The state of RPGs

[svero]

This is to branch off from the movation and player rewards thread.

I would put forth that RPGs in the last 5yrs, maybe longer have grown pretty stale. NPC's are boring, inventory and shopping interfaces force tedious micromanagement on players between the fun, and generally speaking there's been little good in terms of moving the genre forward since the first baldurs gate, which took a mini leap forward in terms of interface and gameplay.

So are shopping and inventory management tasks fun? Can RPGs survive or perhaps even be enhanced by removing those sorts of decisions, or at least offering the player choices in a different way? What to RPGs really need to take the genre forward? What about light RPGs... like zelda. Are they in the same class of game even?

[Jack Norton]

Last RPG I played was Temple of Elemental Evil. Quite good, but has those sort of problems (even more since was hard to click on bodies on the ground to loot them properly!!).
A game that's not a classic RPG but has many elements is Silent Storm. That game system is awesome. You can easily click and pickup any item on the ground. There's a button that automatically sort the items in the inventory and packs them together. If you want to move items from one characters to another just click on item and click on other character inventory and it's done (if he has space in inventory).
That system isn't boring at all and is very effective.

Personally I hate light RPG like Zelda so won't talk about them :D

[Ricardo C]

I wouldn't remove inventory systems entirely, unless I were working on a console-style "RPG lite", in which I HATE having to worry about inventories, especially since a gamepad makes it just that much more tedious. I'd rather have the player carry a single weapon, a single piece of armor, and a single amulet/talisman/ring/magic suppository, which they can never remove, sell, or drop, and which get automatically enhanced as they go up in level. The Shining Force series had a decent, gamepad-friendly inventory system, but once your party swelled up to 20 or characters, it was just a pain.

For more traditional RPGs, my ideal system would be an enhanced version of the classic Might and Magic inventory system, with little additions such as item sorting, clik-n-drag multiple item selection, user-define grouping (i.e. "make player X automatically store ever potion bottle you find, whileplayer Y will hold all weapons"), etc.

Are "lite" RPGs in the same class as classic stat-crunchers? Not by a longshot. But sometimes the "lite" games feel more involving than their more "respectable" counterparts. There is less focus on stats and levels, and more on the adventure aspect, which can make for a more fluid experience.

[Drake]

Shopping and inventory management tasks can be fun if item collection is at the core of the game. Diablo and its progeny (Dungeon Siege, Fate) are treasure hunting games, first and foremost. They are the digital equivalent of the Monty Haul Campaign (http://www.frontiernet.net/~jamesstarlight/CampaignTypes.html#ITEM%203), familiar to players of paper-and-dice RPGs. The fun is in knowing that you will always find great new stuff - without knowing exactly what it will be. The very random nature of these games makes shopping an interesting and worthwhile activity. As for inventory management, it reinforces the value assessments that you're making as you play the game. To appreciate how deep this sort of equipment-strategizing gameplay can get, IMO you need to play the expanded Diablo II - still the best of the bunch.

[papillon]

Quoting from the other post to move it here:


It would be one thing if there was some element of strategy or problem solving involved, but you're always reduced to finding the most powerful item that you can afford. It's not like there's any matter of choice in the whole matter anyway. You're not stuck between an item with +10 HP, -10 MP and an item with -10 HP, +10 MP. Your class usually has one kind of weapon you can use, and one is always better than another. There's no tradeoff, no strategy, no amount of real influence over the outcome. Get the best you can afford. Period. Game over.


This is only true in a certain style of RPG. Typically, Japanese console RPGs. And I agree - it sucks a lot. It is simply not fun (for me) to be forced along an unchanging treadmill, constantly getting more powerful and gaining stronger weapons that are almost exactly like my LAST weapon, and fighting monsters that are almost exactly like the LAST monster but a little bit bigger...

Diablo/Fate allows a little bit more choice than that, because you can pick from a range of weapons AND those weapons can have a range of powers. Practically, though, you still end up slightly forced - because of the skill tree, you will probably have decided to put your points towards using Weapon Category X and all the other weapons in the game are now useless to you. This is especially a problem for Fate because it's singleplayer, so you find all this crud you can't use and you can't trade it to anyone who COULD use it.

You still make some choices about the customization of your chosen tool from Category X, though - there are so many different kinds of bonuses and penalties that two swords can be very different from each other. I like my bow to shoot as rapidly as possible and to have knockback, so that I can keep pushing monsters away from my fragile body. Others would rather boost accuracy and damage.


As someone who is currently making a casual RPG... There is nothing preventing the player from keeping the equipment they buy at the beginning of the game most of the way through the 'dungeon' section. They CAN find or create better equipment, but for the most part a plain old sword will do just fine. A magic sword is a little better, but not so much better that you NEED it, and you're certainly not being churned through a treadmill of shops offering you better and better equipment.

Beating the very hardest monsters down there will probably require special equipment, but then, in this game, beating those monsters is totally optional - you can win the game dozens of ways without bothering. :)

And I'm not doing skill trees - you can use a dagger or an axe, whatever suits your fancy, you're not tied to one type.


Diablo-style loot picking random-powered choices from a huge list of bonuses and penalties is entertaining, but it doesn't please my acquisitive soul as much as UNIQUE items do. (Yes, Diablo and Fate still had some 'uniques', although the ones I found in Fate didn't usually seem very special.) Hard-to-find named items in Baldur's Gate 2 were much more fun to come by than just "look, another plus on this sword".

[Hamumu]

Thank you for branching this off, as it was way off topic!


So are shopping and inventory management tasks fun? Can RPGs survive or perhaps even be enhanced by removing those sorts of decisions, or at least offering the player choices in a different way? What to RPGs really need to take the genre forward? What about light RPGs... like zelda. Are they in the same class of game even?


Diablo 2 is one of the best-selling games in history, and it's absolutely about the type of thing you guys are saying Simply Should Not Be.

Is a game with less complex micromanagement a more casual game? Absolutely (in my opinion). Is it going to have a wider audience? I'm almost sure it would. Is it fundamentally better on some mystical scale of gameness? Hell no! It is a different game.

If you want to make "light" RPGs that have less stuff that has to be dealt with, that's awesome. I think such a game can be really fabulous (and I bet it would get a wider audience than an indie game that had complex stuff to manage would). But that doesn't mean that RPGs with a lot of stuff to deal with are dinosaurs, destined for the scrap heap. It's the same argument about how FPS games should be more than running around and shooting people, and that's moving the genre forward. No, it's making it different. There's always room for a random violence fest, people will always enjoy it. Like me (incidentally, I hate single player FPS games, but I like the multiplayer to be random violence). Just as there will always be people who enjoy deciding between a lightning sword and a flame bow. Like me.

The biggest problem with Fate is that it weakens the complexity of the choices you have in upgrading. By removing the funky skill tree, it is less fun for me. I know that I will run out of interesting choices to pursue after a couple of times through. And I don't like the weapon skills - like Papillon said, they lock you into something in an area where you're going to be inundated with random options. I have a level 15 character who's doing purely melee combat, and I haven't spent a single point on weapon skills, because I refuse to be locked in!

Anyway, got off track there... let me ask you light RPG guys this: what are you putting in your game to make it involving, if it's not going to be the loot? Will it be entirely about proceeding through the areas/story? I guess what I don't understand there is - why even make it an RPG? Why not an adventure game? I have light(er) RPG ideas, but they all still involve collecting a variety of items and deciding between them. And more importantly for me, choosing how you'll upgrade along a skill tree with tons of options. That's what really makes an RPG best for me. I love deciding how my character will develop (and not just putting points into stats that really need to go a certain way - I'm a warrior, guess I'll raise Strength, eh?).


