RPGs where good loot takes exploration/risk?

[Selenti]

It's difficult to think of a game that doesn't limit the ability of the player character to use a great weapon even when the game makes it possible for him to find one early in the game.

Perhaps you should expand your experience beyond Gothic. Other than it and DAO, RPGs either lack equipment stat requirements altogether, or have them in perfectly sensible average human range easily obtainable straight out of character generator.

I already mentioned Fallout and Fallout 2. Are there other such games? I don't think so.

I guess I didn't make myself entirely clear in that one sentence that you quoted. It's probably why I elaborated later.

Morrowind may have a few awesome killer items you can find whenever you find them, but the main loot-system gives out the same randomized leveled crap that Oblivion and every other RPG does, unless they have very limiting stat requirements like the Gothic games. Two Worlds feels like it has a good loot system, but only because the character levels up so fast it's difficult to keep up with the loot unless you spend a lot of time in the cities and have a lot of gold. It's much like Diablo but without a similar level of loot randomization, which in Diablo doesn't mean much anyway, since, like Two Worlds, it has heavy stat requirements for using equipment.

What RPGs need is loot, a whole system of loot, that doesn't revolve around the player character or party, at all. It's been done, so I shouldn't have to explain how it works, or even what its huge advantages are in terms of immersion and feeling of being rewarded for your choices. It works by constructing a believable world, including details such as elite guards actually having lootable elite equipment. AFTER you've constructed the world, including placed every single piece of equipment in the game, you throw the player character in the game world.

How far should you go, though?

I mean, if you do as above literally, then a single badass NPC would drop a magical armor, magical amulet, magical rings, et cetera, every slot in a 5-enemy encounter where every enemy is well-geared would be a ridiculous amount of gear bloat.

If you say no, it should just be one or two pieces, then we're back to designer discretion, which just strikes me as a problem of the designers being bad (or ignoring that part of design), not a system problem.

 

[ElectricOtter]

Try Exile III. Tons of magic items and dungeons. Sometimes there are some really rewarding secrets, providing you know where to look.

 

[Yggdrasil]

How far should you go?
Well I think that Ultima VII already was a bad example - you literally could get a full set of magical armor and the best weapons early in the game, if you knew exactly where to look in.
That's not exactly what the OP meant - you didn't have to fight extremely hard enemies, you just had to know the right coordinates - still, finding the items by using only clues from them game itself was hard and could be a very rewarding experience.
In practice the system did not work too well already in that time - it clearly put those who had read a walkthrough in a clear advantage - and would have worked terribly in thins Internet age. I can see why modern game designers are not using this approach anymore.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Well, I don't find this pretty.
Not even to mention the Moon-like interior landscape that covered some 90% of the island.

 

[Mangoose]

I mean, if you do as above literally, then a single badass NPC would drop a magical armor, magical amulet, magical rings, et cetera, every slot in a 5-enemy encounter where every enemy is well-geared would be a ridiculous amount of gear bloat.

Sounds good to me. If an NPC is wearing an item, they should drop it when they die, at least in a sandbox game that is trying to provide realism, immersiveness, and just in general world cohesion.

 

[Zomg]

I thought of an angle for this thread.

So you know sometimes you feel like you're exploring in a game, and sometimes you just feel like you're slogging through shit to exhaust the xp/loot mines and you hate it but you do it anyway because it's the strategically sound thing to do. I've gotten both feelings from the same game before, even.

What distinguishes good exploration from that kind of shitsploration? Are there like some guaranteed "pure shitsploration" triggers that instantly make it bad?

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think it's mostly a matter of what you're anticipating. If you expect nothing interesting to happen while you mow down orcs for the next hour, it's going to be dull right up until something happens (Or doesn't.) If you honestly expect something cool to happen while you're mowing down orcs for an hour, whther it's a rare item drop, unexpected enemy, cool bit of lore, whatever, then it won't feel like a slog.

The trouble is maintaining that level of anticipation is difficult. Diablo rains rare loot at you; but it's usually not something you can use even if it is strong, so the anticipation can either be on the hopeful side "Maybe THIS time it'll be an awesome two handed axe instead of those stupid bows and daggers. " Or it can go the other route: "Fuck, nothing good ever drops. Why do I even identify all these shit rares. Guess I have to mow down another 500 skeletons before I can take on the boss and hope HE drops something."

