Why do rpgs have bad gameplay?

[sullynathan]

Gameplay=combat is fucking stupid. Level design, dungeon design, itemization, menu design, stats and how well they work, NPC interactions it's all part of the gameplay. Of course, depending on the game, some of these things weight more than the others.

What about videogames that don't have combat? They have no gameplay? FFXIII is a game made 99% of combat yet it's piss poor, guess why?

Because Planescape main gameplay system is not the combat, it's the dialogs. Everything happens through dialogs, you learn new abilities through dialogs, your stats mostly serve to open new dialog options, you gains item through dialogs, solve puzzles and recruit people. Every new NPC is an experience itself, a puzzle for you to crack.

Who the fucks judges Planescape by the combat anyway, when it's literally the 5% of the game?

I'm obviously talking about more than combat.

Take new vegas for example.
It has good c & c, quest design and reactivity but would you say the rest of the game has good gameplay? From the poor fps combat, npc AI,the way it handles survivability and world design I wouldn't say it does.

 

[racofer]

Dark Souls has good gameplay.

 

[Roqua]

Gameplay=combat is fucking stupid. Level design, dungeon design, itemization, menu design, stats and how well they work, NPC interactions it's all part of the gameplay. Of course, depending on the game, some of these things weight more than the others.

What about videogames that don't have combat? They have no gameplay? FFXIII is a game made 99% of combat yet it's piss poor, guess why?

Because Planescape main gameplay system is not the combat, it's the dialogs. Everything happens through dialogs, you learn new abilities through dialogs, your stats mostly serve to open new dialog options, you gains item through dialogs, solve puzzles and recruit people. Every new NPC is an experience itself, a puzzle for you to crack.

Who the fucks judges Planescape by the combat anyway, when it's literally the 5% of the game?

It is significantly more than 5% of the game. Stats are a mainly a subsystem of the combat system. What is a dungeon without encounters? What are items for besides combat related things? You interact with npcs to go to a new area with people to fight. The game is far more about combat than anything else.

Dialogue isn't a game. In AoD I think you can beat the game without ever getting into combat, but would combat ever be considered not the major system of the game? It is the same with PST. Everything ties into the combat system and revolves around combat. And the combat sucks. If the majority of the game is combat, which is most definitely is, and the combat is bad, then the game is bad. I love some bad games like Arcanum and FO 1 and 2. But in those games both chargen and chardev is beefy. PST has pretty much neither. It has talking, story, combat. No thinking. Nothing to think about.

I guess if you are the type of person to read all dialogues in a game, and read books you find in games, and read and read and read some more, I could see why it is a game to be loved. But I like playing games, not reading them. I like reading books, especially when I take a shit.

I also like to get my story from books and TV/Movies because the stories are way better and to not interfere with gameplay since movies, books, tv do not have any gameplay. Kind of like the games that focus on stories, they usually don't have any either. Or any good gameplay definitely.

 

[Roqua]

Dark Souls has good gameplay.

Dark Souls has shit for monkeys. The whole game and myth that it is some holy grail of combat is just console monkiness and hipsterism at its bleakest and most harmful form. People want to be cool and like the super popular thing, so they force themselves to play and like it. Like all hipster nonsense, it is just shit for shitheads. Trendy fucking retards and tyranny of the masses. Let others think for you and decide what you will like.

 

[Malpercio]

Gameplay=combat is fucking stupid. Level design, dungeon design, itemization, menu design, stats and how well they work, NPC interactions it's all part of the gameplay. Of course, depending on the game, some of these things weight more than the others.

What about videogames that don't have combat? They have no gameplay? FFXIII is a game made 99% of combat yet it's piss poor, guess why?

Because Planescape main gameplay system is not the combat, it's the dialogs. Everything happens through dialogs, you learn new abilities through dialogs, your stats mostly serve to open new dialog options, you gains item through dialogs, solve puzzles and recruit people. Every new NPC is an experience itself, a puzzle for you to crack.

Who the fucks judges Planescape by the combat anyway, when it's literally the 5% of the game?

It is significantly more than 5% of the game. Stats are a mainly a subsystem of the combat system. What is a dungeon without encounters? What are items for besides combat related things? You interact with npcs to go to a new area with people to fight. The game is far more about combat than anything else.