I'd rather have the player carry a single weapon, a single piece of armor, and a single amulet/talisman/ring/magic suppository, which they can never remove, sell, or drop, and which get automatically enhanced as they go up in level.


This sounds like the absolute WORST of all RPGs I could envision. Now that's just for me, I'm not stating it for the whole world. But ugh! What a mindless grind to just do nothing but fight monsters and gradually become more powerful, with no choices at all! That to me is not fun. Even Crimsonland gives you choices as you 'level up'. It could be fun to play if the combat is fun, but why are you leveling up if you have no choices? Why not just make all monsters equally strong?

In the end: YES, shopping and inventory management are unbelievably fun, if the game makes them so. They're fun in Fate, they're exceedingly fun in Diablo 2. Gambling (that's their term for buying unidentified magical items at exorbitant price - sometimes you get crap, sometimes amazing things) is a super fun part of that. But the core of it (which isn't just shopping, but also the items that drop) is juggling between items of different merits. That is such a puzzle, and there's no correct solution. Papillon wants a bow that hits fast and does knockback (I actually wanted a fast bow too, but when I discovered the bows that I found were all super slow, I went for melee instead), because that's her style. But then she comes across a slightly slower bow that gives her +20 HP and has 2 gem sockets. Hmm, maybe she should switch - she'd have more life, and a couple more upgrade choices. But maybe not, maybe she really wants that speed. Or maybe she finds a super powered bow that's really slow, but the damage is obscene. Should she change her whole outlook and just smack down the monsters before they have a chance to get to her? I don't know, and neither does she! You just gotta make a choice (or carry both - Diablo 2 has a Weapon Switch button for this reason, and Guild Wars allows you to swap between 4 sets of weapons! Strange... doesn't sound like weapons have no tradeoff or strategy...).

And that's the other thing (the main reason those games offer weapon switching): different weapons are useful against different enemies. A BBQ Demon is going to take a lot less damage from a fire weapon, but if you swap in your Sword Of Chillin', he'll die easily.

There's other things too - a lot of Barbarians in Diablo 2 carry a pair of weak weapons on their weapon switch that give them +3 to the skill Battle Orders (I think that's the skill...) each. So they swap to that, cast Battle Orders, and swap back to their good weapon, under the influence of a much more powerful shout (it's a powerup of some type that lasts a minute or two). Some Amazons carry spears and a bow, swapping between them to use spear skills and bow skills. Some people carry a weapon that has Teleport charges on their weapon switch, so they can teleport even if they don't have that spell, but they're not stuck relying on a wussy weapon that happens to have that ability.

Then there's 2-handed for big damage, versus 1 handed, so you can use a shield and have better defense (and more magical bonuses!)... there's fast weapons versus slow (a fast weapon is better if you have 'per hit' things, like knockback or a random chance to trigger a spell per hit, a slow weapon is better if fighting something that does X damage to you every time you hit it)... there's special effects to consider like spells that trigger... there's skill bonuses, defensive boosts... there's type of damage (in Fate, some monsters resist Slashing damage, some resist Crushing damage - a hammer is better against some, a sword against others).

Other people invent very specific goals combining very specific item powers and character skills. Like a Sorceress in Diablo 2 who goes nuts with the Energy Shield and Warmth skills, and "Damage Goes To Mana" items (when you take damage, you gain mana relative to the damage taken), mana recharge items, and damage absorption items. Combine all that, and you are almost invincible, because Energy Shield takes a percentage of the damage done to you and does it to your mana instead (Warmth increases how fast your mana regenerates). But of course, you're doing that at the expense of everything else. Or other people get hung up on Life Leech items so they heal back a lot as they hit guys. Or they...

Anyway, I get caught up because it's what I love. I will stop. What I have said obviously supports Svero's point that this is all very complex, and refutes the random words that came out of Sonicron's keyboard. I don't know what games he's been playing, but they're not good ones.

And even when the system is very simple, it's still got complexity and interest. NPC Quest is about as simple as such a game can get, and yet there's decisions on whether to save up for better or buy something now, to go more for defense or offense, to increase your carrying capacity or get rid of something you have, raise your health or your defense, when to bother with your Stomach stat, which level you'll tackle (risk vs. reward), how many healing potions and food items you want to carry, and how to assign your stat points when you level up, which stats are more important to you (some items are stronger in one way, but weaken some other stat). And this in a game that has a very blatant weapon/item upgrade curve, with just a few niggles in the middle, and no random drops at all. No items have special features, they just boost/lower the different stats in different amounts. Everybody ends the game (if they live that long) wielding the WoMD and the Sun Mask Of Solee and the rest of the top items, but they still have different stats, different rings, and had a very different path getting to that final set of gear. I'm not saying NPC Quest is involving and complex (it is indeed pretty mindless most of the time! A lot like Bejeweled and all those other trillion-seller casual games), I'm just saying that even when the system is extremely simple and just a straightforward upgrade path, it opens up some interesting decisions when you allow the player to shop for what they want to get as opposed to dictating exactly what they'll have.

So now you've heard from me as to why I want all indies to make me more games in which I can dissect the value of "Reflects 3% lightning damage". What I want to hear is from you who hate this stuff - what are your plans? What is your light RPG going to play like? If it doesn't have this aspect to compell people, what does it have?

[Black Hydra]

RPG's, FPS's, RTS's. These are all mega-genres where true innovation is not seen for hit games. The fact is, the people who buy these genre's, tend to love the genre and when anyone tries to change it they get pissed off.

RPG's is a very loose term. I'm sure we are all talking about the games where you select a character, level him/her up, find items, ect.

On that definition Zelda isn't really an RPG at all, more of an adventure game.

I think one of the big problems with RPG's is the tendency for developers to believe that a simulation and a game are the same things. There tends to be this belief that making the game more realistic always makes it better. While this does up the immersion part of the game, it often doesn't up the fun in the game. There are a few players who want an RPG or MMORPG "simulation" where there character is accurately portrayed and it feels realistic. But the vast majority want an RPG or MMORPG game.

I played Diablo II a lot and despite some its flaws it was an incredibly successful game. I would even argue that it was a near perfect game. Let me point out that the definition of a "perfect" game implies that any additions or changes would only make it worse (less efficient and simple), not better. So most the people who disliked Diablo II, simply disliked what the game was.

[Abscissa]

What to RPGs really need to take the genre forward?
This may seem like an overly-simplistic response, but I truly think that one of the biggest hindrances to RPG's is the insanely high percentage of western-developed RPG's that are inevitably inspired by/based upon D&D and Tolkien. Let’s get some new themes and settings!

[Black Hydra]

@Abs - Thank you for mentioning that. This is a real sore spot of mine.

Are we, as designers and storytellers all incompetant or lazy? Creating your own unique world is one of the most important parts of any MMO and very important in RPG's as well. So why the hell do people feel as if it is okay just to make a carbon copy of Tolkien's universe or (if they feel that creating statistics for all the characters they have seen in his books is too hard) D&D.

I understand this might be acceptable some of the time, but clearly it is being overused. When I was designing the story and background of my game (although not either an RPG or MMO, so it was definitely less important) I took great care to create everything myself. That is part of the fun, and what makes your game unique.

