BROS SO IT IS GENERALLY AGREED

[quasimodo]

I really dislike action game play. If it has any twitch at all I don't want to play it.

10 or 20 years ago RPGs were my favorite genre and there were plenty of new games to play. I haven't changed, but the games being called RPGs sure have.

A short list of companies making games I don't want to play would include:

Bethesda, Bioware, Obsidian, Larian, CDProjekt, and Piranha Bytes.


Oh well KotC was pretty awesome and It will be Thursday sometime.

 

[Excidium]

The definition is absolutely vague, but the very basic thing about RPGs is that you use the abilities of your character(s) to interact with the enviroment and solve conflicts, so if you include the player's own skill for parrying attacks or aiming spells, it's already stretching it.

How about using your own intelligence rather than your character's (who may in fact be a retard) to choose tactics?

Nothing wrong with that. Unless you want to severely reduce player input in the game, but that just wouldn't be fun to play.

but it would make it more of an RPG. actually, by your "definition" that's the very basic requirement for it to be an RPG in the first place (so i guess a real, tr00 RPG wouldn't be fun to play)... unless you want to arbitrarily draw a line between dexterity and intelligence (and/or other "attributes") when it comes to player vs character skill because lol or any other just as "valid" reason

Nope. An RPG is nothing to do with that. Different RPGs model different statistics. You could play an RPG that doesn't model anything but physical combat stats and it would still be an RPG even if you have to use your intelligence to play the game. The key is that the player has to tell his or her character when and how to apply their stats. Telling your character to swing a sword at an enemy is the direction while the chance to hit, weapon speed, damage and any other relevant stat models the action of swinging the sword. If the game includes an intelligence statistic then you can direct your character to use their intelligence to solve a problem for you (the action). It's a simple concept. The bullshit about nothing being an RPG because everything requires intelligence to play is a complete non-issue.

Problems appear when the player directs his/her character and plays a part in the character's ability to pull off the action (action RPGs). Problems also appear in games that feature actions that don't take into account the character's statistics (adventure elements). Problems also appear in games that make the direction stage time critical (both RTwP and plain old RT RPGs).

So you might have a diverse set of games like Pool of Radiance, Wizardry VI, Might and Magic III, Fallout, Star Trail, The Magic Candle and Temple of Elemental Evil, all of which no doubt do some things wrong (the biggest offender being puzzle solving where puzzle steps aren't character stat dependent), but they are all largely RPGs. You could make a claim that no game is a pure RPG and you'd be spot on, so it's only relevant to compare the ratio of RPG to non-RPG gameplay (if it's worth discussing at all).

Exactly.

 

[Damned Registrations]

No reason decision making couldn't be governed by stats though. Aside from intelligence, you could have an array of personality stats for a character. Confidence, Self-control, Caution, Patience, Curiosity, Honor... What if your character ran around making decisions based on those stats, and all the action was skill based? I'd still call that an RPG. Whether you help the feeble widow or break her neck and loot her home is part of gameplay too.

Also keep in mind, just because a stat is there and it 'governs' an aspect of combat, doesn't mean it really does anything. If I have an accuracy stat, but the most it ever does is change accuracy by +/- 5% from it's baseline 60%, it doesn't really matter whether or not I dump points into it. What matters is who I choose to shoot at in combat. In that regard, it's not really stat based at all. What if you played through a game like Wizardry but your stats never changed? Is it still 'stat based' combat? Whats the difference between doing 50 damage because your strength is 75 and the enemy armor is 25, vs doing 50 damage because thats how much damage your sword swing does, if your strength never changes, or enemies scale to the change? Likewise, whats the difference between avoiding a fireball by dodging it, or avoiding a fireball by using your metagame knowledge of the AI to keep it from casting it, or spreading your team out? Yeah one is twitch while other is knowledge, but knowledge based combat isn't a property inherent to RPGs, it's inherent to tactical/strategic combat.

For what it's worth, since it hasn't been mentioned as a comparison yet, I'd put Dark Souls on par with Mount and Blade for ratio of twitch to stats. You could theoretically take out a castle by yourself in Mount and Blade by being twitchy enough, even without an army and stats to back you up. But I think it'd be really silly to primarily call the game an action game. It's far more rooted in RPG elements.

 

[MMXI]

No reason decision making couldn't be governed by stats though. Aside from intelligence, you could have an array of personality stats for a character. Confidence, Self-control, Caution, Patience, Curiosity, Honor... What if your character ran around making decisions based on those stats, and all the action was skill based? I'd still call that an RPG. Whether you help the feeble widow or break her neck and loot her home is part of gameplay too.

That would be very interesting and I think DraQ and I have discussed something similar before in another thread. But it's not really changing the nature of the game. All you're doing is adding a new layer of stats and as a result the player's decision making would be at an even higher level. Sort of meta in a way. The player will make "decisions" based on his or her character's decision making statistics, instead of the player making decisions based on his or her character's skill set. You've basically added another level of abstraction to the entire game, but it's still ultimately the same thing as before. I'd love to see an RPG like this though. One that is very high level with very coarse player actions.