Dialogue isn't a game. In AoD I think you can beat the game without ever getting into combat, but would combat ever be considered not the major system of the game? It is the same with PST. Everything ties into the combat system and revolves around combat. And the combat sucks. If the majority of the game is combat, which is most definitely is, and the combat is bad, then the game is bad. I love some bad games like Arcanum and FO 1 and 2. But in those games both chargen and chardev is beefy. PST has pretty much neither. It has talking, story, combat. No thinking. Nothing to think about.

I guess if you are the type of person to read all dialogues in a game, and read books you find in games, and read and read and read some more, I could see why it is a game to be loved. But I like playing games, not reading them. I like reading books, especially when I take a shit.

I also like to get my story from books and TV/Movies because the stories are way better and to not interfere with gameplay since movies, books, tv do not have any gameplay. Kind of like the games that focus on stories, they usually don't have any either. Or any good gameplay definitely.

They should make a game that takes place in a room where you do nothing but fighting.

10/10 gameplay fellas.


You are not "just reading" dialogues in Planescape, it's not a fucking VN or a Book. Dialogue change and branch according to your choices as well giving you more options depending on the knowledge you accuired through your quest and your stats. Chosing the right dialog may net you a new ability, make you fight some NPCs or grant you a new questline.

Jesus christ, there are probably more lines of text with branching storyline in the whole Hive than both IWD games combined or the whole BG2.

Everything ties into the combat system and revolves around combat.And the combat sucks. If the majority of the game is combat, which is most definitely is, and the combat is bad, then the game is bad.

wat


... Did you play Planescape attacking every NPC on sight?

 

[sullynathan]

Dark Souls has good gameplay.

Dark Souls has shit for monkeys. The whole game and myth that it is some holy grail of combat is just console monkiness and hipsterism at its bleakest and most harmful form. People want to be cool and like the super popular thing, so they force themselves to play and like it. Like all hipster nonsense, it is just shit for shitheads. Trendy fucking retards and tyranny of the masses. Let others think for you and decide what you will like.

this doesn't even make sense

 

[Maggot]

When are you going to define hipster games? All these hipster games sound mainstream to me.

 

[Bohrain]

First you had tabletop mechanics copied to computer games without much thought of what works on which medium.
Then you had computer game specific poor design choices that became a norm.
And now you have games developed for people who don't want to read and have the attention span of a goldfish.

 

[Roqua]

Gameplay=combat is fucking stupid. Level design, dungeon design, itemization, menu design, stats and how well they work, NPC interactions it's all part of the gameplay. Of course, depending on the game, some of these things weight more than the others.

What about videogames that don't have combat? They have no gameplay? FFXIII is a game made 99% of combat yet it's piss poor, guess why?

Because Planescape main gameplay system is not the combat, it's the dialogs. Everything happens through dialogs, you learn new abilities through dialogs, your stats mostly serve to open new dialog options, you gains item through dialogs, solve puzzles and recruit people. Every new NPC is an experience itself, a puzzle for you to crack.

Who the fucks judges Planescape by the combat anyway, when it's literally the 5% of the game?

It is significantly more than 5% of the game. Stats are a mainly a subsystem of the combat system. What is a dungeon without encounters? What are items for besides combat related things? You interact with npcs to go to a new area with people to fight. The game is far more about combat than anything else.

Dialogue isn't a game. In AoD I think you can beat the game without ever getting into combat, but would combat ever be considered not the major system of the game? It is the same with PST. Everything ties into the combat system and revolves around combat. And the combat sucks. If the majority of the game is combat, which is most definitely is, and the combat is bad, then the game is bad. I love some bad games like Arcanum and FO 1 and 2. But in those games both chargen and chardev is beefy. PST has pretty much neither. It has talking, story, combat. No thinking. Nothing to think about.

I guess if you are the type of person to read all dialogues in a game, and read books you find in games, and read and read and read some more, I could see why it is a game to be loved. But I like playing games, not reading them. I like reading books, especially when I take a shit.

I also like to get my story from books and TV/Movies because the stories are way better and to not interfere with gameplay since movies, books, tv do not have any gameplay. Kind of like the games that focus on stories, they usually don't have any either. Or any good gameplay definitely.

They should make a game that takes place in a room where you do nothing but fighting.

10/10 gameplay fellas.


You are not "just reading" dialogues in Planescape, it's not a fucking VN or a Book. Dialogue change and branch according to your choices as well giving you more options depending on the knowledge you accuired through your quest and your stats. Chosing the right dialog may net you a new ability, make you fight some NPCs or grant you a new questline.