For me, any new MMO game you play there tends to be that initial "magic" period where you try to absorb your vast surroundings. You try to comprehend the world and you sort of bask in its seeming complexities. The same is true of single-player RPG's, however the feeling is less because you feel alone in the "world" even if it is magnificent and grand.

Why on earth would a developer try to mutilate this experience by copying other templates?

Diablo did this very well. It created a world that still had the feel of a Fantasy game (swords, shields and magic) but didn't use existing templates. When did you see an elf or a warg in Diablo?

[papillon]

Are we, as designers and storytellers all incompetant or lazy?


Well, a lot of people remain deeply puzzled/hurt by the sales failure of (Planescape) Torment. Interesting unusual setting, good writing, innovative mechanics (the way death was handled), multiple solutions and playstyles encouraged, tons of secrets, not too much combat *required* to get through (so less grind) but plenty of optional fighting challenges for people who WANT to hit things...

... but the buyers would rather have Icewind Dale.

(Note - I do not know the actual sales figures. The above statements based on rumor and word of mouth.)

Few people ON THEIR OWN can manage to create an entire RPG the scope of Torment, and the companies that can are busy chasing the money. (Or they go under. A moment of silence for Troika, who dared to cast a gay pirate dentist in their fantasy.)

Complaining about sameyness seems odd in a board full of casual clones.... :)

[Christian]

I played planetscape torment and i got dissapointed...i dont share the good opinions most people have on it, except on the death thing, and it has an interesting concept but its boring to read all those dialogs and things...boring to play.

Another things about this kind of games is the exploration part, most of them (but some of them i think get to overcome this) make exploration so boring, that i have to, for example, keep pressed the forward button for half an hour until something happens, or maybe travel with the button pressed from town to a mine for 10 minutes and thats incredibly frustrating.

One should only include the fun parts of exploration, not the boring ones, like, the endless hours of walking and looking for something ineresting to see, with no luck, thats useless for the player that wants fun, its useless, it makes them loose theyr time.

[papillon]

its boring to read all those dialogs


See, some RPG players don't want a story, they just want to go hit stuff and get loot. :)

[Hamumu]

Count me in there! I'm in it for a game - I'll read a book if I want a story. Although I was certainly deeply offended by the "story" in Kingdom Hearts being utter random CRAP. If you are going to tell a story, and draw it out with long cinematics THAT I CAN'T SKIP EVEN RIGHT BEFORE A BOSS THAT KILLS ME OVER AND OVER, then how about if they make ONE TINY IOTA OF SENSE. Oh, I'm so mad about the 30 hours of my life that are never coming back.

As for original content, that's definitely my thing. I do get a little tired of the recycled Tolkien stuff, but generally I don't care. But for my own work, I always do all original things, simply because that's the core part of the thrill of making a game! Coming up with stuff is why I make games. I never understand why people are always saying "can I get away with using the Pokemon characters in my game?" or whatever - who cares, it's more fun to make up your own!

[C.S.Brewer]

so many questions....one thread!

So are shopping and inventory management tasks fun?
They aren't to me.
I like finding new stuff
I like knowing what stuff I have
But I don't like sifting through tons of similar crap and having to pack my bags.

Can RPGs survive or perhaps even be enhanced by removing those sorts of decisions, or at least offering the player choices in a different way?

I think that RPGs will survive no matter what, as long as games survive. For me, if I don't have to worry too much about sorting and packing my inventory rpgs will be enhanced.

What to RPGs really need to take the genre forward?
I wish I knew this..I think that for games in general, getting rid of the constant struggle with technology would perhaps let gameplay develop more deeply. For me, there are lots of rpgs out there I've never played, I bet there's a few fresh things to be found still.

What about light RPGs... like zelda. Are they in the same class of game even?
what is the core of an RPG to you? I consider zelda an action adventure game.

Will it be entirely about proceeding through the areas/story? I guess what I don't understand there is - why even make it an RPG? Why not an adventure game?
To many RPG players, myself included, this is the core of an RPG, how the choices I make effect the world, who my character is, and the story of the world. Not what items I pick up, how I dress myself, and how strong my fireball is.

A moment of silence for Troika, who dared to cast a gay pirate dentist in their fantasy. lol


See, some RPG players don't want a story, they just want to go hit stuff and get loot. he's got a legitimate point though. Many people who don't like RPGs dont like reading tons and tons of text (at a usually too small and hard to read font) For myself it's not that I don't like the story (I want more and better story) it's that I'm playing a game, and in doing that I want to be taking action [edit: more than simply reading].

[Jack Norton]

Lol Torment is a masterpiece... sacrilege!!! :eek:
Anyway I think that the dialogues were just too much in that game. A good middle solution was FFVII (talking only about dialogues here, not gameplay). There were a few long dialogues but mostly they were small enough.
If you want just an hack'n'slash RPG get Diablo 2 ;)

[papillon]

I have no objection to there BEING games that are light on story. Sometimes I just want to hit things too. I DID buy Fate, which doesn't even TRY to have a story. :) I'll remember it less in the long run, but it's fun to poke at for now.

But I also like to read, like to explore stories, like to explore stories that change as a result of my actions - and like to have all the clicking of reading broken up by fighting stuff, solving puzzles, and traveling around. I like both adventure/RPG and action/RPG in different moods. (Pure adventure, these days, is often too many puzzles that are too hard and have no relation to what little story they bothered putting in. No thanks.)

Reading too much all at once with nothing to do but click through can get very tiring on the eyes - visual novels being bad for this. Which is why all of my designs involving them include regularly breaking up that read-clicking with SOMETHING else to do.

[svero]

Diablo 2 is one of the best-selling games in history, and it's absolutely about
the type of thing you guys are saying Simply Should Not Be.

Well I'd like to say that it could be better. Diablo 2 was a good game for it's time. But that doesnt mean it was a perfect RPG. The bards tale sold very well when it came out but if I released that as competition to Dialblo 2 it would have done poorly.

Is a game with less complex micromanagement a more casual game? Absolutely (in my opinion). Is it going to have a wider audience? I'm almost sure it would. Is it fundamentally better on some mystical scale of gameness? Hell no! It is a different game.

You see I don't agree with this statement. There's 2 issues here and to me they're completely separate. One is a question about a game, something that I'm not sure I've really commented on, and the other a question about the interface to that game. By changing the interface we change the game? Ok I guess we do to some extent, but I don't think in the way that you're implying here.

If you want to make "light" RPGs that have less stuff that has to be dealt with, that's awesome. I think such a game can be really fabulous (and I bet it would get a wider audience than an indie game that had complex stuff to manage would). But that doesn't mean that RPGs with a lot of stuff to deal with are dinosaurs, destined for the scrap heap.

Well again this comment seems to imply some guessing about what I'm saying that isn't completely spot on. I never said simplify the game by removing stuff or having less stuff. One could have a game like that, but I agree it would be a different game. What I'm saying is.. why force the player to do tasks like.. organize 45 snow wolf pets in inventory windows for sale later in the game. That can be automated, or handled in a non tedious way. And that game, imho, is going to relegate the game with the tedious micromanagement interface to the scrap heap. To me its like releasing a word processor that doesn't have the ability to select an area of text and move it. You can only do one word at a time. Both word processors work and do the basic job, but one is just a lot easier/friendlier to use. In games reducing tedium to me == more fun. There's no decision making in carrying a bunch of items for sale. There's no rpg element to it at all really. I'm like.. ok if i move this red potion to that square then i have room for one more pelt in this rect. Thats something to do with packing shapes a little like tetris. I dont see anything rpg about it. Its just bad interface.

