I had to dig around for the original source there, but it leaves out a lot of context from the video interview where he said this.
He wasn't saying that all RPG's must have xp and leveling system or that games with an xp and leveling system are automatically RPG's. What he was saying is that over the years, a lot of features and mechanics from different traditional game genres have sort of "bled in" to each other.
If anything, he was saying that the definition for a genre, such as an RPG, can sometimes vary a bit, and that its definition can be somewhat loose. Which is true, I've had debates with people who've had differing definitions.
And this was an opening response to a question that was posed asking "When it comes to the RPG genre, have players' expectations been changing?"
Not that I'm offering any defense for a lot of the idiotic design decisions he and his company have made.
I mean...he isn't wrong. That's how it's been for decades if you do an honest appraisal.
You can argue that it shouldn't be what defines it, but it's what has defined it. Mostly because it all takes its roots from D&D and its leveling system, right down to the stats that are used and critical hits. There was initially a very strong coupling between system mechanics and narrative archetype(for lack of a better term) for literal decades. It's come apart in more recent years, but it was there and it determined how the terminology got used.
RPGs = stats and level ups.
Diablo arguably started us on the path to decoupling the two as it focused more heavily on the mechanics and the narrative was largely secondary, but it was thematically similar enough to what had come before(high fantasy) that it wasn't obvious at the time, only enough to spawn a new term: ARPG.
My issue is that so few devs have even tried to come up with something besides basic level and grinding systems.
You don't NEED 'stats' in a RPG it is just what they've all decided is the norm based ib past success and nobody wants to do anything different because they are afraid of failure.
That's why indie games that don't have that fear are the only ones who try to do things different. The big studios are so risk averse that they will repeat what works until it stops making money.
I thought the concept of Sifu forcing you to age as you fail was super cool. Likewise Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy allowing you to throw your character into the meat grinder just to see what works with no punishment.
Granted those aren't RPGs but the point is that right now nobody WANTS to change the formula. Not at the Bethesda level.
Personally, I'd rather devs focus on what works and then make something good with that as a baseline, than be trying to constantly "experiment" and 2/3 the games they make end up terrible.
Like, FFX had a great combat system, X-2 refined it. Then it was never used again. FF13 had a great combat system (once you got to actually use it), 13-2 refined it. 13-3 discarded it (and also "stats and leveling") and it was offensively bad and it was also never used again. They are constantly experimenting and changing the game up, but nobody likes more than a handful of the Final Fantasy games because of it.
I'd rather each company focus on what works for them, than try to have every company try to do everything. If I want low brain power open world slop, I can count on Ubisoft for it and I don't think that's a problem. Bethesda is there if I want to play Oblivion but in the Apocalypse or in Space, and that would be fine if they were functional. But they aren't, which is the big issue.
The FF series seems like an outlier, they just throw shit at the wall since the series has so much built in lore and rabid fanbase that they can't do much else. It is like pokemon they will ride that cash cow into the ground and try to 'adapt' to modern players with various tweaks to the same formula.
I think I played the ones you mentioned but they all blend together, I am a huge fan of the original FF7 and the earlier ones so I always preferred it turn based. Not sure if it is more popular now that it is more hack and slash.
I'd rather each company focus on what works for them, than try to have every company try to do everything.
That'd be awesome in theory but in practice they always seem to want to go 'bigger' in the sequels which means adding more mechanics and often changing the setting. In a way it makes sense since they want to improve on their original product but it is a fine line.
I think that is why Bethesda is finding such a problem with this release, they tried to do too much and forgot what made their games addictive in the first place. Probably because it is easier to monetize this way.
That'd be awesome in theory but in practice they always seem to want to go 'bigger' in the sequels which means adding more mechanics and often changing the setting.
Which is fine, if they are keeping it to what works. If they don't need to reinvent the wheel every single time, then the chances of the "bigger" being good is a lot higher (though not always, as shown by Tears of the Kingdom earlier this year).