Jesus christ, there are probably more lines of text with branching storyline in the whole Hive than both IWD games combined or the whole BG2.

Everything ties into the combat system and revolves around combat.And the combat sucks. If the majority of the game is combat, which is most definitely is, and the combat is bad, then the game is bad.

wat


... Did you play Planescape attacking every NPC on sight?

No, I click through dialogue and only read my responses. If I'm not sure what I should do at a given time skim the quest log. I don't play games to read. I play them to play.

Let me ask you this-

1) Do you read books in games? Such as the IE games, Elder Scrolls, etc?

2) Do you always read the dialogue? As you said, PST has a lot, and reading it all would be even more boring than the combat. Have you played AoD? How many times and did you try different builds to get different story parts? Have you played the ICE game? I forget the exact name, but it is in a post apocalyptic frozen world.

3) I cannot play games with no content such as pure dungeon crawlers like Legend of Grimrock. It has good systems but no content. I need a mixture of systems and content. Aweigh would say those games have content in the systems, but by content I mean npcs, town, quests, story, etc. Why am I doing what I am doing? Opposite of Aweigh it seems to me you may think what I consider to be content other than systems (but can include minor subsystems) is itself systems. We can explore this by asking what words mean. Reading means reading words. Watching means looking at something. And playing means doing something other than reading and watching. If a kid was reading and you asked what he is doing and he said playing you would think he was retarded, right? If a kid was watching other kids play and thought he was playing by just watching them, same deal, right? Playing can pretty much be anything active you are doing other than reading, watching, thinking, meditating, etc. Talking is talking and is not playing. You can incorporate talk into play, but exclusively talking is not playing. Talking while roleplaying would be acting or improvisational acting, which can be in a play, but have their own verbs to differentiate them from what is commonly thought of as playing.

PST certainly does have some subsystems that are linked to the story and dialogue, but these systems are minor. Dialogue and story is a major facet of the game, and someone who reads everything could certainly say it is as prominent as combat. Someone who pickpockets everyone could say pickpocketing is a major system. But why pickpocket? To get stuff or money to buy stuff that makes you better in combat. Dialogue unlocks new abilities that help you in combat. Would you ever play a low strength, con, and dex fighter to max out your int and wis to unlock new memories faster? If not, why? Is it combat? What is the major function of alignment in DnD besides as a roleplaying tool/incentive/guide? Combat. It restricts your class or items or ability to do combat things.

So I am stating combat is the major system and majority of the gameplay in PST, while realizing the game's focus and content is on story and dialogue.

Do you disagree?

In my opinion PST would have made a far better book than a game if it were to be written by a good book writer. I like reading books, but I like playing games. You seem to like reading games. Games are for playing, not reading or watching.

 

[Roqua]

When are you going to define hipster games? All these hipster games sound mainstream to me.

Apple is pretty mainstream and is for hipsters, right? I said it before and I think it is a fitting analogy - Apple is like fancy five inch high heels, and PC is like nice comfortable sneakers.

Hipster is mainstream. Hipster is trendy right? What does trendy mean? What is currently popular.

A hipster game is a game that is popular due to hipsterism. People say it is great and a must have so lemmings buy it and before they even play it decide they love it too. Even if they don't like it they still love it. If looked at in a vacuum with no bias, and comparing it to like offerings, if you cannot define why game A is so fucking awesome, but game B sucks, even though B has better whatever it was that was supposed to make A so great.

As time goes by and I get older, it is easy to spot the hipster shit. When I was younger I was into myths and magical nonsense like fashion and style too. I remember when Jordans first came out. I just had to have them. They were the greatest ever. Why? because, they are fucking Jordans. Same shit as your games that are so awesome because of magic and make believe, when better offerings sell shit and get trashed. Its lemmings doing what lemmings do. As said before, tyranny of the center/masses. Teeny bop shit songs dominate the top 10 music chart. Why? Is it because it is good? Or is it because little girls spend all the money on music and decide what is the top 10. Just ask them why whatever new hot boy band or little girl singer is great and you'll get the same vapid retard monkey answers as you get for why X hipster game is so great.

 

[Black]

Only according to "gameplay = combat" school of thought, meaning, MORANS

 

[Ash]

Looking at the prestigious top 50 - 70 list on the codex, the majority of the games I've played from them had poor or boring combat and mechanics that didn't work all that well.

Storyfags.