You can apply the same overall scenario to other aspects, like engaging encounters (Mob of trash vs a cool unique enemy with interesting skills) character development (500 points all in vitality vs can't wait till I can get skill G to make my awesome skill AEFG combo going!)

Morrowind did pretty well for making exploration interesting. Lots of places had cool shit worth stealing. I recall the first dungeon I ever went into in Morrowind had an artifact ring that was worth 5000 coins. My character was dressed in fucking rags and had a magic ring worth a small castle. Fucking awesome feeling. Later I ran into a cave that had some freaky cultists in it, snuck around a bit, was crippled to the point I could barely move by some demon thing with a strength draining spell, and had to drop most of my junk so I could run out of the cave without trying to fight anything else. On my way out I found a pile of gems and a cool ebony helm that was part of some quest. Fucking awesome feeling again, I had to leap over a fucking lava moat with wizards flinging shit at me as I ran to the exit.

Contrast: I cleared a dungeon in diablo 2, then reloaded so I could clear it again, and repeated this about 15 times trying to get some decent items before quitting in disgust. Feels like work.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I thought of an angle for this thread.

So you know sometimes you feel like you're exploring in a game, and sometimes you just feel like you're slogging through shit to exhaust the xp/loot mines and you hate it but you do it anyway because it's the strategically sound thing to do. I've gotten both feelings from the same game before, even.

What distinguishes good exploration from that kind of shitsploration? Are there like some guaranteed "pure shitsploration" triggers that instantly make it bad?

I'll give a few suggestions:
(a) randomly generated land - no need to explore if it's all a random generator. Exploration is only interesting if there's design to it, and interesting stuff to find.
(b) level-scaling and loot-scaling - ruins the point of exploring if you're just going to get what you'd have by sticking to the path/
(c) (controversial one) too big a world. That might be just me. But I'm such an obsessive compulsive must-explore-every-inch player that I end up boring myself out of the game when playing an elder scrolls type game. Doens't mean I don't like large explorable worlds - BG2 comes to mind - but I prefer something to be detailed and intricate rather than big and dull. FO3 is a prime offender - lots of exploration, but the ratio of exploration time required per interesting quest found is minimal. I guess I prefer something that is of a manageable size, but requires puzzles and discovery of hidden doors/levers etc in order to find everything. The Gothics and Risen did it perfectly, in my opinion.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I kind of like the feeling of seeing something interesting early in a game but being unable due to skill level to get it. So you right it down in your head "When I'm stronger (or have needed spells, etc.), I'm going to come back here and get that".

 

[SCO]

Arx Fatalis. Especially there is a sequence in which 3 Liches gangrape you.

 

[Selenti]

I mean, if you do as above literally, then a single badass NPC would drop a magical armor, magical amulet, magical rings, et cetera, every slot in a 5-enemy encounter where every enemy is well-geared would be a ridiculous amount of gear bloat.

Sounds good to me. If an NPC is wearing an item, they should drop it when they die, at least in a sandbox game that is trying to provide realism, immersiveness, and just in general world cohesion.

My concern with that as an armchair designer is not that it gives the player that loot for *wearing*, but if they don't want it, it just adds a ton of easy money into the game, provided they can sell it and it's worth a lot (which both make sense).

 

[Mangoose]

I mean, if you do as above literally, then a single badass NPC would drop a magical armor, magical amulet, magical rings, et cetera, every slot in a 5-enemy encounter where every enemy is well-geared would be a ridiculous amount of gear bloat.

Sounds good to me. If an NPC is wearing an item, they should drop it when they die, at least in a sandbox game that is trying to provide realism, immersiveness, and just in general world cohesion.

My concern with that as an armchair designer is not that it gives the player that loot for *wearing*, but if they don't want it, it just adds a ton of easy money into the game, provided they can sell it and it's worth a lot (which both make sense).

Well obviously when you go that route (or any route) you'd have to balance the design choice with other choices. So perhaps a more "realistic" weight limit.

 

[Selenti]

I mean, if you do as above literally, then a single badass NPC would drop a magical armor, magical amulet, magical rings, et cetera, every slot in a 5-enemy encounter where every enemy is well-geared would be a ridiculous amount of gear bloat.

Sounds good to me. If an NPC is wearing an item, they should drop it when they die, at least in a sandbox game that is trying to provide realism, immersiveness, and just in general world cohesion.