Also keep in mind, just because a stat is there and it 'governs' an aspect of combat, doesn't mean it really does anything. If I have an accuracy stat, but the most it ever does is change accuracy by +/- 5% from it's baseline 60%, it doesn't really matter whether or not I dump points into it. What matters is who I choose to shoot at in combat. In that regard, it's not really stat based at all. What if you played through a game like Wizardry but your stats never changed? Is it still 'stat based' combat? Whats the difference between doing 50 damage because your strength is 75 and the enemy armor is 25, vs doing 50 damage because thats how much damage your sword swing does, if your strength never changes, or enemies scale to the change? Likewise, whats the difference between avoiding a fireball by dodging it, or avoiding a fireball by using your metagame knowledge of the AI to keep it from casting it, or spreading your team out? Yeah one is twitch while other is knowledge, but knowledge based combat isn't a property inherent to RPGs, it's inherent to tactical/strategic combat.

Of course, but nothing is black and white. There's a sliding scale between stats making a difference to the player and stats being static and worthless. If your only choice in a supposed RPG is to boost your damage by 1% or boost your chance to hit by 1% then it's not really an RPG because it's closer to having no customisable stats than having customisable stats.

 

[Alex]

Maybe I have no business sticking my nose in here. I never played the mentioned game, nor will I ever play it until an emulator for the Plas Station 3 comes out (or they make a PC release). But, I like to discuss CRPG definitions. As I posted in another thread, My own definition of what an CRPG is is:

"Games where the central gameplay gravitates around creating and playing a role"

Now, let me try to explain this. Through whatever means, the game should allow you to create a role for yourself (or roles, if it is a party rpg). Many games do this through numeric systems, where, for example, you might set your character's initial attributes and develop them throughout the rest of the game (frequently by "leveling"). But, as I argued in the other thread, it is also possible to create your roles through other means, through your decisions or whatever. Torment is a good example of this, I think. While your attributes (like intelligence and wisdom) play a part in that game, the most important part of creating a role for The Nameless One in that game is how you decide to interact with the rest of the world. Whether you mourn Ravel's passing, or only Mebbeth's, or neither, whether you decide to kill Trias, whether you give up reuniting with your mortality, sitting on the Silent King's throne instead, the game allows you to create different types of characters, different roles, and play them out. Fallout, sometimes at least, let you determine your role not by crunching numbers, but by paying attention to your environment and perceiving hidden opportunities.

Speaking of roles, that is kind of a key point for what an RPG is. I mean, the type of role you build in a game like one of the Gold Box RPGs or on a Roguelike like Crawl is pretty different from one you would build in Planescape: Torment. Let's say that "role" means the place of a character in some kind of "narration", where "narration" could mean many things. In PS:T, it is a normal, conventional story. The game has a story going on, and it gives you various opportunities to build TNO's place in it. What kind of person he is, how he relates to his comrades, all those things can be defined by the player, and the game will play out differently depending on that.

In Pool of Radiance, on the other hand, the story that is being told is pretty much set. But that is ok, that is not the narration that we are interested in. Instead the narration is about these "action sequences", where the protagonists battle the enemies, or where they explore some aspect of the world, such as going to a tavern and getting in a fight. The static story is just a backdrop. Instead, we are interested in the narrative of the warrior who, when almost dead, manages to slay the remaining ten orcs and survive. Or the narrative of how the mage smartly acquires a fireball spell and uses it to win an otherwise impossible battle.

The final part of the definition, the playing a role, requires that the game reacts in some way to the role you have built. Fallout is an example of a game that does this well, I think. The many different skills impact the narration of the game in different ways. The quest to save Tandi from the raiders is a classic example of this, with different choices of how you build your character allowing for various different ways to save her. A lucky character can be mistaken for the ghost of the previous leader of the band, a character with good speech skill can convince the leader to give up without a real price, a sneaky bastard can plant a bomb behind him, etc.

So, what I want to get to is that it isn't this or that mechanic that makes a game an rpg (at least if you agree with my definition). The point of an RPG, to me, is to let you influence the game's main narrative by playing a role. If it does this by allowing you to explore a deep, complex world, by building intricate characters that have many different combat options that lead to different strategies, but still keep the abstract numbers close enough to something imaginable that the system helps you come up with a narrative, or however, it doesn't matter. What matters is if the resulting narrative is good and feels "yours". That, to me, is the "kind of fun" that determine what an RPG is.

So, getting back to the game at hand, I think the question that should be asked is how much the game is about it, how much the game is about you determining a narrative through the role you build.

 

[Xi]

Yeah bro, the same for RPGs. Sometimes you can still have a RPG full of stats, dice rolls, planning, strategy and all that shit you see when you play a table-top rpg and at the same time a twitch based gameplay. That wouldn't be a ARPG? RPG mechanics at the core but still dependent of player reflexes to achieve sucess.

