This is something I found interesting about the types of games that I really enjoy and if I'm honest the games that I find myself keep coming back to are those games that are easy to learn and hard to master. Or if they do have complexity it's more to do with story choices and interesting level design etc. than whatever stats you pick for your character at the beginning.
Particularly with RPGs, A great example of this comparison would be Fable 1 and Diablo 2. There are enough options in the game to keep you occupied gameplay wise and find a style you like. However it's not so overwhelming and pants on head retarded that you could be an autist and end up making an excel spreadsheet comparing all the miniscule amounts of stats to find out which is the 'best' class or stats setup.
I'm also thinking about this in terms of appearance customisation and all that nonsense. I wonder if the RPG development cycle overall for an indie dev especially wouldn't end up benefiting by deliberately restricting the options you're going to have so that you can focus more on the depth of the classes you have and the gameplay. As opposed to having 30+ different builds with nothing to show for it which is what most modern RPGs are now.
As an example instead of the usual 'le modern RPG' setup where you've inevitably got 30+ options in the character selection I'd potentially just have Warrior/Thief/Mage/Cleric. Something I really appreciated for example even though BG2 has quite a few class options is stuff like class oriented storylines and quests.
Bethesda have been dumbing down their RPG's for ages. I actually prefer more stats and levelling options. But I think the two games to get the balance right are Dungeon Master and Wizardry 8. Oblivion was the last Bethesda to have the balance right - Skyrim dumbed it down a lot as did Fallout 76.
Honestly the old ES leveling system in Morrowind and Oblivion was too convoluted for no real benefit. It encouraged you to play in counter-intuitive ways, like putting your most desired skills into the non-leveling categories to prevent leveling. I wasn't sad to see that go.
In Skyrim, you just play the game how you want and your character naturally evolves along those lines, then you "solidify" those choices with perks. Much better than picking everything permanently at character creation and being stuck with that choice forever. I think it works pretty well. People complain that it technically allows you to get every skill to max, but A. all the previous games had the same problem, and B. you'd have to play for an overly long amount of time for that, so whatever. Some people also really want a 100 hour game to punish you with a full restart if you don't like your weapon pick you made five minutes in. I consider that bad design. I do miss the custom spell options though.
The problem with Skyrim is the dumb writing, bad quests, effortless dragons, and overall half-baked plot ideas (like the civil war that's resolved with one dialogue in a conference room).
Skyrim had terrible game balance. Magic scaling was atrocious. Also, level scaling is a trash mechanic for shit devs who are too lazy to properly balance their games.
Level scaling takes the fun out of litteraly every aspect of a light RPG like Skyrim
It makes every reward pointless and dull, and gives you no real sense of progression.
You're too kind. Original ES leveling was beyond stupid. "I ran too much and that made everyone but me really strong." The fuck?
With Skyrim I felt like I was playing an Action Adventure like Heroes of Might & Magic. So when I finished it (much quicker than Oblivion) it had no replay value. I don't endorse Morrowind, btw.
You see if the trade off for me is I get well written stories and level design I don't care if I only get three class options. When it comes to Owlcat Games especially you realise how meaningless overall the character creator is because at the end of the day the overall story in RPGs is about dialogue options and the combat aspect is pretty detached.
Hi let me introduce you to the 9+ different religions in the game, what? Story? Oh no they barely effect your dialogue options and you only get one or two lore specific responses from NPCs on that choice anyway. I also think that the devs who make such complex stats probably have no idea what they're doing with them anymore than the players do except perhaps the really autistic ones.
Owlcat games are bloated nightmares. I don’t think I could even be friends with someone who enjoys them.
I don't play for the stories, I skip most dialogue and rarely read the lore. Sounds like you would prefer the Fable series? Did you ever play text adventures?
LOL that explains it, I played Fable to death, didn't really play text adventures but experimented a bit with MUDs out of curiosity. For me good story writing is what helps keep you immersed in a game with the atmosphere. Most suggestions I could get RPG wise I've already played or at least looked at.
See I didn't mind having a narrative oriented game when playing Infocom and Melbourne House Text Adventures - like reading a book, you create the images in your mind anyway. But for RPG's I prefer creating a character to free roam. I think the last RPG I played that I got into the narrative was Mass Effect.
I’ll look those up