Nobody's agreed on the "what is an RPG" discussion for the last 40 years, doubt we're going to solve it now.
I'm flashing back to impassioned back and forth on forums when I was in high school about how JRPGs weren't real RPGs and it was a weeb conspiracy slapping the label on them...
Don't try to diminish my argument by calling it nonsense, jackass. You don't agree? Fine, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. I will repeat once more, role-paying games, virtual or not, are about story, characters, and player freedom. I said that combat was ancillary (look it up), and I used an example to illustrate my point. If you can't understand plain fucking English, don't fucking reply.
You used a single game to illustrate a point I already explained. RPG only started being visual novels with a leveling system recently. It has always been about gameplay, even if it is aimed at specific niches.
And I already gave more examples than you, lol. New Vegas is a recent game. More examples then, this time of "modern" consoles. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, multiple Final Fantasy games, multiple Dragon Quests, multiple Tales of, most of the Megaten games, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, Pokémon. Want more? Those are considerably recent games. If I want to completely null your argument I could just point, again, to Darklands, Ultima, Wizardry, Might and Magic, Everquest, Wasteland, Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil and an endless amount of dungeon crawlers I can't remember.
And I already gave more examples than you, lol. New Vegas is a recent game. More examples then, this time of "modern" consoles. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, multiple Final Fantasy games, multiple Dragon Quests, multiple Tales of, most of the Megaten games, Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, Pokémon. Want more? Those are considerably recent games. If I want to completely null your argument I could just point, again, to Darklands, Ultima, Wizardry, Might and Magic, Everquest, Wasteland, Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil and an endless amount of dungeon crawlers I can't remember.
Are those supposed to be examples of games that are RPGs which focus on combat? Because right off the bat, Morrowind is nothing like Skyrim, to say nothing of the Dark Souls titles (which I don’t think anyone classifies as RPGs; they’re usually considered action-adventure games).
Nobody's agreed on the "what is an RPG" discussion for the last 40 years, doubt we're going to solve it now.
I'm flashing back to impassioned back and forth on forums when I was in high school about how JRPGs weren't real RPGs and it was a weeb conspiracy slapping the label on them...
Yeah, it’s kind of fucked now, because too many people equate stats and levelling (which are a mechanic) with RPGs (which are a type of game experience).
Are those supposed to be examples of games that are RPGs which focus on combat? Because right off the bat, Morrowind is nothing like Skyrim, to say nothing of the Dark Souls titles (which I don’t think anyone classifies as RPGs; they’re usually considered action-adventure games).
I don't care what some specific people arbitrarily define as RPG. But let's say we exclude From's games, what about the rest? How is Morrowind being different than Skyrim relevant in ANY WAY? I'm giving examples of games of the genre, not making comparisons between games within a franchise for whatever reason. Address the point. Also, address the old games. I'd like to see how you're going to paint Icewind Dale and Temple of Elemental fucking Evil as anything but RPGs. Lol, lmao.
First off, you mean the point that I explained, not you. But if you want more examples of good RPGs with shit-to-mid combat, off the top of my head:
The first 2 Fallout games
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
The Elder Scrolls games after Daggerfall, maybe including Skyrim depending on your point of view Tyranny Actually has a very deep combat system.
Pillars of Eternity
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Visual novels? Don't make me laugh. They're not 30 hours of crawling through some fucking dungeon if that's what you mean, but they're not bereft of gameplay by any stretch.
So what? Game design has evolved, so everything I say is invalid? Well, in that case, why don't we just all just play Donkey Kong from here to eternity?
It's not uncommon for porn games to at least try with their combat systems.
There's the typicals that people sape on like Alchemy Meister, Sengoku Rance, and recently Flip Witch. But there's also MGQ Paradox, Succubus Affection, half of Libra Hearts roster, Shrift, EMM's games, etc.
Generally though they're aim for not being obtrusive. CoC2 has the encounter rate of Majin Tensei without being even 2% as interesting or deep. You cap out on xp and money becomes meaningless while random encounters will give you literally nothing worthwhile so what in the world is the encounter rate doing being so high?
Honestly I wasn't expecting to live in a reality where I regretted a purchase more than I regretted buying Brink but here we are.
If I'm going to be realistic, whatever E6 ends up being is also going to be overhyped garbage. And it's also going to print money.
Yep. I'm an unabashed Skyrim fan, put over 10,000 hours into it across the two editions, and was megahyped for ES6. Was. Bethesda's unrelenting shitfuckery since and the mess that Starfield clearly is has me in the mindset that ES6 can wait until a) it's discounted and b) there's a clear consensus that it's a decent game, which frankly I doubt will be the case.