What you are proposing still relies on mental reflexes and still involves a subset of player skill interwoven into the character's ability. Where does one draw the line? If you trace this far enough, you'll realize that player skill is always a factor. The skill the player needs is the interface with gameplay. Without any involvement, or any actual player ability, you're watching a movie.

Sure, we can agree that the character needs limitations, restrictions, and over all a set of rules they are governed by. This is the framework the player uses in order to over come gameplay challenges, but the player is always (100%) reliant on their own meta skills. Thus, an action-RPG is just as much a roleplaying game as a game that relies on strategy, where the players mental skills are challenged. There's no difference quite frankly.

 

[Gregz]

Yeah bro, the same for RPGs. Sometimes you can still have a RPG full of stats, dice rolls, planning, strategy and all that shit you see when you play a table-top rpg and at the same time a twitch based gameplay. That wouldn't be a ARPG? RPG mechanics at the core but still dependent of player reflexes to achieve sucess.

What you are proposing still relies on mental reflexes and still involves a subset of player skill interwoven into the character's ability. Where does one draw the line? If you trace this far enough, you'll realize that player skill is always a factor. The skill the player needs is the interface with gameplay. Without any involvement, or any actual player ability, you're watching a movie.

A lot of this debate can be simplified using time as the metric.

If a player can walk away from his computer for 3 hours, then come back to the game to decide his next move, then 'player skill' is purely intellectual/strategic.

If a player has 20 milliseconds to react before being killed (online pvp multiplayers like CS:S), then 'player skill' is training through repetition, muscle memory, reflexes, and experience/instinct.

So you have a spectrum defined between those two extremes, and I think all games fit somewhere within that spectrum.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just because speed is involved doesn't mean you're relying on 'muscle memory' or anything like that. If it were, the guys winning at Jeopardy or speed chess would be counterstrike players.

The ability to analyze a situation quickly is very distinct from reacting to a situation you didn't analyze at all. A game of Simon might require reacting quickly, but far far more important is your ability to think quickly- to memorize and translate what you just saw into the necessary actions. This is much much different from say, DDR, even though in both you are spamming out patterns being fed to you, because in DDR, your timing needs to be precise and the emphasis is on the execution, and it can stand to suffer some thought errors, while in Simon the execution is relatively trivial, merely being an ordered sequence without regard for timing, and the memory/thought requirement is not only more strict, it's also more difficult, by virtue of making you hold more information at a time.

It's like categorizing both a waiter taking huge orders mentally without a notepad, and a chainsaw juggler as both being feats of twitchy reflex.

 

[MMXI]

I think the issue is that a requirement on speed of thought and speed of action serves no purpose towards improving the RPG aspects of a game. I often see people trying to argue that an action RPG is still an RPG because the RPG elements dominate, but it doesn't change the fact that having the action in there in any way adds absolutely nothing positive to the experience from the perspective of our dearest genre.

 

[Xi]

I think the issue is that a requirement on speed of thought and speed of action serves no purpose towards improving the RPG aspects of a game. I often see people trying to argue that an action RPG is still an RPG because the RPG elements dominate, but it doesn't change the fact that having the action in there in any way adds absolutely nothing positive to the experience from the perspective of our dearest genre.

We'd have to agree to disagree then. I've played plenty of good A-RPGs over the years, and I felt like the action element was helpful. It just depends on the gameplay mechanics. There's really no difference between mental skill and reflex skill when it comes to Roleplaying games. The key element is that the character has specific limitations based on their level of development that affect the outcome.

The best game probably incorporates both mental and physical skills into the game. These are both legitimate ways to challenge the player and neither are more inherent to RPG than the other. Both are merely a means for the player to interface with the game.

I would argue that the meta-game is the most important aspect to all gaming. It's the only thing the player really does, and that's what we call playing the game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just because it isn't an RPG element doesn't mean it doesn't add to the game. Jumping isn't an RPG element but it makes world exploration a hell of a lot more interesting. And jumping is a lot more interesting when handled freely than when it's done at specific scripted points, where they may as well have made a ladder or teleporter.

Likewise tactical movement/terrain is purely a strategy element as opposed to an RPG one. But it makes the battles better, so I'd rather have it in when done well, if that kind of combat is a focus of the game.

OTOH, it'd detract from something like M&M or Wizardry, where the emphasis is on managing resources during your trek through the dungeon, by making battles take excessive amounts of time and generally shifting your decisions from being about who to heal and who to blast and who to stab to whether to move 4 steps or 5.

Different games are made better by different features. Some RPGs would be improved with more direct player control, others are hampered by it. And of course it changes subjectively too. But 'I plant my feet and swing at the ogre till one of us drops dead' isn't any less RPGish than 'Tell me EXACTLY where the ogre is standing in relation to the wall, I want to try using my rope to entangle him' or some convoluted 19 step spell battle with an enemy wizard.