Just as there will always be people who enjoy deciding between a lightning sword and a flame bow. Like me.

But this decision making process need not be an exercise in tedium. I'm a big fan of interface simplicity with evolved complexity. Like chess.. simple game anyone can learn but with huge depth. To me what you're advocating is having to click on each square you want a piece in chess to move on with the right mouse button and select "move the piece through here" and then the square lights up and then on the last square you select "land here finally" as opposed to just clicking the square you want to go to. What I'm saying here about shopping and inventory contol is that the interfaces are combersome. To me thats not the game. I could make diablo 2 where instead of just dragging a sword into a player inventory window you have to type in the name of the character and how he will carry the sword using precise wording in some text interface. Both games are equivalent. In the end you get the same choice and same sword. One is just a pain to use.

[papillon]

Aha! Okay, complaints about inventory juggling make more sense. The only explanation I can offer is the old Fear Of Being Different - people currently expect the silly screen with items taking up different sizes, so most people designing rpg interfaces try to emulate it.

My little RPG just has a simple array for inventory; new items go into it and sort themselves by type. No juggling stuff around, no different sizes.

Someone will probably make a realism argument, but REALISTICALLY you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who could walk around carrying multiple suits of plate mail even if they did fit into the inventory screen.

(Also, different sizes in the inventory allows you to make certain items look much more detailed and impressive than other items - but you could have an Icon View and a Detailed View to allow this when an interested played clicked on something.)

[Tertsi]

I don't really have time to read everything here now but I'd just like to point out that Dungeon siege II has an automatic inventory management button. :p

[svero]

Automatic inventory management. I like the sound of that. What does it do exactly though?

[vjvj]

I just want to chime in for one second to say that I agree with Abs, the biggest thing holding back RPGs in my opinion is their religious adherence to D&D rules. It'd be really interesting to see someone entirely abandon the experience points/table system.

[Valkilos]

I think one of the issues I'm seeing in many RPGs as of late is that the choices in equipment simply aren't that interesting. Really, you can divide the choices into two categories:

#1 "Slow but powerful energy draining weapon or quick but weak fire-shooting weapon?"
"Two-handed weapon with lots of power, or one-handed weapon with shield for more defense?"

#2 "Weapon you can use or weapon you can't?"
"Weapon with 10 attack power or weapon with 15?"

I enjoy the first category of choices. The second category, meanwhile, is fairly pointless, and just keeps me away from the fun part of the game. In party-based RPGs (particularly console ones), it seems that I end up making decisions like this for 30 minutes each time I find a new town, and it's just not much fun.

The recent insistence on "Weapon skills" and class/race restricted weaponry has only made it worse, IMHO. It's like the game is telling us in our first five minutes of gameplay "You'll only be able to use 25% of the stuff you find. Since you know nothing about the game yet, now would be the perfect time to force you into a choice that will affect the rest of your gameplay experience!"

My first instinct is that we should be seeking to reduce and/or eliminate the second category of choices altogether (it would seem that increases in power should be handled with level advancement, instead), while increasing choices from the first category.

[Jack Norton]

The recent insistence on "Weapon skills" and class/race restricted weaponry has only made it worse, IMHO. It's like the game is telling us in our first five minutes of gameplay "You'll only be able to use 25% of the stuff you find.
That's absolutely true. I hate that. If my young half-elf sorceress with strength 15 want to wield a 2handed bastard sword why she CAN'T? she has no hands? :D
Of course she will have something like -10 to hit or big damage penalty, but that doesn't mean she can't use it.
Or even a knight using a magic wand. He probably would have just 5% of probability to successfully cast the spell, but he SHOULD be able... :)

[Hamumu]

Oh well geez, if your concern is that the interface for managing your inventory is too clunky, SURE! Never anything wrong with making an interface easier to use. Just don't take away my thousands of different items to compare and decide on. Several other people were harping on exactly that - making it so you don't think about items at all (or saying that in current RPGs, there is no thought involved anyway).

I too am a fan of just having the inventory be a list (I'm a fan of it being in a grid of boxes, but all boxes are the same size, and they auto-organize by name, type, whatever you select - same thing as a vertical list in practice). I think there can be merit in limiting its size, or not. Depends on the game and the goals therein.

I actually kind of enjoy the "arranging items for best fit" minigame in Diablo 2, though Fate misses a couple tiny bits that make it decent (like you can't hold an item on your cursor in Fate - it's either on the floor or in your pack, which causes problems with otherwise simple management goals). It adds an element when you end up full: you still consider the worth of collected items in deciding what to keep, but you also factor in their size. That plate mail might be worth a lot, but it's hogging a lot of slots too...

Anyway, it certainly isn't very RPG, and I would never complain if a game didn't have that element. But for me, it's kind of a nice little bit of what Diablo is. I wouldn't change that about Diablo. I'd change some things, but not that (I would make the inventory and stash bigger though, as almost every D2 mod has done).

In short: yes, I think it should be easy to keep your snow wolf pelts organized. But I think Diablo 2 is very close to perfection, inventory and all. I wouldn't clone it, but I sure as el diablo appreciate the amazingness of it.

[papillon]

the biggest thing holding back RPGs in my opinion is their religious adherence to D&D rules


... what religious adherence to D&D rules? Only a small number of cRPGs can be using D&D - only the ones who've licensed it! And even then they each tend to interpret them slightly differently...

Or do you just mean 'leveling up'? (The funny thing is, some new tabletop RPG sourcebooks are starting to describe it as 'leveling up - just like in videogames!')

Having a visible goal to strive towards at all times is the sort of thing we often talk about *adding* to games to increase motivation, no?

I've stuck "xp levels" into my game as a minor addon - it really has no effect on stats at all, stats are changed by training, not by gaining xp, but the xp count displays "how much you've done", more or less, and if it makes a player feel happier to gain a level...

The Sierra Quest for Glory games (another soft spot of mine) didn't have any sort of levels - just skills to train. However, they were definitely adventure/RPG - raising your skills to 100x what they were to begin with wasn't part of the design.

I assume Bloodlines (the Vampire RPG/FPS) didn't have levels, but I never got to play it.

[soniCron]

What's the point of leveling up? To become stronger. Why become stronger? Because your enemies are one step ahead of you.

Why not just introduce more powerful weapons and items as I progress? I won't be able to use them? Why? Because I'm not strong enough? But my barbarian looks pretty damn strong to me. So eliminate leveling up altogether so I can use whatever I find.

What? It wouldn't be an "RPG" if we got rid of leveling up? Then give me a better reason to get stronger, other than the fact that every monster I fight is that much stronger himself, and I'll end up as minced meat if I don't. Every time I level up, so do the baddies. Not a very compelling reason to "level up," is it?

Why not throw a herd of level 2 orcs at my level 20 sorceress while I have her "meteor storm" the lot of them in one fell swoop! Now that is a reason to level up!

If you're going to take the fantasy theme and number crunching from a turn-based game (traditional RPGs) and remove all real strategic elements* in favor of an action oriented hack-fest, then give me some real hacking action! (Several of the action-RPGs have done a little for this, but a swarm of baddies while I still have to pick apart each individual enemy doesn't cut it. Nor does it if the each member of the swarm is of the same strength as the single enemy I was fighting 5 minutes ago. Might as well throw a pile of rocks on me and say, "Ok. Now, climb out.")