Fallout 3 has the most idiotic story I've seen in a post apocalyptic story and I say with confidence that most people don't give a fuck about it. The main town of the game is built around a nuke. I'm sure that can stand even the lightest amount of scrutiny, like the rest of the main quest and the return of dead factions like the BoS and the Enclave.
Morrowind and Oblivion are even worse with their MQ. You don't have a single relevant choice in Morrowind and Oblivion makes everyone immortal on top of that. Where are the choices you're speaking of?
Your arbitrary idea of a RPG is entirely irrelevant. Story started as a second thought and you can't counterpoint that because it's a fact. No, gameplay is not secondary, never was. Why the fuck do you think people play DnD 3.5 even today? More examples: Eberron, Pathfinder, V20, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Dragonlance and so on. Not because of the mechanics i.e GAMEPLAY?
A bit of a reductive outside looking in observation of RPGs as a whole. Might and Magic, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, every single jrpg created by Kawazu, Etrian Odyssey, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, DOS, ToEE, Dungeon Siege, and...
Honestly I could go on. Extensively. I can list far more games where combat was one of the pillars of the game design philosophy than there are games which completely phoned it in intentionally.
Almost all of them try and tried hard.
I'll also state that hyperfocusing on that single element of gameplay filters a substantial amount of the nuance involved in designing systems for nearly every game that's going to be discussed.
No it doesn't. Various Daylife has terrible Combat. Dragon Age: Inquisition has mediocre combat. Fallout New Vegas had decently good combat that used it's RPG elements to influence combat performance.
And it wasn't ancillary to the folks at Obsidian making the games you're listing. Fallout New Vegas for example had Larry Liberty going on back when trying to hype the game up specifically on the combat.
Reviewers of the time loved and praised the combat to the point that they were gushing over guns being slightly different.
Josh Sawyer of the same game and greater fame has an incredibly large well thought out breakdown in the importance of balance in regards to the importance of gameplay (specifically balance).
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Which also includes the Pillars of Eternity you're unreasonably listing as an example as a game with terrible combat.
Chris Avellone, another of the great industry gave his answer on what he thought was the most important thing in an RPG
That's a paddling. The combat in Arcanum isn't the best, well balanced, well polished, or even particularly good when weighed against it's peers but that's not for lack of trying and the mechanics going into the world were, at least on a conceptual level, well thought out. They didn't toss shit to the wind. They tried. Mistakes were made sure.
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(maybe I should start quoting relevant parts of interviews)
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HALF of this interview for the game at the time by multiple people in charge is about the gameplay mechanics and their attention to detail in the combat systems involved.
Combat wasn't ancillary to these people.
One of the lessons Chris stated he learned from the phenomenal Planescape Torment was specifically addressed towards the pacing and including more gameplay
Yep. I don't know if many people who played it had the same immersion experience you did - a number of people who played could not get past the Mortuary because it was so heavy on dialogue and not much to DO, gameplay-wise. I think it gets easier when it gets out to the Hive and suddenly the RPG elements become more open - there's a ton of little quests you can do fast and quick in any order to get more numbers. But even then, we had to stage some fights in there to break it up along with some mini-dungeons - and since then (Targos in Icewind Dale 2), I've tried to include a lot more combat at the beginning to break up the talking.
TL;DR
Even in the games where the story far outstrips the combat, the gameplay was intended to be just as important and fleshed out as the rest of the game.
Bit of a winded response and viciously off topic so I won't be joining this ring again.
Fallout 3 has the most idiotic story I've seen in a post apocalyptic story and I say with confidence that most people don't give a fuck about it. The main town of the game is built around a nuke. I'm sure that can stand even the lightest amount of scrutiny, like the rest of the main quest and the return of dead factions like the BoS and the Enclave.
Morrowind and Oblivion are even worse with their MQ. You don't have a single relevant choice in Morrowind and Oblivion makes everyone immortal on top of that. Where are the choices you're speaking of?
I'm not shifting the goalposts; you're imagining goalposts that aren't there. I said that they were examples of good RPGs, not that they were perfect RPGs. Yeah, they have flaws, big ones. You wanted more examples because oNe'S noT EnOugh, so I gave you more. I didn't grow up listening to Motley Crue 8-tracks, so I don't have your nostalgia for old 8-bit tat that needs to left in 1987 where it belongs.
I don't want to say this, really, because usually it's a cop out, but this is my opinion. I think you're brought out all of these guys who outrank me because you think I'm trying to speak some sort of gospel truth or whatever. I'm not. This is my opinion. These are the ideas that I've come away with from my own experience playing video games. I feel very strongly about my opinions, which is why I'm defending them, but whatever you're trying to accomplish by posting all of this stuff, it's not going to happen.