Being able to jump over mountains or outrun deer is far more satisfying in a directly player controlled real time environment than in a turn based game. It isn't inherently wrong to try and focus on aspects like that and make the direct visceral impact of your character's stats more important at the cost of other elements. After all, combat would feel really artificial and awkward if you simply turned on your fight command like in an MMO and couldn't time your weapon swings yourself. Direct control lets you fine control aspects that usually get ignored, like how aggressive or desperate your character is in combat. Whether you're willing to trade blows or carefully attack only through safe openings. It's only bad when it's done wrong.

If you want to make the character stats important to the feel and atmosphere of a game, there are many ways to go about it. Skill checks in dialogue work great. But so does making your character move sluggishly while encumbered, or having a strong character not even flinch from attacks that make a frailer character reel or fall to the ground. Implementing the game around the later method can work, we've just seen a lot of examples of it being done poorly, where they give you direct control but the stats aren't reflected where they should, like why do a hulking warrior and limpwristed mage both have the exact same ability to drag a corpse around in Oblivion, why doesn't encumbrance affect your buoyancy in water, etc. Instead they put shit that has nothing to do with stats, like making the screen go red whenever you take damage, or making you reel and unable to attack whenever an enemy blocks. Putting in those interactions reinforces the feeling that your stats don't matter, because you got feedback your stats can't change. It's those interactions and feedbacks that make a game feel like it isn't an RPG. Not whether or not the interactions involved reflex or quick thinking.

As a terrible example, imagine a game where in combat, you entered a permanent bullet time that reflects your characters stats for reaction speed. It'd be a terrible game for making combat slow and clunky, but it'd also feel very firmly stat based and RPGish, because your ability to do things like outmaneuver enemies, aim properly, and dodge would all be directly impacted by your stats, even though you were directly controlling them.

 

[MMXI]

Just because it isn't an RPG element doesn't mean it doesn't add to the game.

This is not a discussion about what makes a better video game. This discussion is about what makes an RPG. If your preferences are for action RPGs then of course you're going to find that action elements improve a game. It's just not all that relevant to the topic. It's like an Ultima fan coming in here and declaring Ultima VII with its 3 stats (or however many it has) to be the most perfect example of an RPG, even though it's riddled with adventure game elements.

Jumping isn't an RPG element but it makes world exploration a hell of a lot more interesting. And jumping is a lot more interesting when handled freely than when it's done at specific scripted points, where they may as well have made a ladder or teleporter.

But no specific actions like jumping is an RPG element. Not even swinging a sword or casting a spell. It's absurd to think that way. If jumping is made a skill in the game, or is tied to your dexterity attribute, then jumping becomes something you can tell your specific character to perform according to their individual ability. That is a good thing.

Likewise tactical movement/terrain is purely a strategy element as opposed to an RPG one. But it makes the battles better, so I'd rather have it in when done well, if that kind of combat is a focus of the game.

Again, tactical movement can easily be based on your character's stats. Stuff like speed, encumbrance due to strength, status effects due to low resistances etc. can all affect the ability of your character to move into different positions on the battlefield. Yes the player is playing a battle like a turn-based tactics game, but the turn-based tactical elements have come about by enforcing the RPG gameplay while breaking combat down to an equivalent level of abstraction. In fact, I would argue that deciding where your character should be positioned in a battle is exactly the same as casting the right spell, saying the right line of dialogue, buying the right equipment and travelling to the right town when it comes to role-playing. A mage under a decent system is going to be positioned behind your front line, just as your toughest fighter is going to be positioned up front. That's what RPGs effectively are: making the best choices for a given character.

Being able to jump over mountains or outrun deer is far more satisfying in a directly player controlled real time environment than in a turn based game. It isn't inherently wrong to try and focus on aspects like that and make the direct visceral impact of your character's stats more important at the cost of other elements. After all, combat would feel really artificial and awkward if you simply turned on your fight command like in an MMO and couldn't time your weapon swings yourself. Direct control lets you fine control aspects that usually get ignored, like how aggressive or desperate your character is in combat. Whether you're willing to trade blows or carefully attack only through safe openings. It's only bad when it's done wrong.

Yeah, I agree with this. In a game with a directly player controlled real time environment it is way more fun to jump about and hack and slash at enemies using your mouse in real-time. In fact, in many so called action RPGs this is often the most fun part of the game and dwarfs the stat tweaking and skill usage. It's still not that relevant to the discussion though.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You're missing the point though. Those parts aren't fun because you're jumping around and hacking at stuff. Those exact same actions would make the game LESS FUN if they weren't tied to stats. They're fun precisely because they're made possible by stat tweaking.

The fun part isn't jumping over a mountain, it's stumbling around unable to go over a fence, then gaining a level, tweaking your strength, putting on some different boots and seeing the difference.

The fun part isn't slashing enemies over and over, it's feeling the difference between your attack plinking off useless and carving through a target like butter. A difference a turn based game can't offer. Well it could, but no game has ever changed your interface every time you whiff a sword swing to reflect the nuance of why you missed. I don't think it'd make for a very good game in turn based mode, having 'Attack' replaced with 'stagger pathetically' and forcing you to click it and waste a moment of time.