@Hamumu: You may call what comes off my keyboard "random", but I think it's nothing more than a difference of opinion. And why do so many of the folks on these boards have such a sick fascination about opinions? What part of having an opinion means you've got to make the next best thing since sliced bread before you can have that opinion?


*Really, does a +5 sword benefit me more than a +4 sword? Does it really? How about now that I've got 40 HP potions? That are automatically fed to me as my health gets too low? Where'd the strategy go? :eek:

[papillon]

Every time I level up, so do the baddies. Not a very compelling reason to "level up," is it?


As I've mentioned, this is the feeling that can kill an RPG - that you're not getting any more powerful at all. What's the POINT of levelling if the game stays just about the same? Gaining new powers with really exciting, flashy, or game-changing effects is a much better reward.

(for "game-changing", think Travel Powers in City of Heroes. This may not affect your fighting that much, other than the ability to get away fast, but the WORLD is changed. You can get to places you couldn't before. You can bound around feeling cool and super. Sure, the thrill wears off, but Flight/SuperJump is a MUCH more compelling goal than just adding 5 more HP to your total. :) )

Other things that can be done to try and give you a sense of achievement despite the fact that the bad guys you encounter are still fairly hard for your level... NPC Reactions. Reputation is supposedly half the game in Fable, and it was a fun quirk in Fallout. People heard about what you'd done and responded to you differently. If you're a badass who kills things with your bare hands, the pitiful NPCs SHOULD cower before you a bit! Then even if the monsters in the new dungeon level youv'e found are still troublesome, at least you can feel like you're tough?

Showing you a supposedly insurmountable task and then bringing you back to the same point when you've become more powerful and finding how suddenly easy it is...

Changing the nature of gameplay. In old-style D&D, you weren't necessarily supposed to keep on trudging through dungeons alone once you had become superhuman through leveling up - you were supposed to gather an army of followers! If you're now so tough that nothing can beat you directly, maybe you should now be given tasks that involve leading/protecting other people who aren't as powerful as you...

('Course, in old D&D, you were supposed to actually ascend to godhood once you got high level enough, iirc. However, that would probably require an entirely separate game. :) )

[Pyabo]

I think Hamumu hit the nail on the head...

Remember how Chris Taylor was going to "revolutionize" the RPG genre with Dungeon Siege? He was going to remove all the tedious bits of the RPG and just leave the fun? No more inventory worries, no worrying over telling each of your characters what to do in combat... Well, it turns out he inadvertently took out all the fun too. Micromanagement and all it entails is what makes a role playing game a role playing game.

Final Fantasy 7 is the best selling FF game ever. Don't you remember spending hours re-arranging all your materia and equipment to find that optimal combination? Don't tell me it was the story that pulled all those players in! The story was lame. :)

[Ricardo C]

This sounds like the absolute WORST of all RPGs I could envision. Now that's just for me, I'm not stating it for the whole world. But ugh! What a mindless grind to just do nothing but fight monsters and gradually become more powerful, with no choices at all! That to me is not fun. Even Crimsonland gives you choices as you 'level up'. It could be fun to play if the combat is fun, but why are you leveling up if you have no choices? Why not just make all monsters equally strong?

As I mentioned, there are games in which I find inventory management to be incredibly cumbersome, and it detracts from the experience. In "lite" RPG, my favorite thing to do is explore, get deeper into the plot, and solve puzzles. Leveling up and upgrading my equipment is the farthest thing from my mind. In that kind of game, I would definitely do away with a complex inventory system. But then, I have always enjoyed the "adventure" aspect of RPGs more than the stat-crunching.


Anyway, I get caught up because it's what I love. I will stop. What I have said obviously supports Svero's point that this is all very complex, and refutes the random words that came out of Sonicron's keyboard. I don't know what games he's been playing, but they're not good ones.

Uhh... Sonicron?

[Hamumu]

Comments:

Ricardo: I believe you just described an adventure game, not an RPG! Granted RPG is supposed to mean Role Playing Game, but it's gotten a pretty formal real-world definition over the years of RPGs being released, and that definition is all about leveling a character up and all that that entails.

Pyabo: Totally... I hated Dungeon Siege! Your character development choices were almost nonexistent and there were no respawning enemies so you couldn't level up if you came across something too tough... ugh.

Sonicron: I said what now about making sliced bread? Your "opinion" was factually inaccurate ("there are no tradeoffs or strategy in choosing weapons in RPGs"), and I hope my 50 bazillion examples of the depth and strategy involved in item selection made that clear. If not, well, go enjoy something with "real" depth, and I'll pretend I see depth in RPG items and enjoy them myself.

[soniCron]

Sonicron: I said what now about making sliced bread? Your "opinion" was factually inaccurate ("there are no tradeoffs or strategy in choosing weapons in RPGs"), and I hope my 50 bazillion examples of the depth and strategy involved in item selection made that clear. If not, well, go enjoy something with "real" depth, and I'll pretend I see depth in RPG items and enjoy them myself. A game of chess is universally accepted as strategic. This is because no single move gives any player a winning hand right off the bat. However, when playing a hackfest RPG, consider the following scenario:

Select character/race of supremely strong, melee combat man (ie. barbarian).
Upgrade your "melee combat" modifier each level.
Sell all collected items except most powerful sword/mace/axe you can use.
If you can afford to buy the most powerful sword/mace/axe, buy it, otherwise wait.
Goto 2.

Interestingly, there isn't a single hackfest RPG I've played (and I've played a lot) that can't be simplified to this. Choosing between an ice sword and a fire sword doesn't make a difference because the slight extra advantage you get from using the most suitable is negated when you've got 80 max HP potions; it doesn't matter which you chose to use.

So, when you say there's an option to use the fast bow with knockback or the slow bow with high damage, I could just as easily say, "Play a Mario game without killing any non-boss enemies." It's a matter of choice in how you play the game, and you're choosing to play it by not using the most powerful weapons/abilities. But because the player has that choice at all, the level of strategy drops to zero. Would chess still be strategic if one of the players has the option of starting with 4 queens?

[vjvj]

Or do you just mean 'leveling up'? (The funny thing is, some new tabletop RPG sourcebooks are starting to describe it as 'leveling up - just like in videogames!')

Having a visible goal to strive towards at all times is the sort of thing we often talk about *adding* to games to increase motivation, no?


Right, I'm referring only to the processing of "leveling". The whole experience bar/get experience per kill thing tends to put the focus of the game entirely on the experience bar, and that's not something I particularly enjoy.

Maybe it's just because I remember every shitty job I had in college, but "every rat you kill gives you 50 xp!" might as well be every burrito you wrap, every cuff you hem, every newspaper subscription you sell, or every lawn you mow. It just seems so strange that Ultimate Power Unsurpassed would come to those who spend the most time doing menial tasks, especially when the real world doesn't work that way at all.

Coincidentally, I remember all the best encounters of Everquest (uber organized raids) yielding the LEAST amount of experience. Amazing that mindless monster pull/kill/grind would give better experience than an encounter that takes planning and coordination to defeat.

I know most of this is just psychological, not to mention the fact that what I ultimately want is probably very difficult to implement. But the first rpg that figures it out will most likely get my money :)

[papillon]

.... um, what you actually said was:


You're not stuck between an item with +10 HP, -10 MP and an item with -10 HP, +10 MP. Your class usually has one kind of weapon you can use, and one is always better than another.


And that's just not true. Because diablo DOES have an item with +hp -mp, and an item with -hp +mp. :) One item IS NOT always provably better than another.