What a pathetic, pedantic commentary. I meant combat. What the fuck would I be referring to, if not combat? Speech checks? Fuck me.
You can't address a SINGLE point I made. Not one. Old bad, that's what you're saying.
I'm not giving opinions, by the way, I'm making FACTS clearer. Combat has been the most important aspect of virtual RPGs since the inception of the genre. Story was secondary. That's a fact. You're flat out wrong to say combat is not as important as fucking story. The entirety of dungeon crawlers proves my point.
You ignored everything I wrote, but I'm going to hammer the tabletop part again. People choose to play old editions because they enjoy their combat more, and I'm not talking about a handful of players. In the same way, if the combat is bad, a lot of people stay away, an example being Vampire, the masquerade OR requiem. Explain that to me, seeing how combat is such a minor nuisance.
Edit: actually, don't. I'm tired of this nonsense already and I don't want the jannies breathing down my neck.
I can't handle playing Skyrim without mods. I really cannot. But I love this broken junk with requiem. I like having a considerable amount of mods, but requiem is my bread and butter, and the only way for me to enjoy Skyrim properly.
Combat is, at least, equal to the freedom tabletop RPGs gives. That's why so many people still play DnD 3.5 and many others avoid very good settings like what World of Darkness provides. If combat was that minor, people would be less hesitant to play games with very good settings but bad combat. No one would gravitate so strongly towards old editions and the hate for Dnd 5e and V5 wouldn't be so widespread.
Well, let's stop here before the jannies come out of the woods.
What a pathetic, pedantic commentary. I meant combat. What the fuck would I be referring to, if not combat? Speech checks? Fuck me.
You can't address a SINGLE point I made. Not one. Old bad, that's what you're saying.
I'm not giving opinions, by the way, I'm making FACTS clearer. Combat has been the most important aspect of virtual RPGs since the inception of the genre. Story was secondary. That's a fact. You're flat out wrong to say combat is not as important as fucking story. The entirety of dungeon crawlers proves my point.
You ignored everything I wrote, but I'm going to hammer the tabletop part again. People choose to play old editions because they enjoy their combat more, and I'm not talking about a handful of players. In the same way, if the combat is bad, a lot of people stay away, an example being Vampire, the masquerade OR requiem. Explain that to me, seeing how combat is such a minor nuisance.
I love to bash on Skyrim as well, but, having played a couple hundred hours of it, I have to recognize it does two things very well: it’s a good sandbox environment (the content’s shit, but there’s a lot of it, and you can go through it however you want), and the modding community is second to none.
>Oi, it's been a while, let me check CoC2 Thread to see what sort of stuff Savin and Co got up this time to learn what to do and not do when designing and writing a game
>Bethesda game slander
Honestly, I am probably going to be facepalmed for saying this, but I like Bethesda games. They are jank, kinda bland, kinda iffy in most ways, and all of their elements actually kinda sucked when looked under. Then I spend like, hours playing them regardless and then even more time modding them out. According to the internet, I have brain damage and is a Bethesda soyboy, but if anything, I don't really regret my time spent on them, so there is that. To be honest, Bethesda is the funniest videogame company in the industry in my opinion, but regardless.
That being said, who the heck said that combat never mattered for RPG? As Gabe himself said - a good game needs to react to you. If you shot a wall and it doesn't leave a bullet hole - the game ignores you, it breaks your ego, your immersion. Combat is HOW character building interacts with a world of the game. It's why it's really hard to sell mainstream people on games that don't focus on it. Skyrim combat is terrible, I spend like 30 hours modding it out to make it decent, but I still enjoyed the game.
I'm going to hammer the tabletop part again. People choose to play old editions because they enjoy their combat more, and I'm not talking about a handful of players. In the same way, if the combat is bad, a lot of people stay away, an example being Vampire, the masquerade OR requiem. Explain that to me, seeing how combat is such a minor nuisance.
The main reason most people play tabletop RPGs, I think, is for the narrative experience. With this in mind, it’s obvious that people would gravitate towards those games which have the better combat systems, because the narrative aspect is handled mostly by the people around the table, not the game itself.
>Oi, it's been a while, let me check CoC2 Thread to see what sort of stuff Savin and Co got up this time to learn what to do and not do when designing and writing a game
>Bethesda game slander
Honestly, I am probably going to be facepalmed for saying this, but I like Bethesda games.
Listen i also love the doom series and fallout but my god has bethesda made anyones life harder when trying to even THINK of defending her.Like my god how the fuck does that shit space game get most innovative game of the year?Becuase its in space and it has boring overused tech that make sci-fi sounds and make the coomsumers brain feel better about the 60 bucks he spend?I dont get it man.Bethesda for me is doom and some fallout games,thats all.