Also, there is a very distinct difference between implementing a change in the controls or the interface, and implementing a skill that has scripted effects. Being able to jump onto a table and rub my balls in someone's face in Deus Ex isn't the same as being able to jump across a pit with my rogue in Buck Rogers. The first is about giving the player freedom, the second is about granting the game world verisimilitude. This is a big deal. If the focus of your game is freedom, turn based doesn't work as well. Things need to be more scripted and formulaic to accommodate the rules of the system. No dodging behind rocks for cover, no climbing on furniture, no firing your arrows beyond useful combat range just to make a distracting sound far away. If, on the other hand, the focus of your game is creating a very detailed and believable world, turn based works better, because freedom makes you spread your detail thinner to cover up everything the player might look at, instead of being able to use it all on the rich scenery they'll see from the rails.

Action elements aren't just a subjective preference, they're objectively better for making games with certain themes and design goals. And action isn't opposed to stat tweaking in any way. You could easily make a real time game where you do nothing but run around and shoot things, but make it entirely stat driven, down to the last inch/hour of movement speed before your character is immobile. The lack of a stat governing accuracy in Dark Souls is no more of a deal breaker than the lack of a stat for walking speed in Wizardry, or the lack of a stat deciding how long you have to make decisions before you characters stand there like drooling morons. Imagine if intelligence governed that in Fallout. You get 1 second (or less, whatever floats your boat) per point of intelligence each turn before it just ends your turn. Would make it more stat based (RPGish) right, even though it's also more actiony? Morons would make more basic combat mistakes, not judging distance as well, bad priorities. Does the fact that turn based games don't do this mean turn based games aren't RPGs, or lack ways to make stats matter? Of course not. Same as action games. There's no shortage of space to implement stat checks and effects in either style of play. Though I've yet to see one, I could probably design an action rpg with more stat dependence than a turn based RPG. Rogue would be a pretty easy bar to meet. An action game is essentially just micromanaging a tactical game in real time. You're adding control of whether to raise your shield or swing your mace to the control of where to stand and whether to wield a mace or sling a spell.

Morrowind is to ToEE what DnD was to wargames. More freedom and fine control at the cost of more tactical gameplay and strategic control. CRPGs moved things back towards wargames by necessity at first. At this point, the necessity is no longer there. You can have an RPG, stat driven experience with very precise control and a great deal of freedom. Or, you can give up some of that freedom in exchange for a more detailed, strategic game. Someday we'll have holodecks and we can have both at once, but for now we're trading once aspect of a PnP game for another between genres.

The only things I'd attribute to the title of 'RPG' are two qualities: a character that is created by you, and controlled by you. What current ARPGs fail at is the first part, while turn based ones fail at the second.

 

[someone else]

Codex opinion on rpgs? The Codex that actually likes shit games like Arcanum? lolololz

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS I THINK THE OVERARCHING THEME HERE IS THAT WE WANT GOOD GAMES AND THE WORST DESIGN IS SOMETIMES DOING THINGS HALF ASS INSTEAD OF GOING BALLS DEEP

KOTC WAS THE CLOSEST THING TO PERFECT I HAVE PLAYED IN TERMS OF TURN BASED RPG STUFF RECENTLY BECAUSE IT PLAYED TO THE STRENGTHS OF THE MEDIUM IN TERMS OF OPTIONS AVAILABLE AND TRANSPARENCY IN STATS AND PLUS IT DIDNT TRY TO DO WHAT IT COULDNT THE STORY WAS MINIMAL SHIT TO GET YOU THROUGH COMBAT

BROS I AM TO DRUNK TO MANTAIN COHERENT THOUGHT INSO I MAIGHT BE SKIPPING AROUND BUT DARK SOULS JUST SHOWED LOVE IN THE CRAFTING LIKE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT DEUS EX THE AREAS ALL WRAP AROUND EACH OTHER AND YOU CAN ALWAYS CATCH VIEWS OF HOW THE AREAS UNEXPECTEDLY CONNECT EVEN WHEN YOU CANT ACCESS THE AREA FROM ANYWHERE NEARBY

IN CONTRAST TO KOTC THE TREND OF BETHESDA GAMES IS TO BE A JACK OF ALL TRADES WITH FULL WORLD EXPLORATION AND ACTION COMBAT AND RPG STATS AND A LIVING WORLD BUT ALL ARE DONE RELATIVELY HALF ASS BROS THEY JUST SEEM TO MAYBE IMPROVE ONE PART BUT WATER EVERYTHING ELSE DOWN IN THE PROCESS BROS I NEVER WAS INTO DAGGERFALL BUT MY HEART HURTS THAT BETHESDA JUST DIDNT MAKE A GAME LIKE MORROWIND BUT WITH BETTER BALANCE AND CITIES THAT SEEMED ALIVE AS ULTIMA 5

 

[BLOBERT]