If you're a good enough mental number cruncher to actually know with complete certainty which choice is "best" such that you think picking one thing over another is purposefully handicapping yourself... I think your poor brain needs a vacation. :)

Is a fast bow with knockback "choosing not to use the most powerful abilities"?

(Now, there are people who play Diablo and handicap themselves to play silly games of their own making. I never got into Naked Mage competitions.)

Now, if your argument is that things are stacked in the player's favor, so it's not CHALLENGING... then, well, don't play action-RPGs, which are mostly about smashing through hordes of enemies without having to think too hard. :) There are an awful lot of different flavors of RPG out there, from hack-and-slash to games that are nothing but tiny cutscenes played out between hex-based-turn-based combat to games that are mostly adventure games with a few skills...

For CHALLENGE, my personal favorite would probably be some scenario I got myself into in Baldur's Gate 2, going up against a bunch of mages who were really too strong for my current level and trying to anticipate their moves and set off a chain of events to be able to defeat them despite their being able to freeze members of my party... I forget the details, but I know I tried some really strange spell combinations to disrupt the enemy plan and had a lot of fun, although I had to try it OVER and OVER again to get it right... My other half's favorite silly fight was something in Torment where he had to defeat a group of bad guys before they could kill Helpless Victim, and eventually settled on a silly spell targeted to kill the PC (and splash damage around him on the bads) in order to do it...

NWN sadly tended to make encounters either 'easy' or 'impossible' with less of a middle ground for truly bizarre strategies that Just Might Work. (Well, except for killing the final bad guy with a spell that couldn't do him a single point of damage but had a very rare chance to destroy any enemy completely. And that rare chance was rolled. I think they patched that out eventually - spoilsports - but it WAS how I won Hordes.)

But that's not the sort of game experience I'm looking for when I go to play Fate. I'm not expecting to have to think too much besides making decisions on whether or not to swap one magic item for another that's better in some ways but worse in others. Different kind of game.

[soniCron]

If you're a good enough mental number cruncher to actually know with complete certainty which choice is "best" such that you think picking one thing over another is purposefully handicapping yourself... I think your poor brain needs a vacation. :) Are you serious? Is it not obvious which weapons and upgrades are the best? :( [scratches head]


Is a fast bow with knockback "choosing not to use the most powerful abilities"? I guess I would have figured the barbarian with strong melee/etc. was the obvious choice because, numerically, it's simply the most powerful. (In my experience.)


Now, if your argument is that things are stacked in the player's favor, so it's not CHALLENGING... then, well, don't play action-RPGs, which are mostly about smashing through hordes of enemies without having to think too hard. :) But isn't the argument that these hackfests don't have strategy? If the game isn't challenging, then there's no need to employ strategy.


For the record, I adore Diablo and Diablo 2. :)

[Hamumu]

Are you serious? Is it not obvious which weapons and upgrades are the best? [scratches head]


Yes, it is 100% non-obvious, because it's non-solvable, which weapon is the "best". Read the examples I posted. Try playing a Barbarian in D2 - you'll need to choose a weapon proficiency (something I don't particularly like), juggle between health, defense, damage, life leech, mana (if you want to use shouts and whatnot - no, there is not a right answer here... you could go heavy on shouts, or you could focus on straight harm, both have the potential to make you powerful using different strategies), mana regen, damage absorption, "proc" attacks (spells that have random chance to trigger on hit), magic find (if you want it), attack rating, movement speed, attack speed, + to skills that you want to use, which skills you're going to level up, how much you'll spend on each stat, spells that trigger when you get hit, elemental resistances,... well, and about three dozen more things that I simply can't cover.

What you're saying is patently absurd and has no bearing on reality. How far have you GOTTEN in diablo 2? Because if the only value you look at is the amount of damage your weapon does, you won't last past about act 2 of normal. Look at the list I just wrote. Those are all considerations that someone playing a barbarian - the most basic, physically strongest class in the game - has to consider to SURVIVE in Nightmare and Hell modes (you could probably get through Normal without so much consideration, but you would definitely have to put some thought at the very least into Attack Rating, Health, and Defense in addition to your damage). Potions aren't gonna cut it.

Quick puzzle: which one of these builds - http://strategy.diabloii.net/ - is the "obvious one best" that beats all others and we'd have to be idiots not to see that? They've got 4 listed under Barbarian, so it must be one of those 4, for sure! Which one though? Should be easy and obvious, I hope. Why don't I excerpt a bit from one, so we can see how obvious and simple weapon choice is, even if maybe armor is a little more complex:


Your most important items saved for last. There are many weapons to choose from amongst one-handed swords, axes, maces, scepters, and two-handed swords. Only a few most notable weapons will be mentioned.

Azurewrath: LADDER ONLY-The high speed and immense magic damage make this an excellent weapon but the physical damage is low, it excels at killing high resist enemies like Diablo Clone.
Death Cleaver: LADDER ONLY-High damage, good speed, and oodles of deadly strike make this a tempting weapon.
Schaefer's Hammer: Not the fastest weapon, but good IAS gear will compliment its excellent damage and 20% chance to cast static. Static, AR, and lightning resist make this an excellent weapon and a top-notch boss killer.
Stormlash: Take the high damage and static of Schaefers, speed it up, and add crushing blow and you have yourself quite a weapon.
Beast: Ber Tir Um Mal Lum-Transforming into a bear is of no use to a frenzy barb but, Fanaticism, Open Wounds, Crushing Blow, Prevent Monster Heal, and a healthy strength bonus make this an excellent weapon that can be used in tandem with a slower weapon to speed things up with Fanaticism.
Breath of the Dying: Vex Hel El Eld Zod Eth- An expensive and popular weapon, 350-400%ED and 60%IAS along with +30 all attributes, dual leach, and PMH make for an absolutely ridiculous weapon.
Crescent Moon: Shael Um Tir- A cheaper alternative to Stormlash and Schaefers, this runeword gives 7% chance to cast static field and a solid 180-220% enhanced damage and will work in Swords or Axes.

There are many, many other quality weapons to choose from. When making your selection focus first on damage and speed, then look for AR and life steal. The more useful mods on your weapon, the more flexibility with the rest of your equipment.


Yeah. Obviously damage is the only consideration, and there is one clear choice.

[papillon]

Are you serious? Is it not obvious which weapons and upgrades are the best?


No. For a normal human being, it is NOT obvious whether

Shiny Sword of Slicing
+ 10% Dex
+ 1 Holy Damage
+ 10% Attack Speed
- 5% Mana
+ 1 Critical Strike Skill

is innately superior to

Glowing Sword of Defense
+ 10% Armor
2 Damage Reflected To Enemy
+ 20% Movement Speed
- 1 Str
- 10% Fire Resistance
+ 1 Dodge Skill

Now, depending on how many modifiers they are and which kind they are, it MAY be obvious to you which one best suits your style. But downright, clearly better, to the point that choosing anything else is purposefully handicapping myself? No.

Obviously, I just made the above numbers up, so analyzing them in great detail isn't very relevant. The point is, there can be a LOT of pluses and minuses, and you generally end up having to make tradeoffs and at least some decision about whether to keep or trade your current equipment. Which is not the same as the scenario you originally presented, where there is only one kind of weapon your character can use, and in each town there is a new version of that weapon which is clearly and obviously superior to the old one, so you have to get it.

That happens in Japanese console RPGs, and it's BORING. Every town, the Hero gets a new sword, the Girl gets a new bow, the Musclebound Lunk gets a new axe, and so on and so forth, and almost no item of equipment can be used by multiple characters...

