What are good H-Rpg mechanics and essentials?

[Warthief]

Art, Writing and Gameplay are all important but without the first two what is the reason for the gameplay?

What exactly you mean by gameplay because gameplay can be anything and sometimes gameplay can be part of the story like simple example player choices so you can't define gameplay with 1 word, but I will say everything is important in the game.

If a game had an utter 0/10 story that wasn't intrusive to the gameplay, people would progress through it if it had good gameplay.

Very true, I played many games with "bad" story but I don't know maybe the setting of the game or maybe the gameplay is what make me keep playing and enjoying this games, I didn't play many VN games so I can't judge but many of the games I played didn't have a good story, and the same thing can be said for art as well.

 

[nulnil]

If we are talking about a porn game, the art (visuals) will always come first, otherwise no one will want to play that game. Great gameplay cannot overcome bad art. Great art can overcome bad gameplay.

If you have bad gameplay and good art, you should ditch the gameplay.

Story is the glue connecting gameplay to the artwork. People need a reason to go from point A to B. Yes, great gameplay will make that journey fun but without the glue it quickly becomes a dead experience.

I never said no story at all. Even then, it's possible make fun games that don't have any kind of story tied to them.

To put it bluntly, people play video games to play them. There doesn't need to be a 'reason' for the gameplay, because what matters is if the gameplay is fun.

 

[WIRProductions]

What exactly you mean by gameplay because gameplay can be anything and sometimes gameplay can be part of the story like simple example player choices so you can't define gameplay with 1 word, but I will say everything is important in the game.

Very true, I played many games with "bad" story but I don't know maybe the setting of the game or maybe the gameplay is what make me keep playing and enjoying this games, I didn't play many VN games so I can't judge but many of the games I played didn't have a good story, and the same thing can be said for art as well.

Gameplay is whatever you do to play the game. It is going to be different depending on the genre, of course.

If you have bad gameplay and good art, you should ditch the gameplay.


I never said no story at all. Even then, it's possible make fun games that don't have any kind of story tied to them.

To put it bluntly, people play video games to play them. There doesn't need to be a 'reason' for the gameplay, because what matters is if the gameplay is fun.

Yes, people play video games to play them, but there always needs to be a 'reason'. Even something as simple as Super Mario had a reason. Street Fighter had a reason. Mass Effect had a reason. Regardless if the story/lore/aesthetic was as simple as 'Princess is in another castle' to saving the galaxy from evil, the reasons are what separates games that are meh to top tier to people.

 

[nulnil]

Yes, people play video games to play them, but there always needs to be a 'reason'. Even something as simple as Super Mario had a reason. Street Fighter had a reason. Mass Effect had a reason. Regardless if the story/lore/aesthetic was as simple as 'Princess is in another castle' to saving the galaxy from evil, the reasons are what separates games that are meh to top tier to people.

The reason a story isn't so vital to a game's quality is for one reason, replay value. A story loses much of it's value after you've seen it once. A game however, can still be fun after you've played through it. Maybe it's an increase in difficulty, randomized aspects of gameplay, a different playstyle, or the triumph of defeating another player.

Take Minecraft for example. There isn't any "reason" to the gameplay, yet it's one of the most popular games out there. This is because of the amount of freedom in what you can do, and the tons of different ways you can play the game.

 

[WIRProductions]

The reason a story isn't so vital to a game's quality is for one reason, replay value. A story loses much of it's value after you've seen it once. A game however, can still be fun after you've played through it. Maybe it's an increase in difficulty, randomized aspects of gameplay, a different playstyle, or the triumph of defeating another player.

Take Minecraft for example. There isn't any "reason" to the gameplay, yet it's one of the most popular games out there. This is because of the amount of freedom in what you can do, and the tons of different ways you can play the game.

Or a story is the reason people keep coming back. Why do people keep going back to RPGs like Final Fantasy? Story. Minecraft is popular, but then I'll point to sports games needing story too. Why is FIFA or Madden so popular? It is not simply gameplay alone, it is the licensing. Take away Ronaldo and Tom Brady, replace them with Rinaldo and Tim Grady and two generic teams and see no one play it in comparison to the official licensing. That licensing equals a specific aesthetic rich in history that people are invested in. Take away the history then the people's investment disappears with it. I can point to Sega losing the NFL rights to their 2K series. If it was simply gameplay they would have continued on the series with generics but they didn't.

 

[nulnil]

Or a story is the reason people keep coming back. Why do people keep going back to RPGs like Final Fantasy? Story.

Alright then, let's see how gameplay can intrigue someone into playing a game post-completion vs how a story can do that.

Gameplay

• Increased challenge/difficulty
  • Including self-imposed challenges
• Improvement of skill
• Exploration
  • Similarly, creation
• Randomized aspects
• PvP combat

Story

• Content-changing choices (You need multiple playthroughs to see all the content)
• Story analyzation

Another thing is that story in games is often carried by the gameplay, not the other way around. In other forms of media, characters struggle to solve conflict, because it would be boring if they solved everything instantly. Take a composite run of just about any videogame, and the protagonist usually steamrolls every problem in their way. Of course, the actual gameplay isn't like that, because it would be boring. The struggle in videogames lies in the gameplay, and becasue of that, the story will always be on the sidelines.

 

[VEHX]

Necroing this thread a bit, but an important aspect of H-RPG that is often neglected/devs are unable to address is mission creep.

Figure out what is the general story arc and ending that you game wants from the start, it does not have to be detailed.But it must have a definative end.

All to often devs get carried away by demands of fans to incorporate whatever fetishes and new story arc they want, or just get lost in the process completely.

That's how you get completely massive games like the Queen Opala series and Claire's Quest with multiple branching arcs afte half a decade but no closer to a definate end.

What players want just as bad as good art and game mechanics is a game that does not drag on forever.

 

[VEHX]

Also do not be miserly on quality of gameplay mechanics, Queen Opala made sprinting and quest log both as MISSABLE items and needing money to be bought. That just bullshit.

These things are by default necessary. Along side speed up mechanics and skipping scenes options.

 

[neodymiumx]

General lack of depth. Too many games spawn you somewhere and give you 4 cardinal directions to head to, all of them big empty boxes with uninteractable houses and npc's that spew nonsense. Give me abstractly shaped maps that make sense, add tiny lore pieces to your environments, make the house's that your main NPC's live in have optional interactables that make it feel lived in and give you insight into the person living in it.

Do anything except plonk characters down and make them explain their whole existence and everything around them in one 50 page breath.