Bethesda's problem isn't losing sight of what made their games good. Its that people are finally looking at them in real time instead of years later in hindsight with a bunch of DLCs, patches and bug fixing mods in place. Like, everything I hear wrong about Starfield is how I felt about Skyrim and Fallout 3/4 (sans some of the woker elements) on release too.
Repeating my rant on a previous topic, but it really annoys me how pointless psuedo-RPG combat mechanics crept into every other genre. It ends up "gamifying" the experience, when in tabletop and old CRPGs all these stat and point systems are meant to be proxies for simulating and simplifying real scenarios and force everyone to follow the same rules - not be the end goals of gameplay itself. I appreciate the tradition in actual RPGs but then they add it to shit like The Division - which would work better as a straight FPS/tactical-shooter - or Starfield, which has piss poor combat mechanics and AI that's only made worse when you have to deal with hit points and armor classes. What you end up is a grindfest where the only goal is to lower the little health bars above all the bullet sponges in the room. In my opinion this is blending the worst aspect of genres, but people seem to like it for some reason. I never understood the point. I love the idea of being in a "space simulator" and hauling goods between planets or being a pirate and raiding freighters or whatever. Starfield could be a dream game. Instead what I see from people streaming it is they jump into an area and say "Oh that's a level 16 mook. I'm a level 12 Space Paladin so I'd better steer clear of this sector and only shoot the level 11 Space Orks Gang until I level up." It's so shallow and boring. I want to feel like I'm actually in a fantasy scenario, not manipulating points on a character sheet to beat the points of random enemy mobs.
There are hybrid systems I do enjoy. Deus Ex and immersive sims typically have complex mechanics that don't get in your way. Most modern games don't work for me though. Starfield is only the most egregious example because outside of those pointless psuedo-RPG mechanics its combat offers little else.
Totally agree. Not everything needs any of these RPG elements. Especially character levels. Character levels aren't all that fun. That's one of the things I liked about Breath of the Wild, nothing had a level, you could decide to deal with an enemy or area if you wanted to in the way you wanted to and not be held back by a magic number. You see an enemy that appears overwhelming, you do like you would in real life, freak out and run away. Maybe it was easy, who knows, you have to judge for yourself and not just look at a number.
I do like numbers in some cases though, but that would be more something like KOTOR, where the entire game is based on dice rolls and skill levels.
Agreed. This was one of the most eye opening lessons I learned when I was first getting into game development and design theory. An experienced friend of mine touched on same basic premise you mention.
I forget how he phrased it exactly, but the general idea as I took it is that mechanics and systems with that kind of abstraction are best utilized in cases where you cannot provide a workable apparatus for the player to simulate it through pure and direct input and actions.
IE, in games we've used numerical values for decades to represent how alive or close to death the player and NPC's are, and even before that tabletop RPG's did the same. And in a fair majority of cases, these values aren't even hidden under the hood. Nor are damage values. We do this because there are limits to how far we can simulate physical trauma to the human body in a live action game. Even if a game were to try to seriously go in-depth to simulate it, it's still going to have to put it into a calculable framework that is distinctly artificial in nature.
The same thing goes for how a lot of melee systems have employed different kinds of attacks, with different damage values. Trying to implement the strength of swings power based on direct player input is often not very practical. Granted, a few games have been able to attempt this with varying degrees of success (as well as calculations based on contact/impact point and velocity of the swing), but it's still an ideal example for how game developers often have to come up with different ways to simulate basic things, while taking player input into account.
I'm still not sure if I'll actually use stats or perks at all in the game I'm planning though. I actually was trying to go out of my way to conceive of ways to implement mechanics for things like repairing a power generator, without just resorting to "hit the x key to fix the thing". Instead I wanted to lay out the general concept for what would likely make such a thing "tick", and what kinds of sub-components might need fixing, different methods that could be employed to fix things, etc etc. Truth be told though, the further down such a rabbit hole you go, the faster you realize just how unfun and tedious such things would likely get in an actual game.