Also, there is a very distinct difference between implementing a change in the controls or the interface, and implementing a skill that has scripted effects. Being able to jump onto a table and rub my balls in someone's face in Deus Ex isn't the same as being able to jump across a pit with my rogue in Buck Rogers. The first is about giving the player freedom, the second is about granting the game world verisimilitude. This is a big deal. If the focus of your game is freedom, turn based doesn't work as well. Things need to be more scripted and formulaic to accommodate the rules of the system. No dodging behind rocks for cover, no climbing on furniture, no firing your arrows beyond useful combat range just to make a distracting sound far away. If, on the other hand, the focus of your game is creating a very detailed and believable world, turn based works better, because freedom makes you spread your detail thinner to cover up everything the player might look at, instead of being able to use it all on the rich scenery they'll see from the rails.

Action elements aren't just a subjective preference, they're objectively better for making games with certain themes and design goals. And action isn't opposed to stat tweaking in any way. You could easily make a real time game where you do nothing but run around and shoot things, but make it entirely stat driven, down to the last inch/hour of movement speed before your character is immobile. The lack of a stat governing accuracy in Dark Souls is no more of a deal breaker than the lack of a stat for walking speed in Wizardry, or the lack of a stat deciding how long you have to make decisions before you characters stand there like drooling morons. Imagine if intelligence governed that in Fallout. You get 1 second (or less, whatever floats your boat) per point of intelligence each turn before it just ends your turn. Would make it more stat based (RPGish) right, even though it's also more actiony? Morons would make more basic combat mistakes, not judging distance as well, bad priorities. Does the fact that turn based games don't do this mean turn based games aren't RPGs, or lack ways to make stats matter? Of course not. Same as action games. There's no shortage of space to implement stat checks and effects in either style of play. Though I've yet to see one, I could probably design an action rpg with more stat dependence than a turn based RPG. Rogue would be a pretty easy bar to meet. An action game is essentially just micromanaging a tactical game in real time. You're adding control of whether to raise your shield or swing your mace to the control of where to stand and whether to wield a mace or sling a spell.

Morrowind is to ToEE what DnD was to wargames. More freedom and fine control at the cost of more tactical gameplay and strategic control. CRPGs moved things back towards wargames by necessity at first. At this point, the necessity is no longer there. You can have an RPG, stat driven experience with very precise control and a great deal of freedom. Or, you can give up some of that freedom in exchange for a more detailed, strategic game. Someday we'll have holodecks and we can have both at once, but for now we're trading once aspect of a PnP game for another between genres.

YOU ARE ON MY BROLIST FOREVER THIS MAKES TOTAL SENSE AND I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT OF THINGS IN THIS WAY BEFORE

 

[MMXI]

Also, there is a very distinct difference between implementing a change in the controls or the interface, and implementing a skill that has scripted effects. Being able to jump onto a table and rub my balls in someone's face in Deus Ex isn't the same as being able to jump across a pit with my rogue in Buck Rogers. The first is about giving the player freedom, the second is about granting the game world verisimilitude. This is a big deal. If the focus of your game is freedom, turn based doesn't work as well. Things need to be more scripted and formulaic to accommodate the rules of the system. No dodging behind rocks for cover, no climbing on furniture, no firing your arrows beyond useful combat range just to make a distracting sound far away. If, on the other hand, the focus of your game is creating a very detailed and believable world, turn based works better, because freedom makes you spread your detail thinner to cover up everything the player might look at, instead of being able to use it all on the rich scenery they'll see from the rails.

I agree with this entirely other than your point that you can't do that in turn-based games. Turn-based has nothing to do with the difference between "scripted jumps" and giving the player freedom to jump. If you jump on the spot for no purpose in a real-time game then surely you could do the same in a turn-based game. If you jump with a purpose in a real-time game then why can't you jump with a purpose in a turn-based game? Jumping over a random fence? You can do that in Ultima V with the 'K' key. It's not a scripted jump at all and you can do it to any fence in the game.

You're adding control of whether to raise your shield or swing your mace to the control of where to stand and whether to wield a mace or sling a spell.

Except you can control whether to raise your shield or swing your mace in a turn-based game too. I'm sure that's what the "defend" action means in a lot of turn-based games. But you're right in that action RPGs could let you control the trajectory of your sword swipe, but if you really want to shove this into a turn-based game (and you really don't) then you could let the player draw a path on the screen with the mouse, letting them retry until they are happy with the trajectory. There's hardly any meaningful role-playing when it comes to such low level actions that basically represent your character's reflexes, though.

Morrowind is to ToEE what DnD was to wargames. More freedom and fine control at the cost of more tactical gameplay and strategic control. CRPGs moved things back towards wargames by necessity at first. At this point, the necessity is no longer there. You can have an RPG, stat driven experience with very precise control and a great deal of freedom. Or, you can give up some of that freedom in exchange for a more detailed, strategic game. Someday we'll have holodecks and we can have both at once, but for now we're trading once aspect of a PnP game for another between genres.