There's a lot of great games with great gameplay in the top codex lists, but very few of those are in the top ten. There has seemingly been a resurgence in gameplayfags lately, so holding another poll may produce better results; games that offer both outstanding gameplay and story with no juxtaposition. They're the best RPGs.

(good) RPG's don't have inherently or commonly bad gameplay. Mostly just unpolished in many respects, but they're more ambitious and more complex than their peers so that is to be expected. Most of it can be fixed with mods anyhow, meanwhile polished turds usually stay that way forever.

 

[Ash]

Dark Souls has good gameplay.

Dark Souls has shit for monkeys. The whole game and myth that it is some holy grail of combat is just console monkiness and hipsterism at its bleakest and most harmful form. People want to be cool and like the super popular thing, so they force themselves to play and like it. Like all hipster nonsense, it is just shit for shitheads. Trendy fucking retards and tyranny of the masses. Let others think for you and decide what you will like.

You're a dumbfuck hating because it's popular. Isn't that what a hipster is by the traditional definition, before dumbfucks like you butchered it? How ironic.

Dark Souls is a well-designed game, revives a long lost design philosophy, is sufficiently hardcore, and is pure catering to old school gamers. That it is popular among modern monkeys is a rare blessing. It means old school principles are still viable in some form, even if it's not an RPG.
I long for a return of old school design principles. Old school hack and slash. Old school shooter. Old school RPG. Old school everything, because it's just plain superior in most respects. Fuck you for shooting down incline that you clearly haven't even played.

So much stupid irony in your post.

 

[commie]

Why do games have bad gameplay?

Wastelands Interactive

Dunno, you tell me?

 

[Declinator]

Reading means reading words. Watching means looking at something. And playing means doing something other than reading and watching. If a kid was reading and you asked what he is doing and he said playing you would think he was retarded, right? If a kid was watching other kids play and thought he was playing by just watching them, same deal, right? Playing can pretty much be anything active you are doing other than reading, watching, thinking, meditating, etc.

As Malpercio said:

You are not "just reading" dialogues in Planescape, it's not a fucking VN or a Book. Dialogue change and branch according to your choices as well giving you more options depending on the knowledge you accuired through your quest and your stats.

It's not the reading part that is gameplay but the making choices part.

Rather than kids saying they are playing while talking it's more like they say they are playing with one of those origami fortune tellers.

Talking is talking and is not playing. You can incorporate talk into play, but exclusively talking is not playing. Talking while roleplaying would be acting or improvisational acting, which can be in a play, but have their own verbs to differentiate them from what is commonly thought of as playing.

I see. I'm not playing chess when I'm moving one of my pieces because I'm "moving a piece" instead of "playing." It has a verb differentiating it from playing so what can you do?

Dark Souls has shit for monkeys. The whole game and myth that it is some holy grail of combat is just console monkiness and hipsterism at its bleakest and most harmful form. People want to be cool and like the super popular thing, so they force themselves to play and like it. Like all hipster nonsense, it is just shit for shitheads. Trendy fucking retards and tyranny of the masses. Let others think for you and decide what you will like.

You probably either
a) haven't played Dark Souls
b) gave up almost immediately because you were getting killed a lot
c) can't play any action games because of some deficiency, perhaps lack of reaction speed
d) just plain don't like action games
e) watched a video on Youtube and deemed it shit

I'm betting you think the likes of Ninja Gaiden and DMC3 also have "shit for monkeys".

Also, hipsterism, as I understand it, is rejecting mainstream and indulging in all sorts of vintage things. Isn't the "I liked it before it was cool" pretty much the hipster slogan? Twisting definitions is not cool. But then again, you reject all things cool, you hipster you.

 

[valcik]

- switching to full 3D environment killed the fun for many, since not everyone is interested in Solar system grade multiaxis camera operations in their RPG
- lack of keyboard shortcuts in modern games suck big time
- any gamepad compatible UI is nothing but instant fun killer

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

In my humble opinion, there are two major reasons:

1) Larger Scope - As someone already mentioned, RPGs are very large and complex games, consisting of a lot more parts than other genres. In a shooter, the devs can just focus all their time into the combat system and level design, but in an RPG, they have to do combat, world design, dialogue, character development, various non-combat mechanics (for RPGs that have that). They also have a lot more content. .

Only partly true.
Games that are considered Strategy games, but could just as well be considered CRPGs with a Strategy layer, have superior combat compared to most pure CRPGs: X-Com, Jagged Alliance, Heroes of Might&Magic and Age of Wonders games. They also do many of the other CRPG parts well (items, character development). But then they don't try to be interactive movies, which really helps.