Sort of a sidebar to what you’re talking about here: I think the action RPG genre is actually obsolete. I tried playing some of the more popular entries over the last few years, and I ended up bored to tears every time. This confused me because I was a huge Diablo 2 junky back in the day. Why wasn’t I having fun in these very similar games? At some point I realized what the problem was: Dark Souls exists. I can play a third person action RPG with actual skill-based gameplay. Mindlessly clicking on enemies in fights that are essentially predetermined by our relative stat values just didn’t cut it anymore. Not when I can perform most of the “abstracted actions” of the action RPG manually.
I've experienced the same issues in a few games in recent years, and especially with ARPG's. It's also the same reason I could never really get into most MMORPG's. I need to feel like I'm actually interacting with the game's world and environment, with immediate and responsive feedback based on my movement and actions.
Another thing that's always bugged me is the frequent dependency on NPC level-numbers as a metric for measuring enemy or area difficulty. I want the reason an enemy is a legitimate and dangerous threat to be because it's actually smarter, faster, more accurate, and/or better armed. Or of course because they're more numerous. Where the combat actually has punch and substance to it, and every so often you'll experience fights that are distinct or unique in some way, specifically because of how the flow of the fight can unfold.
And there's absolutely ways to implement a feeling of an ever increasing challenge in a game without depending on level systems. Just look at STALKER as a perfect example. You don't have a bunch of idiotic bullet sponges at later stages to bore you to tears. You have mutants with psychokinetic abilities who will straight up yank your gun out of your hands and bash you over the head with it. Earlier game mutated beasts who can still manage to tear you up if you slip up at the worst moment. And the classic "cheeki breeki" bandit who might just manage to land a lucky shotgun blast to your face as you turn a corner.
Sounds like you want to play a functional Star Citizen. I keep debating hopping into the alpha for $50 or whatever, but then realize that a buggy 30FPS would drive me crazy, I have a Steam backlog that will take 1,000 hours to clear with a few games I want to buy, plenty of games I beat years ago I kind of want to replay, and a job and life outside of video games.
Yes, naturally I bought SC years ago and here we are still waiting for them to make it work and move out of alpha. Some areas were even decently playable on my monster rig at the time but did have random crashes and NPCs standing on chairs, and I'm not going to waste any time on my character when it will just get wiped in the future anyway.
I should also make clear that I can have fun with hardcore RPGs and min-maxing or experimenting with DEX vs INT builds or whatever - when that's the game's style and how it was designed and advertised. (like BG3 is meant to feel like a tabletop session with dice rolls) It's when they tack on half-assed systems to other styles of games that you get the worst of both worlds and think "I have a gun, why can't I just shoot the guy point blank?"
If you care so much about XP and leveling, at least incorporate it better!
So it sounds like he's addicted to the XP-grind. I get that, I've been there. The problem is when you start to think every game needs a player-progression mechanic like that, and when you can't imagine any different ones.
This dude subverted his supposed magnum opus because he became dependent on the dopamine release of 'numbers go up' and mining and crafting and shit. It became a faded, passionless patchwork of rote addiction and half-formed ideas. That's sad.
a turned based combat game like that (system that isn't popular)
Despite what Twitter people say, the '4 niggas in a line' system is still doing fine. For every RPG that tries something new and its forgettable, another comes out with Turn Based and does fine. Persona 5 and its remake were barely a few years ago and were in a much more niche position and did gangbusters.
BG3 is a fine game, but let's not pretend its some absurdly unique and groundbreaking thing.
This isn't about being unique or ground breaking, this is about focusing on a right stuff.
Right, I'm sure releasing an entire panel about how the gay vampire can have sex with a bear is "focusing on the right stuff." That certainly wouldn't be called "woke slop" and dismissed in any other game that people weren't ready to suck off because they like it.
I'm not trying to disparage your baby. I'm trying to say that claiming "Turn Based Combat" is some unpopular system just to prop its success up is ludicrous. It can stand on its own merits without such ridiculous claims.
I had to dig around for the original source there, but it leaves out a lot of context from the video interview where he said this.