So are you saying Morrowind is what Wizardry wanted to be? Because that's what it sounds like with your use of the word "necessity".

The only things I'd attribute to the title of 'RPG' are two qualities: a character that is created by you, and controlled by you. What current ARPGs fail at is the first part, while turn based ones fail at the second.

No. Your character shouldn't be "controlled" by you in the sense that you're thinking of. Not one bit. You aren't your character. Your character is a distinct entity that you direct and shape and experience the game through. If you are your character and control every muscle movement of your character then it's not really an RPG any more.

 

[someone else]

ULTIMA VII HAS THE BEST COOKING EXPERIENCE EVAR111 YOU DRAW WATER FROM THE WELL AND YOU CAN CLICK AND DRAG THE ITEMS, YOU EVEN WATCH THE BREAD BAKED ON THE COOKING PLACE, THIS IS VERY IMMERSIVE COMPARED TO THE MENU DRIVEN COOKING IN URW OR OTHER GAMES111 EVEN WITH CROP PLANTING, HARVESTING, THRESHING, GETTING WATER FROM RIVERS, BUILDING YOUR OWN STOVE, GRINDING FLOUR AND FINALING BAKING BREAD, URW STILL LOSES TO ULTIMA 7 BECAUSE IT IS MENU AND TURNED BASED.

TLDR U7 BEST BAKE BREAD111

 

[MMXI]

ULTIMA VII HAS THE BEST COOKING EXPERIENCE EVAR111 YOU DRAW WATER FROM THE WELL AND YOU CAN CLICK AND DRAG THE ITEMS, YOU EVEN WATCH THE BREAD BAKED ON THE COOKING PLACE, THIS IS VERY IMMERSIVE COMPARED TO THE MENU DRIVEN COOKING IN URW OR OTHER GAMES111 EVEN WITH CROP PLANTING, HARVESTING, THRESHING, GETTING WATER FROM RIVERS, BUILDING YOUR OWN STOVE, GRINDING FLOUR AND FINALING BAKING BREAD, URW STILL LOSES TO ULTIMA 7 BECAUSE IT IS MENU AND TURNED BASED.

TLDR U7 BEST BAKE BREAD111

You've sarcastically summed up why being able to have full direct control over your character is pretty shitty in an RPG. If you want to bake bread then that should be one action that takes up X amount of time. Unless the developer can pad out the stages of baking bread into something as interesting as fighting an enemy in an action combat sequence then what's the point? I'm sure cooks enjoy cooking, but surely the only actual role-playing involved in cooking would be the ratio of ingredients? "I prefer to add a bit more salt to my so and so because that's the kind of guy I am". Fuck it. Let the player choose what to cook and then let them choose the ratio of ingredients using sliders. No need to force them to physically stir the ingredients up using their mouse and other retarded shit which is of the same level of abstraction (low) as swinging a sword through the air and dodging a blow.

 

[Jaesun]

The fun part isn't slashing enemies over and over, it's feeling the difference between your attack plinking off useless and carving through a target like butter. A difference a turn based game can't offer. Well it could, but no game has ever changed your interface every time you whiff a sword swing to reflect the nuance of why you missed. I don't think it'd make for a very good game in turn based mode, having 'Attack' replaced with 'stagger pathetically' and forcing you to click it and waste a moment of time.

WAT?

 

[Wyrmlord]

The fun part isn't slashing enemies over and over, it's feeling the difference between your attack plinking off useless and carving through a target like butter. A difference a turn based game can't offer. Well it could, but no game has ever changed your interface every time you whiff a sword swing to reflect the nuance of why you missed. I don't think it'd make for a very good game in turn based mode, having 'Attack' replaced with 'stagger pathetically' and forcing you to click it and waste a moment of time.

WAT?

The Dark Souls fans tend to have entirely opposite views on RPGs.

One fan reviewing the game said (paraphrased), "Unlike other RPGs, there is no armor class or armor rating. There is no damage absorption. Either you make a successful hit or you get a successful block. Either you do 100% maximum damage or you do 0% damage. There are no random numbers."

It was a positive appraisal of the game's mechanics. There is just one problem. These are not very interesting mechanics. They don't force you to think much about trade-offs.

In many RPGs (even ones such as KotOR 1 and 2), you see a weapon that does 25-45 points of damage and a weapon that does 15-60 points of damage, and you are left wondering what will happen if you take the broader range. It feels like a risk. In Fallout 2, you have either the highly accurate Gauss Rifle or the highly damaging Pulse Rifle, and you wonder about the trade-off made by losing the accuracy.

I say it is a bigger shame that ARPGs can't emulate such numbers. If you have the skill, you won the fight. You gave up nothing to gain more power in one respect.

 

[Jaesun]

Maybe you should play some cRPG's sometime.

Instead of action games.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Maybe you should play some cRPG's sometime.

Instead of action games.

Did you read my post? I was agreeing with you, not agreeing with them.

 

[Excidium]

I share MMXI's views, but DamnedRegistrations has valid points.