My concern with that as an armchair designer is not that it gives the player that loot for *wearing*, but if they don't want it, it just adds a ton of easy money into the game, provided they can sell it and it's worth a lot (which both make sense).

Well obviously when you go that route (or any route) you'd have to balance the design choice with other choices. So perhaps a more "realistic" weight limit.

To me, that creates two possible results:

a) the person is just so annoyed they only grab one or two things, never come back

b) the person keeps coming back to get it all, and we're back at square one. The only solution I see there is to make the items just not worth much (which I think makes the world less compelling) or merchants just don't have enough money to buy much (which is just plain annoying, again).

One possibility that occurs to me is to somehow make the situation urgent, where they can't come back again (you loot, and then the place is burning down or whatever, but that's a scripted kind of thing that can't happen often).

Dunno, a lot of these problems seem to be "lesser of two evils".

 

[JarlFrank]

Also, yes, outdoor is pretty dull, because of the lack of vegetation, but there is a big fucking volkano just in the middle of the island, what did you expect?

You all fail at reading Nomask's post correctly.
He meant that exploring the outdoor areas was dull not because of landscape design but because of outdoor encounter design.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

vaatan ja pilt on nii selge sest prillid on ees.- translation I look and the picture is so clear because I'm wearing glasses. Is the op a fucking 10 year old or has he only played oblivibong and fancies himself a rpg gamer or smthing, even it's predecessor the Morrowindows had non lvl scaling loot in many places, not to mention most of the older games. Speaking of DA:O a friend of mine, a literature student was pretty exited about the game but even he didn't manage to get past about 25% of this pos before he got bored of the game, before that he was like oooh ooh it's the bestestststst geme evar, "I mean I got bored of FO3 at about 15% already I'm waay past this point and the game is still sweet"(which is about the point that he got pissed at fo3). Well about quarter of the way in he finally admitted to me that it he didn't want to play the shit anymore. Of course seeing is beliving so I pirated the damn thing myself but didn't get far.Even the not so much liked BG2 gave out good loot for doing shit you didn't have to but todays rpg's might as well be progress quest for all it's worth.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

b) the person keeps coming back to get it all, and we're back at square one. The only solution I see there is to make the items just not worth much (which I think makes the world less compelling) or merchants just don't have enough money to buy much (which is just plain annoying, again).

Games shouldn't cater to OCD players who can't let got of that 25 gold chestplate. Just make it so it's preferable to hold on to the current favorite equipment (and perhaps improve it. Customization?) instead of hauling one full suit for each elemental resistance.

Carrying extra shit shouldn't be that much of a priority if the player has means of gaining money other than selling vendor junk. Quests with money for reward, for example.

You'd still find good things on the wild, which would keep exploration interesting and would get rid of shops selling enchanted swords (which lessens their importance and makes the gameworld seem like a magic wal-mart).

 

[nomask7]

I mean, if you do as above literally, then a single badass NPC would drop a magical armor, magical amulet, magical rings, et cetera, every slot in a 5-enemy encounter where every enemy is well-geared would be a ridiculous amount of gear bloat.

Sounds good to me. If an NPC is wearing an item, they should drop it when they die, at least in a sandbox game that is trying to provide realism, immersiveness, and just in general world cohesion.

My concern with that as an armchair designer is not that it gives the player that loot for *wearing*, but if they don't want it, it just adds a ton of easy money into the game, provided they can sell it and it's worth a lot (which both make sense).

Well obviously when you go that route (or any route) you'd have to balance the design choice with other choices. So perhaps a more "realistic" weight limit.

To me, that creates two possible results:

a) the person is just so annoyed they only grab one or two things, never come back

b) the person keeps coming back to get it all, and we're back at square one. The only solution I see there is to make the items just not worth much (which I think makes the world less compelling) or merchants just don't have enough money to buy much (which is just plain annoying, again).

One possibility that occurs to me is to somehow make the situation urgent, where they can't come back again (you loot, and then the place is burning down or whatever, but that's a scripted kind of thing that can't happen often).

Dunno, a lot of these problems seem to be "lesser of two evils".

Or you could have a more realistic economy. Either expensive items are rare and you'd have to be a rare badass to have a full set, or they're not rare in which case they also wouldn't be expensive. I'm also not taking "that would be annoying" as an argument against anything when it's coming from a generation of gamers who think playing an RPG means navigating your party of half-naked faggots into the next cut-scene by following the needle of a magical compass.