He wasn't saying that all RPG's must have xp and leveling system or that games with an xp and leveling system are automatically RPG's. What he was saying is that over the years, a lot of features and mechanics from different traditional game genres have sort of "bled in" to each other.
If anything, he was saying that the definition for a genre, such as an RPG, can sometimes vary a bit, and that its definition can be somewhat loose. Which is true, I've had debates with people who've had differing definitions.
And this was an opening response to a question that was posed asking "When it comes to the RPG genre, have players' expectations been changing?"
Not that I'm offering any defense for a lot of the idiotic design decisions he and his company have made.
I'm sure it did, and yet the primary distinction of a role-playing game remains the storytelling. Many games tell a story
I mean...he isn't wrong. That's how it's been for decades if you do an honest appraisal.
You can argue that it shouldn't be what defines it, but it's what has defined it. Mostly because it all takes its roots from D&D and its leveling system, right down to the stats that are used and critical hits. There was initially a very strong coupling between system mechanics and narrative archetype(for lack of a better term) for literal decades. It's come apart in more recent years, but it was there and it determined how the terminology got used.
RPGs = stats and level ups.
Diablo arguably started us on the path to decoupling the two as it focused more heavily on the mechanics and the narrative was largely secondary, but it was thematically similar enough to what had come before(high fantasy) that it wasn't obvious at the time, only enough to spawn a new term: ARPG.
My issue is that so few devs have even tried to come up with something besides basic level and grinding systems.
You don't NEED 'stats' in a RPG it is just what they've all decided is the norm based ib past success and nobody wants to do anything different because they are afraid of failure.
That's why indie games that don't have that fear are the only ones who try to do things different. The big studios are so risk averse that they will repeat what works until it stops making money.
I thought the concept of Sifu forcing you to age as you fail was super cool. Likewise Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy allowing you to throw your character into the meat grinder just to see what works with no punishment.
Granted those aren't RPGs but the point is that right now nobody WANTS to change the formula. Not at the Bethesda level.
Personally, I'd rather devs focus on what works and then make something good with that as a baseline, than be trying to constantly "experiment" and 2/3 the games they make end up terrible.
Like, FFX had a great combat system, X-2 refined it. Then it was never used again. FF13 had a great combat system (once you got to actually use it), 13-2 refined it. 13-3 discarded it (and also "stats and leveling") and it was offensively bad and it was also never used again. They are constantly experimenting and changing the game up, but nobody likes more than a handful of the Final Fantasy games because of it.
I'd rather each company focus on what works for them, than try to have every company try to do everything. If I want low brain power open world slop, I can count on Ubisoft for it and I don't think that's a problem. Bethesda is there if I want to play Oblivion but in the Apocalypse or in Space, and that would be fine if they were functional. But they aren't, which is the big issue.
The FF series seems like an outlier, they just throw shit at the wall since the series has so much built in lore and rabid fanbase that they can't do much else. It is like pokemon they will ride that cash cow into the ground and try to 'adapt' to modern players with various tweaks to the same formula.
I think I played the ones you mentioned but they all blend together, I am a huge fan of the original FF7 and the earlier ones so I always preferred it turn based. Not sure if it is more popular now that it is more hack and slash.
That'd be awesome in theory but in practice they always seem to want to go 'bigger' in the sequels which means adding more mechanics and often changing the setting. In a way it makes sense since they want to improve on their original product but it is a fine line.
I think that is why Bethesda is finding such a problem with this release, they tried to do too much and forgot what made their games addictive in the first place. Probably because it is easier to monetize this way.
Which is fine, if they are keeping it to what works. If they don't need to reinvent the wheel every single time, then the chances of the "bigger" being good is a lot higher (though not always, as shown by Tears of the Kingdom earlier this year).
Bethesda's problem isn't losing sight of what made their games good. Its that people are finally looking at them in real time instead of years later in hindsight with a bunch of DLCs, patches and bug fixing mods in place. Like, everything I hear wrong about Starfield is how I felt about Skyrim and Fallout 3/4 (sans some of the woker elements) on release too.