In the end it's just a matter of taste. Some people want CRPGs to be as loyal to the PnP experience as possible, others want CRPGs to maintain their roleplaying aspects while absorbing gameplay mechanics that are typical of video games. Consensus will never be reached but it's fun to discuss!! anyway.

 

[Damned Registrations]

When I said the necessity for crpgs to emulate wargames was there, I was simply pointing out that that is why the genre went there initially. The early single player freedom equivalent of wizardry is Rogue. Not a lot of freedom there. Eventually you get to something like Nethack, where you can hurl yourself over a chasm by picking up the ball chained to your foot and throwing it with your gauntlets of ogre strength. Morrowind isn't what Wizardry wanted to be any more than DnD is what tabletop wargames wanted to be. When we reach the point where a turnbased game that looks like a modern game lets you do all the crazy shit you can do in Nethack or Dwarf Fortress, the action equivalent will still let you do even more. While the turnbased game is letting you put on eyewear and blindfolds to adjust vision properties, the action game will be letting you use your blindfold as a gag and your cloak as a makeshift inventory container.

And when I refer to the respective failures of the subgenres, I don't mean that action games are a failure because you're forced to play as whatever cunt they make you play as. Thats part of the narrative necessary for making a story. I mean that the very character itself is decided beforehand in many ways that get shoved in your face when you play, even though these attributes have no bearing on the story. Movement speed not being a stat doesn't hurt wizardry because there's no movement system in reference to time. There is no stat because the very concept doesn't exist within the game. You could be moving faster than lightspeed for all it matters. But in an action rpg, your movement speed is thrown in your face constantly, and any game that doesn't let you alter it, is effectively making that part of the character alien to you. The movement speed is purely a design choice by whoever made the game, and you had no input. And because the freedom of an action rpg affords so many options, tons of little details like that pop up and become offensive. Things like vision and hearing, balance and traction while moving, your voice, your level of stealth if that isn't implemented. These things don't effect most turnbased games at all. You can see from a birds eye view, stealth doesn't exist, you never stumble or slip while moving. The stats that are obnoxiously absent in an action rpg would be as irrelevant as susceptibility to cancer in most turnbased games.


The sense of control I want isn't like the control you'd get from Mario, but the control you get from playing a PnP game, where you can tell the DM exactly what you want to do. The control to do things like drop flammable objects on the ground and ignite them, because you can attempt to ignite anything with your torch, not just scripted items. Or the control to lure an enemy near a steep cliff, and shove them over, or make them stumble over by loss of balance, or grapple with them and have both of you go over. You could implement every last thing anyone has ever thought of like this, in a turnbased game, but the interface would be incredibly unwieldly, and you'd sacrifice so much else (think dwarf fortress.) I haven't played the Ultimas, but you make it sound like you can only jump around specific objects, which was kinda my point regarding scripted/limited options. Can you jump on a corpse? On top of a rock or furniture? Does jumping serve any purpose in the game outside moving you across a barrier or triggering some scripted gimmick? Because in an action game, I can jump to change my view, my angle of attack, to larp being a crazy hobo, to try and avoid something that can't jump like a zombie or an ooze... in short, I can think of at least one reason to jump that the dev team won't have, and would make my control over the character feel limited, which is a very different feeling than when you put a bucket on someone's face (freedom!) and they don't react. The first feeling makes you feel like you're watching a movie when you want to play a game. The second feeling is more like seeing the zipper on the monster's costume. Ironically, in that regard, turn based games are a much more 'cinematic' experience than action rpgs. Going back to the character creation aspect, it turns the tables. Action RPGs make you feel like you're playing someone else's idea for a character, while a turnbased game is much better at making you feel like the PC(s) is a character you wrote yourself.

As far as baking bread goes, I couldn't care less either way, but the reason direct control adds to a game is because it allows for things that would change your character's control, to change YOUR control. Having a wasting mummy rot afflict your sword arm in a turnbased game is, at most, a modifier on some actions, maybe a greyed out button. In an action game, it changes what you do. It changes your attempt to swing a sword from a professional act of skill and grace to a feeble act of desperation, in a way that stat modifiers or even attack animations cannot convey in a turn based game. To be encumbered in an action game doesn't just reduce the distance you can cover before an enemy fires another arrow at you or your chance of dodging, it affects things like trying to strafe around something, it affects what moving feels like as a player. Whether you move 20 or 120 feet per round feels the same in KotC. There's no extra difficulty in doing what you're able to do, only distinct lines between what you can and cannot. Where changing a stat in a game with less control changes something from impossible or unlikely to possible or certain, the equivalent in a game with direct control changes something from being impossible or difficult to viable or trivial, just as it would for the character. Direct control allows the game to force feelings onto the player, while indirect control will always feel like rolling dice or reading a script.

Edit: I think I'm done. So if anyone was planning on writing a big reply in the hopes of more DISCUSS! and would feel at all annoyed at not getting any,might want to save your effort.