Thank you for pointing that because that will make pointing why so many RPGs suck at combat so much easier.
In RPGs you make character once, often deciding major things that you won't be able to change ever. A good example is Fallout 1&2 - a difference between high and low Agility characters is tremendous and once you'll make a character with low agility you are fucked forever. Sure you can pump it a bit here and there, but it will take a long time, is easily missable or consumes perks. That means that each and every combat encounters must be passable for good and so-so characters because the player won't be able to change build mid-game.
In a good strategy you often start each mission with a new base, and each requires use of different units and abilities, meaning you are free to use different strategy. An RPG is like a strategy where if you built a bunch of tanks you are stuck with them forever. Because of that comes other weakness of RPGs: less interesting, specialized abilities. In strategy games you can have units that are good at one specific thing, for example air-defence, in RPGs you can't do something like that because a character who is good only at one thing would bog the party most of the time, and since you cannot switch characters in RPGs willy-nilly nobody would pick said char/class.
From that we come to the third weakness: homogenized challenge. Take Commandos: BOS - a great puzzle/strategy game. Each mission required you to use each abilities of your units in a very specific way to succeed, making the game a fun puzzle. However in an RPG that would be impossible because of ability/party differences. You couldn't make a boss that relies on player using a specific ability because player could not have access to that ability. Imagine making a Mega-Man RPG, a player can invest in speed, jumping, shooting etc. All the tight platforming would be gone, because the game would have to accommodate characters with low jumping stat. That's why for example Persona 4 was pretty hard when it controlled what party members you had and your access to personas was limited, but became easy as fuck after you got access to all the options.

My explanation ends here, now comes the idea for how RPGs might look like that many people will probably dislike. Please note that this is just an idea for how the problem could be solved in some titles, and not how I think all RPGs should look from now on.
The issue could be fixed by splitting the game into a bunch of smaller adventures, with a character creation at the beginning of each. Something like campaigns in Heroes 3. That way players could create a character, accommodate themselves in the game system and then with a gained knowledge make a better character for the next campaign. If they built sucked they could just restart the campaign and not loose to much time. Now a player is expected to make a good character for 60+ hour adventure when he doesn't yet understand how strength exactly work in a game. A game could also provide more varied challenge, requiring different characters. That way we would avoid issues like players finding out that there no places where stealth is useful or that their talker character has reached a point where diplomacy just doesn't work. In fact something like that was already tried in some sort of way in 2 games: NWN and AoD. NWN allowed players to make their own adventures, and some of them were sort campaigns requiring a specific characters. Usually thief since it was underused as hell in the originals. AoD on the other hand could be seen as having a hidden campaign structure. Each of the main routes like Imperial Legion, Praetor, Merchant Guild etc. could be seen as a mini-campaign, each requiring a specific character for the best result. Sure they all had common elements but they greatly illustrate what I'm talking about.

Sorry for making this post so long.

 

[sullynathan]

Only according to "gameplay = combat" school of thought, meaning, MORANS

combat makes a large portion of gameplay for a large amount of rpgs. Even outside of combat, a lot of rpgs don't get the gameplay right anyway.

 

[Freddie]

Gameplay=combat is fucking stupid. Level design, dungeon design, itemization, menu design, stats and how well they work, NPC interactions it's all part of the gameplay. Of course, depending on the game, some of these things weight more than the others.

What about videogames that don't have combat? They have no gameplay? FFXIII is a game made 99% of combat yet it's piss poor, guess why?

Because Planescape main gameplay system is not the combat, it's the dialogs. Everything happens through dialogs, you learn new abilities through dialogs, your stats mostly serve to open new dialog options, you gains item through dialogs, solve puzzles and recruit people. Every new NPC is an experience itself, a puzzle for you to crack.

Who the fucks judges Planescape by the combat anyway, when it's literally the 5% of the game?

I'm obviously talking about more than combat.

Take new vegas for example.
It has good c & c, quest design and reactivity but would you say the rest of the game has good gameplay? From the poor fps combat, npc AI,the way it handles survivability and world design I wouldn't say it does.

FPS and combat worked very well enough for me, even my PC wasn't build for gaming. AI, well I don't know that many games that have that great companion AI. Mass Effect 3 tried, I think. I don't recall if I was that impressed. There might have been issues with NPC companions ability to take cover?