Repeating my rant on a previous topic, but it really annoys me how pointless psuedo-RPG combat mechanics crept into every other genre. It ends up "gamifying" the experience, when in tabletop and old CRPGs all these stat and point systems are meant to be proxies for simulating and simplifying real scenarios and force everyone to follow the same rules - not be the end goals of gameplay itself. I appreciate the tradition in actual RPGs but then they add it to shit like The Division - which would work better as a straight FPS/tactical-shooter - or Starfield, which has piss poor combat mechanics and AI that's only made worse when you have to deal with hit points and armor classes. What you end up is a grindfest where the only goal is to lower the little health bars above all the bullet sponges in the room. In my opinion this is blending the worst aspect of genres, but people seem to like it for some reason. I never understood the point. I love the idea of being in a "space simulator" and hauling goods between planets or being a pirate and raiding freighters or whatever. Starfield could be a dream game. Instead what I see from people streaming it is they jump into an area and say "Oh that's a level 16 mook. I'm a level 12 Space Paladin so I'd better steer clear of this sector and only shoot the level 11 Space Orks Gang until I level up." It's so shallow and boring. I want to feel like I'm actually in a fantasy scenario, not manipulating points on a character sheet to beat the points of random enemy mobs.
There are hybrid systems I do enjoy. Deus Ex and immersive sims typically have complex mechanics that don't get in your way. Most modern games don't work for me though. Starfield is only the most egregious example because outside of those pointless psuedo-RPG mechanics its combat offers little else.
Totally agree. Not everything needs any of these RPG elements. Especially character levels. Character levels aren't all that fun. That's one of the things I liked about Breath of the Wild, nothing had a level, you could decide to deal with an enemy or area if you wanted to in the way you wanted to and not be held back by a magic number. You see an enemy that appears overwhelming, you do like you would in real life, freak out and run away. Maybe it was easy, who knows, you have to judge for yourself and not just look at a number.
I do like numbers in some cases though, but that would be more something like KOTOR, where the entire game is based on dice rolls and skill levels.
Agreed. This was one of the most eye opening lessons I learned when I was first getting into game development and design theory. An experienced friend of mine touched on same basic premise you mention.
I forget how he phrased it exactly, but the general idea as I took it is that mechanics and systems with that kind of abstraction are best utilized in cases where you cannot provide a workable apparatus for the player to simulate it through pure and direct input and actions.
IE, in games we've used numerical values for decades to represent how alive or close to death the player and NPC's are, and even before that tabletop RPG's did the same. And in a fair majority of cases, these values aren't even hidden under the hood. Nor are damage values. We do this because there are limits to how far we can simulate physical trauma to the human body in a live action game. Even if a game were to try to seriously go in-depth to simulate it, it's still going to have to put it into a calculable framework that is distinctly artificial in nature.
The same thing goes for how a lot of melee systems have employed different kinds of attacks, with different damage values. Trying to implement the strength of swings power based on direct player input is often not very practical. Granted, a few games have been able to attempt this with varying degrees of success (as well as calculations based on contact/impact point and velocity of the swing), but it's still an ideal example for how game developers often have to come up with different ways to simulate basic things, while taking player input into account.
I'm still not sure if I'll actually use stats or perks at all in the game I'm planning though. I actually was trying to go out of my way to conceive of ways to implement mechanics for things like repairing a power generator, without just resorting to "hit the x key to fix the thing". Instead I wanted to lay out the general concept for what would likely make such a thing "tick", and what kinds of sub-components might need fixing, different methods that could be employed to fix things, etc etc. Truth be told though, the further down such a rabbit hole you go, the faster you realize just how unfun and tedious such things would likely get in an actual game.
