of filler...

You must be new.

Playing through a 10 hour long game 10 times is infinitely more retarded than playing through a 100 hour long game once.

Also, what is this whole obsession with "finishing"? Gaming is not fucking sex. You play it for as long as it entertains you, then you move over. I could name dozens of games I got bored of 75-95% into completion, and never felt I owe it anybody (least of all myself) to persevere in order to see the ending credits. Most of the better games are sandboxes without "finish" to begin with. Pen and paper RPGs the CRPGs are supposed to emulate are sandboxes without "finish". Leave this crap to peasant arcade and adventure genres.

I may be new in your eyes since I started playing RPGs in 98.

I understand and respect your point about not finishing the game and playing it as long as you have fun with it. I understand most people feel the same. But I belong to the minority, which is interested in finishing games. I start some aventure in a game and I want to bring it to a conclusion. Of course it works if I like the game, won't bother completing it if I dislike it. I prefer strong storylines to sandboxes.