ME2 and ME3 are in my opinion good examples where combat mechanic is was good. Though FOV was so narrow that it was causing disorientation and nausea for some players but I guess it was either that or poor performance on consoles. However, even combat works on ME2 and ME3 I can't say either of them is really a great game. Hell, I can't even write this without some sort of manic laugher trying to burst out when I realised I just wrote ME3 and great game in the same sentence.

But combat, especially when tuned further in ME3 MP, was great. However in larger scope of things main game was shit as an RPG, mediocre as a single player shooter and dumbfuck as an adventure game. So no, combat alone doesn't solve anything unless game as a dungeon crawler or something like that.

These discussions always comes to player choice at some point where different kind of expectations and preferences come in to play.

Thank you for pointing that because that will make pointing why so many RPGs suck at combat so much easier.
In RPGs you make character once, often deciding major things that you won't be able to change ever. A good example is Fallout 1&2 - a difference between high and low Agility characters is tremendous and once you'll make a character with low agility you are fucked forever. Sure you can pump it a bit here and there, but it will take a long time, is easily missable or consumes perks. That means that each and every combat encounters must be passable for good and so-so characters because the player won't be able to change build mid-game.

But there are solutions for this already. I haven't encountered game stopper because of sub-optimal character builds... I don't recall when. Maybe I can't repair every toaster in the Wasteland, but then that's C&C and actually part of the game experience. I was able to finish the campaign anyway. Maybe my Decker character can't stomp right through every battle in game but I'm forced to trying to be find a better tactic, but I was able to finish the story anyway and I actually like it this way. Even for trivial things there are often multiple ways to solve issues. Can't pick lock because ain't got dex or skill? Well, use explosives, or spells, or smash it to pieces with strong character.

Last game where I really paid lot of attention to attributes was last run through Baldur's Gate series and that was ages ago. I recall I had difficulties in Kotor I and II final encounters because my fucked up builds, but I managed to finish them anyway. Arcanum, Fallouts, then new Shadowrun series of games and Wasteland 2, all I managed to beat even my choices in character building weren't optimal. The thing is I have a new game, I'm not sure how things work, so I don't choose absolutely the hardest difficulty level right from the start.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

But there are solutions for this already. I haven't encountered game stopper because of sub-optimal character builds... I don't recall when. Maybe I can't repair every toaster in the Wasteland, but then that's C&C and actually part of the game experience. I was able to finish the campaign anyway. Maybe my Decker character can't stomp right through every battle in game but I'm forced to trying to be find a better tactic, but I was able to finish the story anyway and I actually like it this way. Even for trivial things there are often multiple ways to solve issues. Can't pick lock because ain't got dex or skill? Well, use explosives, or spells, or smash it to pieces with strong character.

On the contrary that's exactly what I'm talking about. The RPGs can't have really complex or demanding combat encounters like some turn based strategy games do because then some players would be simply unable to finish the game. Likewise, entering places cannot be too challenging because the game has to be possible to be finished with sub-optimal parties. That means no complicated puzzle-like combats encounters like some missions in strategy games, no difficult bosses like in other genres, which in turn leads to combat not being as satisfying as these other games.

Last game where I really paid lot of attention to attributes was last run through Baldur's Gate series and that was ages ago. I recall I had difficulties in Kotor I and II final encounters because my fucked up builds, but I managed to finish them anyway. Arcanum, Fallouts, then new Shadowrun series of games and Wasteland 2, all I managed to beat even my choices in character building weren't optimal. The thing is I have a new game, I'm not sure how things work, so I don't choose absolutely the hardest difficulty level right from the start.

That's what I'm talking about, the challenges has to be dumbed down and simplified because the weaker characters will simply be unable to beat them. RPGs have to less tight and demanding than other games which leads to worse game-play. That's why endgame of Fallout for consists of targeting head and blasting everyone with turbo-plasma rifle in one shot from the other side of the map while wearing armour that can deflect almost anything, while in JA2 the endgame consists of fighting through Deidranna's elite troopers, who can react better than seasoned mercs, have top-notch equipment and will fuck you up if you aren't careful. Because in JA2 if you find yourself unable to beat the last locations you can just hire different, mercs, buy different equipment and experiment. If FO endgame was as demanding as JA2 endgame then people with sub-optimal build would just have to restart the game. That's why endgame in FO = standing in place and shooting peasants and endgame in JA2 = fighting enemies as good as best mercs but more numerous.