Sort of a sidebar to what you’re talking about here: I think the action RPG genre is actually obsolete. I tried playing some of the more popular entries over the last few years, and I ended up bored to tears every time. This confused me because I was a huge Diablo 2 junky back in the day. Why wasn’t I having fun in these very similar games? At some point I realized what the problem was: Dark Souls exists. I can play a third person action RPG with actual skill-based gameplay. Mindlessly clicking on enemies in fights that are essentially predetermined by our relative stat values just didn’t cut it anymore. Not when I can perform most of the “abstracted actions” of the action RPG manually.
I've experienced the same issues in a few games in recent years, and especially with ARPG's. It's also the same reason I could never really get into most MMORPG's. I need to feel like I'm actually interacting with the game's world and environment, with immediate and responsive feedback based on my movement and actions.
Another thing that's always bugged me is the frequent dependency on NPC level-numbers as a metric for measuring enemy or area difficulty. I want the reason an enemy is a legitimate and dangerous threat to be because it's actually smarter, faster, more accurate, and/or better armed. Or of course because they're more numerous. Where the combat actually has punch and substance to it, and every so often you'll experience fights that are distinct or unique in some way, specifically because of how the flow of the fight can unfold.
And there's absolutely ways to implement a feeling of an ever increasing challenge in a game without depending on level systems. Just look at STALKER as a perfect example. You don't have a bunch of idiotic bullet sponges at later stages to bore you to tears. You have mutants with psychokinetic abilities who will straight up yank your gun out of your hands and bash you over the head with it. Earlier game mutated beasts who can still manage to tear you up if you slip up at the worst moment. And the classic "cheeki breeki" bandit who might just manage to land a lucky shotgun blast to your face as you turn a corner.
Sounds like you want to play a functional Star Citizen. I keep debating hopping into the alpha for $50 or whatever, but then realize that a buggy 30FPS would drive me crazy, I have a Steam backlog that will take 1,000 hours to clear with a few games I want to buy, plenty of games I beat years ago I kind of want to replay, and a job and life outside of video games.
Yes, naturally I bought SC years ago and here we are still waiting for them to make it work and move out of alpha. Some areas were even decently playable on my monster rig at the time but did have random crashes and NPCs standing on chairs, and I'm not going to waste any time on my character when it will just get wiped in the future anyway.
I should also make clear that I can have fun with hardcore RPGs and min-maxing or experimenting with DEX vs INT builds or whatever - when that's the game's style and how it was designed and advertised. (like BG3 is meant to feel like a tabletop session with dice rolls) It's when they tack on half-assed systems to other styles of games that you get the worst of both worlds and think "I have a gun, why can't I just shoot the guy point blank?"
Were there not talks about implementing stat for pc and not only npc in that game aswell?.
Well todd howard is a moron...
If you care so much about XP and leveling, at least incorporate it better!
So it sounds like he's addicted to the XP-grind. I get that, I've been there. The problem is when you start to think every game needs a player-progression mechanic like that, and when you can't imagine any different ones.
This dude subverted his supposed magnum opus because he became dependent on the dopamine release of 'numbers go up' and mining and crafting and shit. It became a faded, passionless patchwork of rote addiction and half-formed ideas. That's sad.
Post Reported for: Rule 1 - Illegal Activity
???
Despite what Twitter people say, the '4 niggas in a line' system is still doing fine. For every RPG that tries something new and its forgettable, another comes out with Turn Based and does fine. Persona 5 and its remake were barely a few years ago and were in a much more niche position and did gangbusters.
BG3 is a fine game, but let's not pretend its some absurdly unique and groundbreaking thing.
I don't know what 4 niggas in a line is, but I like it.
Right, I'm sure releasing an entire panel about how the gay vampire can have sex with a bear is "focusing on the right stuff." That certainly wouldn't be called "woke slop" and dismissed in any other game that people weren't ready to suck off because they like it.
I'm not trying to disparage your baby. I'm trying to say that claiming "Turn Based Combat" is some unpopular system just to prop its success up is ludicrous. It can stand on its own merits without such ridiculous claims.
Found the storyfag.
I dare you to make that statement on the Codex.
Go on, pussy.
Decline...
Decline never changes...