That's why we were protesting, I believe. Because while that gameplay exists, it doesn't cover all games marked RPG.

[soniCron]

Those are all considerations that someone playing a barbarian - the most basic, physically strongest class in the game - has to consider to SURVIVE in Nightmare and Hell modes (you could probably get through Normal without so much consideration, but you would definitely have to put some thought at the very least into Attack Rating, Health, and Defense in addition to your damage). Ack! I guess that's my fault then. Playing it on "Normal." Silly me for assuming what happens in "Normal" was normal.

EDIT:Guess that'll teach me to talk back to a couple Diablo fiends. ;)

[merovingian]

I loved Diablo and Diablo 2. That having been said, I've heard Planescape Torment is quite good. However, when I played Knights of the Old Republic, my suspension of disbelief plunged into the abyss the minute light sabers were revealed to be no more than happy-go-lucky stunsticks as opposed to the limb-severing death weapons from the movies.

So what would make me play an RPG again? You'd have to start with everything Diablo 2 did right and expand upon it. It was a near-perfect mix of the urge to kill and the urge to shop. As an aside, that mentality should be extended to other genres (ya know, like those space-trading Elite remakes that no one plays but seem to keep trickling out the door).

GTA 3 caught my attention for its ability to let one do one's own thing in the game world. Stealing cool sets of wheels really made my day for well, a day or so. But I think it suffers from difficult to discern goals at times. And the world just seems cold after a while

So in closing, mix Diablo 2 with GTA and I might just get hooked. Has anyone managed this yet?

[Christian]

And why to make an RPG in the first place?!?

Think about this, the RPG where born as a way of having a "virtual" adventure. All those numbers are a way of controlling the things that happen in the adventure, the people playing those rpgs need to know those numbers in order to play since there is nothing else to look at!...now, i dont know why exactly someone copied that same system to a computer, but, it has no sense, because it is taken to a medium and treated as if it still where in the same medium than before, that is, outside the computer (speaking in the game design context).

I mean, what is the purpose of having all those numbers? all those weapons??? all those skills??? all those character traits??? isnt it to have an accion adventure in a virtual world?? then, why to use the same system used in pen and paper with the amazing power that a computer ofers us?.

We can get away from the traditional RPG only if we think about our real objectives.

Is it to play "as if i where a..."???, then, just simply analize the fun parts of it, and reproduce them in the computer.

Is it to make an interactive story???, then make a story, and an interactive way of advancing through that story.

Is it exploration??, is it to make an ego booster??? (that is, you on a game, that grows up in power), is it to make management decitions?? is it a mix of them???, just think on your real objectives, the objectives of the play, what do you want the player to feel like, and then you can make a design to achieve those objectives.

Lets make an RPG!, lets make an RTS!, thats called CLONING, its remaking Age of Empires, Dune, Worldcraft, Baldurs Grate, Final Fantasy, etc, etc...

[Ricardo C]

Think about this, the RPG where born as a way of having a "virtual" adventure. All those numbers are a way of controlling the things that happen in the adventure, the people playing those rpgs need to know those numbers in order to play since there is nothing else to look at!...now, i dont know why exactly someone copied that same system to a computer, but, it has no sense, because it is taken to a medium and treated as if it still where in the same medium than before, that is, outside the computer (speaking in the game design context).

You know, in ''The Joy of Computing'', Peter Laurie famously called the GUI a step back for computers, a mere novelty, claiming that providing users with a visual anchor to a familiar environment was not the answer. According to him, computers were a new medium (the book came out in the early 80s) and so users needed to get used to doing things in a new way. As you can see, to say he was ''dead wrong'' would be an understatement ;)

That said, I can definitely sympathize with your argument, having played my share of games where the immersion factor is hampered by excessive focus on stats and crude logic. But you can only take the stat goodness out of my M&M collection over my dead, looted body :D

[Hamumu]

Oh, my mistake - I left out a key piece of information in my previous post. Please allow me to amend:


(you could probably get through Normal without so much consideration, but you would definitely have to put some thought at the very least into Attack Rating, Health, and Defense in addition to your damage).

is not equal to

1. Select character/race of supremely strong, melee combat man (ie. barbarian).
2. Upgrade your "melee combat" modifier each level.
3. Sell all collected items except most powerful sword/mace/axe you can use.
4. If you can afford to buy the most powerful sword/mace/axe, buy it, otherwise wait.
5. Goto 2.

Interestingly, there isn't a single hackfest RPG I've played (and I've played a lot) that can't be simplified to this.


and while I'm clarifying such complex matters, I'll also add that:


Azurewrath: LADDER ONLY-The high speed and immense magic damage make this an excellent weapon but the physical damage is low, it excels at killing high resist enemies like Diablo Clone.
Death Cleaver: LADDER ONLY-High damage, good speed, and oodles of deadly strike make this a tempting weapon.
Schaefer's Hammer: Not the fastest weapon, but good IAS gear will compliment its excellent damage and 20% chance to cast static. Static, AR, and lightning resist make this an excellent weapon and a top-notch boss killer.
(etc etc)

is not equal to

You're not stuck between an item with +10 HP, -10 MP and an item with -10 HP, +10 MP. Your class usually has one kind of weapon you can use, and one is always better than another.

[C.S.Brewer]

nicely said Christian, I think that the idea of sticking to a genre is hammered into people's heads. Most of the books I've read, some that I value and respect quite highly, always talk about knowing your audience and what they want and playing to it, with maybe a wee bit of inovation. Good advice for making money? yes! Cure for stagnation in games? no!

but it does seem that the industry as a whole is interested in pushing genres barier / mixing and experimenting more lately. maybe a rennaisance is coming :)

[soniCron]

Oh, my mistake - I left out a key piece of information in my previous post. Are you still on this? ;)

[Nexic]

Ack! I guess that's my fault then. Playing it on "Normal." Silly me for assuming what happens in "Normal" was normal.

EDIT:Guess that'll teach me to talk back to a couple Diablo fiends.


Well if you only play Diablo II on normal then you obviously aren't a fan in any way shape or form. The fact is that Diablo is easy peasy to complete in normal, because its the first and easiest game mode. Completing the game on normal isn't really completing the game at all. In that mode, choosing the barbarian, and always selecting the highest damage sword will always get you through the game. But when you get to nightmare and hell, you will realise that it is much much harder than that.

For those who don't know, normal, nightmare and hell are not skill levels you choose at the start of the game. You always start on normal, and then when you complete normal you got to nightmare (using the same character with the same level) and so on. So when you complete normal you will probably be level 30 ish with fairly weak weapons, but by the time you complete hell you will be around level 80 with the very best and most intersting items.

For example, in Nightmare and Hell there are many enemies completely immune to physical damage. In this situation a barbarian would find it incredibly hard to progress through that portion of the game without changing his tactics. This would mean either investing skill points in a magic based attack, like beserk or changing weapons to something with high elemental damage. All characters face these kinds of difficulties as no matter what attack you use, there will be something immune to it.

Then there are situations where you have 'lightning enchanted' monsters. When you hit them eletric sparks fly out and damage you. In the early a barbarian can cut these down without really noticing this, but in later stages a barbarian whilrwinding through of group of these enemies will die. So will again, have to find other ways to deal with them. There are also enemies that cast iron maiden, which means any physical damage the character deals will be returned back to them 3 fold.


And there are hundreds of other examples of this kind of situation where thought is needed, and it applies to all character types, whether you be an ice sorceress, a fist of heavens paladin or a poison necromancer.