That's why RPGs can't have better gameplay. Because even COD-clone could just throw a very complex and demanding situation at the player and expect him to use his skills to deal with it if the devs wanted it, while people making RPGs have to consider if all optimal and sub-optimal builds and if they'll be able to beat that encounter. And if they just decide to fuck it you are left with Age of Decadence. And FFT, where if you don't have a ninja by a certain point of the game you are fucked.

 

[Lady_Error]

Why do games have bad gameplay?

Sturgeon's revelation, commonly referred to as Sturgeon's law, is an adage commonly cited as "ninety percent of everything is crap".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law

 

[WhiteGuts]

Thread was done with Excidium's answer.

 

[Roqua]

Dark Souls has good gameplay.

Dark Souls has shit for monkeys. The whole game and myth that it is some holy grail of combat is just console monkiness and hipsterism at its bleakest and most harmful form. People want to be cool and like the super popular thing, so they force themselves to play and like it. Like all hipster nonsense, it is just shit for shitheads. Trendy fucking retards and tyranny of the masses. Let others think for you and decide what you will like.

You're a dumbfuck hating because it's popular. Isn't that what a hipster is by the traditional definition, before dumbfucks like you butchered it? How ironic.

Dark Souls is a well-designed game, revives a long lost design philosophy, is sufficiently hardcore, and is pure catering to old school gamers. That it is popular among modern monkeys is a rare blessing. It means old school principles are still viable in some form, even if it's not an RPG.
I long for a return of old school design principles. Old school hack and slash. Old school shooter. Old school RPG. Old school everything, because it's just plain superior in most respects. Fuck you for shooting down incline that you clearly haven't even played.

So much stupid irony in your post.

Yes, I'm the dumbfuck. Please tell me why Lords of the Fallen isn't as popular as dark Souls. It is the same reason why the Bo Jackson sneakers weren't as popular as the Jordans.

What does hip mean? Something hot, cool - trendy. You can think it means something other than what it means, but it means what it means. Hipsters like hip shit. Hip shit is the trendy shit. Trendy means popular. Hot, trendy, hip, same shit.

I like what I like based on nothing but what I like. I admit when I like something that isn't good objectively, or an exception to my usual likes or dislikes. I loved ME 1-3. I went in to the first thinking I'd hate it, like all the other bioware shit games. But I loved it. Why? All that is important is that I decide for myself what I like. I don't give a shit what other people like or dislike. I do care about why the like what they claim to like - and quess what that reason is?

What is a well designed game? That is just fluff, hollow words. It is the same vapid shit little girls say when explaining why they love whatever shit they listen to. What is the long lost design philosophy this game resurrects? Are you saying being hardcore is a requirement for a game to be good? Whysis PST good then? That it is popular among modern people such as you is not a rare blessing. it is the same reason why undertale, minecraft, stardew valley are popular. The same reason why I had to have Jordans. The same reason why anything that is super hot and trendy all the hipsters have to have it.

I tried playing both Dark Souls 1 and 2. Dark Souls 1 has some of the worst controls I have ever tried. The old ladies in the house made no sense at all. The combat was not hard for people of normal intelligence, and the gameplay was shitty. I tried 2. Shit controls again, same meaningless blabble and motivation and confusion. Just shit for monkeys. I play Lords of the Fallen - good controls, the story makes sense, combat is much smoother and is actually challenging some times, and I know exactly why I am doing what I am doing.

You can bleat and prattle all day, but console trash for cool dudes isn't what I want brought back. I got sick of reading about how someone really wanted to love Dark Souls so they kept playing and playing until they tricked their mind into liking it and became a convert. Or how someone who shits on every game that has no content, no rewritable companions, no story focused and heavily narrated and scripted gameplay and shits on all the non-triple AAA offerings like that just so happens to like this game, and every other super trendy game.

I live in the old school and have bought and played every crpg that came out since the console exodus. Your prattle that this resurrects anything is such console thinking for console monkeys. Your arguments are the same as the people who call me an idiot for saying the IE games can be steamrolled with a melee party. Or that the IE games do not have click and watch combat. Dark Souls combat is not hard for the people who can see patterns quickly. And why Dark Souls is popular is easy to see for the same. Dark Souls is Justin Bieber is Jordan sneakers.

 

[Roqua]

Reading means reading words. Watching means looking at something. And playing means doing something other than reading and watching. If a kid was reading and you asked what he is doing and he said playing you would think he was retarded, right? If a kid was watching other kids play and thought he was playing by just watching them, same deal, right? Playing can pretty much be anything active you are doing other than reading, watching, thinking, meditating, etc.