P.S. The Morrowind towns and cities were good to excellent. I meant the wilderness. It's dull.

 

[Selenti]

b) the person keeps coming back to get it all, and we're back at square one. The only solution I see there is to make the items just not worth much (which I think makes the world less compelling) or merchants just don't have enough money to buy much (which is just plain annoying, again).

Games shouldn't cater to OCD players who can't let got of that 25 gold chestplate. Just make it so it's preferable to hold on to the current favorite equipment (and perhaps improve it. Customization?) instead of hauling one full suit for each elemental resistance.

Carrying extra shit shouldn't be that much of a priority if the player has means of gaining money other than selling vendor junk. Quests with money for reward, for example.

You'd still find good things on the wild, which would keep exploration interesting and would get rid of shops selling enchanted swords (which lessens their importance and makes the gameworld seem like a magic wal-mart).

What I'm talking about is *really* good equipment, though, and that's where this kind of system breaks down. When you've got, say, a full party of well-geared enemies where they all have good, magical gear which is worth thousands of gold per slot, it's just ridiculous.

I dunno, maybe the whole idea of magical equipment being super expensive is what's wrong. (Although I do think really good equipment SHOULD be expensive, I love the idea of ordinary, unenchanted steel plate being worth more than a small house, because it's rare and difficult to make in, say, the Middle Ages).

 

[Zomg]

It takes so much more work to make hauling shit back to sell strategically unsound (like implementing time and gameworld evolution) that 99 games out of 100 should just make vendors not buy shit, or not have vendors period.

Edit - It's not like it even matters very much. Space Rangers 2 managed the loot economy about as well as it can possibly be done and SR2 is still just a mediocre game. Who cares, just be gamey and make a Potemkin economy.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well, then the problem lies with throwing human parties decked out with great gear at the party. It makes the supposedly good gear banal. Why would I care about exploring to find good stuff if I can just murder some mobs?

One encounter with Enclave troops in FO2 nets me like 3 plasma rifles. Eventually, I was grinding on the supposedly scary enclave guys, and leaving guns worth $10.000 behind. Wouldn't happen if they were harder to find.

 

[Zomg]

I added an edit that got pagesniped away -

Edit - It's not like it even matters very much. Space Rangers 2 managed the loot economy about as well as it can possibly be done and SR2 is still just a mediocre game. Who cares, just be gamey and make a Potemkin economy, no selling anything, make loaded enemies not drop all their stuff, etc.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Well, then the problem lies with throwing human parties decked out with great gear at the party. It makes the supposedly good gear banal. Why would I care about exploring to find good stuff if I can just murder some mobs?

One encounter with Enclave troops in FO2 nets me like 3 plasma rifles. Eventually, I was grinding on the supposedly scary enclave guys, and leaving guns worth $10.000 behind. Wouldn't happen if they were harder to find.

The best gear in the game shouldn't be able to be found on random.battle fodder.

 

[Zomg]

Unless you're playing Medieval Chosenfuck III why not, there is no unique one of a kind rifle I'd want if you airdropped me into a warzone

 

[Selenti]

Unless you're playing Medieval Chosenfuck III why not, there is no unique one of a kind rifle I'd want if you airdropped me into a warzone

I like this, the idea that there are "best in slot" items for specific tasks, but not for *everything*. Especially the way VD did it (or so I hear) in AoD, where every weapon type has something to offer.

But damn if getting a combat system to that point doesn't sound like a lot of work.

 

[Selenti]

Well, then the problem lies with throwing human parties decked out with great gear at the party. It makes the supposedly good gear banal. Why would I care about exploring to find good stuff if I can just murder some mobs?

One encounter with Enclave troops in FO2 nets me like 3 plasma rifles. Eventually, I was grinding on the supposedly scary enclave guys, and leaving guns worth $10.000 behind. Wouldn't happen if they were harder to find.

I'm not suggesting that these items are on a pack of bandits in Bumfuck, Nowhere. I'm talking about a point where the PC IS a rare badass, and hence goes to places with other rare badasses, and has it out with them. If the rare badasses that are enemies drop everything they "wear", then you have gear bloat. If they don't, well... that's the usual way of doing it, and we have people here calling that unrealistic and not immersive. There has to be a middleground somewhere.