This kind of thing is true in most RPGs. Near the start of the game thinking isn't needed much, but as you get further using tactics is very important. If you fire up an rpg, play only for a little bit, get bored and quit, then you obviously aren't going to exposed to the most intersting parts of the game. It's not the developer's fault, because the early game has to be simple, or they will kill of a large portion of their audience immediately. Games such as Final Fantasy get around this with strong storylines, so the lack of tactics doesn't leave the game bland.

I like all kinds of RPG, but my favourites are the ones with really good stories, such as Final Fantasy. I do enjoy the american, D&D style, but the stories are so weak and similar to one another that finding a good one is always hard.

So my remedy for RPGs is to make more games like Final Fantasy.

P.S Final Fantasy rocks :)

[soniCron]

Well if you only play Diablo II on normal then you obviously aren't a fan in any way shape or form... Completing the game on normal isn't really completing the game at all. Ooooh. See, when I get to the point in the game where they want me to start over again, I usually assume it's a cheap trick to artificially extend the life of the game and quit playing. And shame on me for thinking so. I bet I'm the only one.

[svero]

Now i feel like playing diablo 2 again... Is it sold online as a download anywhere?

- S

[soniCron]

Now i feel like playing diablo 2 again... Is it sold online as a download anywhere? LOL! :D I'm in the same boat. Haven't found anywhere yet, and I've been looking for a couple hours. May have to resort to hard copy. :(

[papillon]

I'm not sure I ever went through hell on d2 myself - but that's mostly because I'm a WUSS. :) (And I never did buy the expansion pack - when it came out there were rumors it included some horrible spyware thing and I spurned it. Since I only need the expansion it's probably simplest to pick it up on ebay... but not till I'm done with Kishi Kawaii, I have enough distractions already.)

[Nexic]

Ooooh. See, when I get to the point in the game where they want me to start over again, I usually assume it's a cheap trick to artificially extend the life of the game and quit playing. And shame on me for thinking so. I bet I'm the only one.

Your powers of sarcasm are weak old man....

Anyhow, it certainly isn't a cheap trick, it really does have tons more game play, as you probably infered from my post.

[Ska Software]

Diablo II is the game developer's natural enemy, in that All Your Time Are Belong To Us manner.

[Sysiphus]

yup, I worked in making one very like that in certain company. We made it but we almost disappeared as human beings(VERY small staff).

[soniCron]

Your powers of sarcasm are weak old man....

Anyhow, it certainly isn't a cheap trick, it really does have tons more game play, as you probably infered from my post. Hahah! :D Well, you've talked me into it! I'm hoping the Diablo Battle Chest will arrive at my home from Amazon.com tomorrow. ;)

[impossible]

So in closing, mix Diablo 2 with GTA and I might just get hooked. Has anyone managed this yet?
Closest thing would be the Elderscrolls games (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion.) Elderscrolls games have some serious balance and pacing issues though, so in that sense its very different from Diablo. It is very GTA like in the sense that you can do whatever you want to in a virtual world.

[gcarlton]

Interestingly, there isn't a single hackfest RPG I've played (and I've played a lot) that can't be simplified to this.

You've hit on something here! The incorrectness of this statement is what makes D2 so much better than many others (such as Balders Gate for xbox). In that game, every item had a single defining number. Wow, I got a +15 sword instead of a +10. Big deal! In the future, I may even be surprised by finding a +20.

In D2, the choices very much depend upon other equipment, and those other pieces of course depend on all the others.. and so on.

As an example, consider the magic resistances. Its good to have plenty, and vitally important to have some. If I pick up a sword with 20% cold resistance, I would consider it very valuable. However, if I have boots of 15% cold resistance already, I could do without the sword. But then, I could take the sword, ditch the boots and try for new ones. The boots also have hit recovery.. hmm, well I could socket a hat to get some hit recovery to compensate...

The depth of this system is amazing, as it depends not only on every piece of equipment you wear or own, but also on what you are betting for the future.

Note: Damn, now I want to play D2. Need to stop these threads.

[Pyabo]

Note: Damn, now I want to play D2. Need to stop these threads.

Ha... I already went trolling on eBay for a copy of D2 Battlechest. :)

[Pyabo]

Would chess still be strategic if one of the players has the option of starting with 4 queens?

That is an inspiring question.

Have you ever played the chess variant where you hide each player's half, and then you can rearrange your pieces however you want before the game starts?

What if you had a certain number of points to buy pieces... and you could buy any combination you wanted up to that total. So you could go with 4 queens, or standard assortment, or 2 queens, 2 rooks, and a crapload of pawns... Hmmmm.

I would have to say that yes, this game could certainly be strategic. :)

[Nauris]

There`s actually lots of interesting chess "subversions" and they are not less interesting. I remember my highschool years playing religiously an interesting version of chess that requires 4 players and 2 boards- you play as a team of 2 against 2, all the enemy pieces your partner "kills" become yours.
Great fun, great fun. Often you have to play keeping in mind your partner`s immediate needs for a particular piece, also, there`s no really "attrition" factor, you have to come up with very elaborate schemes to win on a crowded board.

[ManuelMarino]

I think THE RPG will be Oblivion. It will create new standards in computer role play games...

[dima]

RPG is all about taking on a role or a character and pretending you are it. Leveling up is alot of fun as it introduces short term goals and rewards. Diablo 2 could not have been the same without leveling up. On the other hand, games like Zelda are also awesome, but they go by without a leveling system, though the character still gets stronger and gets better items. To me, they are all Adventure/RPGs, as long as there is a character you control, that's role playing. So yeah, Diablo and Zelda are obviously my favorites. Diablo for the leveling and cool items, Zelda for the puzzles, beutiful worlds, and tons upon tons of little things to do.

How about Warcraft 3 customs? DOTA is one of my favorites, it's like a mini RPG with leveling and cool items, at the same time it's direct competition and quick games that leave you satisfied. I love how War3 looks and plays, and I wouldn't mind if Diablo 3 was based on a similar gameplay, where there are tons of different heros and I can hire/summon units to control just like in Warcraft.

In the end, it's all about either feeling like a complete rapist/asskicker or enjoying the deep and detailed world. Diablo is all about feeling kick ass, get better loot and rape all things. Zelda is more about the world and story, although the gameplay is one of my favorites ever, love the puzzles and each item has a purpose.

[whisperstorm]

One of my favorite "RPG"'s is Adventure Quest (http://www.battleon.com) -- sure it's brainless fun with basically nothing but monster bashing. However even with the little bit of storyline that they have added recently it really makes for a fun little game -- especially if you only have 30 mins here and there. But I agree with the earlier comments. Many times I play an RPG purely to find out "what's next" or "what's over the hill". Exploration is really a primary source of "fun" for me. However the thrill of attaining a new level which allows you to do some new kind of thing, like being able to fly, or wack your opponent with a new spell is very entertaining as well. One of the harder to define qualities of an RPG I've found immensely fun is when you've gone from just sorta thrashing around to when you "got it". You know the game well enough to start doing combinations of moves or combinations of actions which are somewhat "emergent". That is really the "ultimate" thrill -- at least for me. Where you have learned the game well enough to try "higher order" strategies. That's when you actually learn if the game you have is a really great game vs. merely a good game...

That said -- I'd give a lot for a game that is casual oriented like AdventureQuest or Fate, but had much more of an exploration orientation. Not purely exploration -- like say a MUD, but one that gives you a sense of great things unfolding and you are in the thick of it.