As Malpercio said:

You are not "just reading" dialogues in Planescape, it's not a fucking VN or a Book. Dialogue change and branch according to your choices as well giving you more options depending on the knowledge you accuired through your quest and your stats.

It's not the reading part that is gameplay but the making choices part.

Rather than kids saying they are playing while talking it's more like they say they are playing with one of those origami fortune tellers.

Talking is talking and is not playing. You can incorporate talk into play, but exclusively talking is not playing. Talking while roleplaying would be acting or improvisational acting, which can be in a play, but have their own verbs to differentiate them from what is commonly thought of as playing.

I see. I'm not playing chess when I'm moving one of my pieces because I'm "moving a piece" instead of "playing." It has a verb differentiating it from playing so what can you do?

Dark Souls has shit for monkeys. The whole game and myth that it is some holy grail of combat is just console monkiness and hipsterism at its bleakest and most harmful form. People want to be cool and like the super popular thing, so they force themselves to play and like it. Like all hipster nonsense, it is just shit for shitheads. Trendy fucking retards and tyranny of the masses. Let others think for you and decide what you will like.

You probably either
a) haven't played Dark Souls
b) gave up almost immediately because you were getting killed a lot
c) can't play any action games because of some deficiency, perhaps lack of reaction speed
d) just plain don't like action games
e) watched a video on Youtube and deemed it shit

I'm betting you think the likes of Ninja Gaiden and DMC3 also have "shit for monkeys".

Also, hipsterism, as I understand it, is rejecting mainstream and indulging in all sorts of vintage things. Isn't the "I liked it before it was cool" pretty much the hipster slogan? Twisting definitions is not cool. But then again, you reject all things cool, you hipster you.

You claim a minor system is major. You claim playing is not playing. I stopped their because you are not smart.

 

[Raziel]

Gameplay=combat is fucking stupid. Level design, dungeon design, itemization, menu design, stats and how well they work, NPC interactions it's all part of the gameplay. Of course, depending on the game, some of these things weight more than the others.

What about videogames that don't have combat? They have no gameplay? FFXIII is a game made 99% of combat yet it's piss poor, guess why?

Because Planescape main gameplay system is not the combat, it's the dialogs. Everything happens through dialogs, you learn new abilities through dialogs, your stats mostly serve to open new dialog options, you gains item through dialogs, solve puzzles and recruit people. Every new NPC is an experience itself, a puzzle for you to crack.

Who the fucks judges Planescape by the combat anyway, when it's literally the 5% of the game?

PST is quite unique in this regard, most of the time when people think of 'gameplay' it's combat--because it's usually the system you engage the most in. But nevertheless, I agree with you...the OP didn't define what he meant by gameplay.

It would be better said RPGs have bad combat in general, I think aside from the reasons others have mentioned the main issue is that the more complex the character customization(stats, perks, talents, abilities,...whatever) the harder it is to balance the combat encounters. 3.5D&D is lauded for giving the player the option to roleplay AND roll-play anything efficiently. With so many options you can make seemingly bad class/race/whatever combinations work. The higher the complexity, the more options given the easier it is to 'break' the system.

It's a bit of a paradox, but the better designed system will actually perform worse in the hands of a proficient player. First playthroughs are an exception of course.

In my humble opinion, there are two major reasons:

1) Larger Scope - As someone already mentioned, RPGs are very large and complex games, consisting of a lot more parts than other genres. In a shooter, the devs can just focus all their time into the combat system and level design, but in an RPG, they have to do combat, world design, dialogue, character development, various non-combat mechanics (for RPGs that have that). They also have a lot more content. .

Only partly true.
Games that are considered Strategy games, but could just as well be considered CRPGs with a Strategy layer, have superior combat compared to most pure CRPGs: X-Com, Jagged Alliance, Heroes of Might&Magic and Age of Wonders games. They also do many of the other CRPG parts well (items, character development). But then they don't try to be interactive movies, which really helps.

I've always wondered why codex doesn't have a bigger hardon for those types of games. JA/HOMM/xcom are really the best examples of TB done well. HoMM even survives the multiple playthroughs test, it's even played competitively to some degree. Every other cRPG thats lauded for its combat becomes a turd after subsequent playthroughs and the TB becomes a hassle.

I'd also add wizardry to the list.