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1  RPG / RPG Design / Re: High skill/stat levels on: April 15, 2010, 08:01:21 am
High stats are really unrealistic, and I think that instead of trying to keep progressing a single stat to absurd levels meaningful, the better approach may be to actually cap all stats and skills at some point in the normal to high range, and just provide more lateral options.  The idea in an RPG of going from neophyte to the greatest warrior that ever lived is certainly fun, but the challenge scaling required simply makes no sense, leaving us with guards in later towns or dungeons who could single handedly wipe out the entire population of the first few areas of the game.  If a no name guard in the capital city is that strong, then why isn't he out establishing his own kingdom in the starting areas?

Instead, I think that you should start out really unskilled, but become competant relatively quickly (or if the story permits, such as if you're in the military, you should start out competent) and at best you should be able to become just slightly stronger.  Let progression come by learning new moves and tricks that are not overpowering, but that when used in combination allow you to easily beat a less skilled or experienced opponent.  To me, that seems much more like the real world, and it has to bonus of making combat more interactive as the game progresses, as opposed to most games where by the end you are so strong that tactics matter less.  I think Vogel's system described above is on the right track, but I would take away the numeric skill requirements entirely, and have skills be unlocked just by picking up more baseline skills.  

I know some people might not like this idea, because it takes away the diablo carrot and stick game, but I think a system like this is just more realistic, and epeen aside, it could be more satisfying as planning and tactics are never replaced by having a high enough critical range to destroy every enemy in a single hit.  The other problem with this system is that a player will be paralyzed by having so many options to pick, but that is just a matter of differentiation, and of making sure that new powers are different, instead of just being stronger than older moves.
2  RPG / The Depository / Re: Alpha Protocol design interview with Chris Avellone & Co on: April 13, 2010, 09:43:16 am
People were more forgiving in 96, less opinionated. No internetz, forums, younger audience and fresher, unexplored game mechanics, that kind of jazz I suppose.

I've seen plenty of complains on morrowind for that kind of missing.

If I'm being honest, the comabt in Daggerfall and Ultima Underworld does feel less like RPG combat than in tile based games, because I have to aim.  But the complaint about Morrowind was very prevalent, which is why they dropped "to hit" in Oblivion in favor of the same system SoW is using.  While that may be fine for some people, the difference between having a "to hit" roll in morrowind and not having one in Oblivion was the difference between tolerating the combat in the former and not even being able to play the latter.  I don't even have the desire to play Mass Effect 2 because they moved the combat from skill sized reticle based to straight up fps.  If I want to play an FPS, then I'll play a game made by a team that knows how to make one, and that goes for hand to hand combat as well.  Why play Oblivion when even Hexen has combat that is so much more enjoyable?
3  RPG / The Depository / Re: Alpha Protocol design interview with Chris Avellone & Co on: April 13, 2010, 07:41:53 am
Usually if you miss with a sword and it looks OK, it's because you aren't directly controlling the sword. Missing with a gun works the same way. If you are controlling the sword and miss, then it's confusing whether it's because your swing was bad or the roll was bad, see Morrowind.

This is exactly the point.  It makes no difference if you are using a gun or a sword.  Noone complains about missing with a bow in BG, or about missing with a gun in syndicate, because your only role is indicating who the character should aim at.  Once you move to first person, you are asking the player to actually take the extra step of aiming, which makes it seem like the player and not the character is aiming.  Since the player has now aimed, they get upset if their "correct" aim is then ignored by the system.

Even in a third person game like kotor or DA (played over the shoulder) players won't complain about missing, because they are only selecting targets, not aiming at them.  Personally, I prefer my rpgs to be games where I just select the target, and I think the problem we are seeing now is not one inherent to or even related to traditional RPG mechanics.  The problem is that developers are moving away from rpg mechanics to action game mechanics, and in the same way that someone who enjoys chess would not want to play turn based football, even dedicated RPG fans may not want to play stat based action games.
4  RPG / RPG Discussion / Re: My Fallout 3 adventures! on: November 06, 2008, 12:03:16 pm

oblivion had the framework for a great game. it had an expansive, painstakingly detailed world with an entire mythology filled out. up until fallout 3, i'd never seen a game with more detail put into every town and every location on the map. the level up system was weird, but the idea of improving skills by using them was a refreshing change, and way less arbitrary than assigning points at a level up. add to that custom crafting, tons of unique items, multiple guilds, etc. it had a lot of potential. the other things you mentioned are what made it so terrible, and trivialized all of its strengths.

As Vince said, all these features were sad imitations of older, deeper games.  The mythology was not created for Oblivion.  It existed from prior TES games, and even most of the books in Oblivion are from older TES games.   If anything, Oblivion had the least fleshed out environment, because they chose the most generic high fantasy part of their world for the game.  I never played Arena, but Daggerfall and Morrowind had much more interesting and deeper locales.

The detail of the world was extremely low compared to most RPGs, and much lower than Morrowind.  Oblivion's world was made up of a relatively small number of generic building and cave models.  The detail level was a huge step down for Bethesda.

The leveling system has been in all TES games (and as Vince mentioned, in other games too).  Oblivion's leveling system was the least robust of all TES games, because it had the smallest number of skills.

There were fewer unique items in Oblivion than most rpgs, and certainly fewer than in Morrowind.  Even bandits are wearing the "rarest" armor by the end of the game.

The guilds were probably the low point of Oblivion.  While prior TES games actually made you choose factions, and closed off others as a result, Oblivion let you be the leader of every faction no matter what your character build was. 

I can understand what you said in your original post now, because it is clear that you never played other TES games, and have not played that many RPGs in general.  There are plenty of good ideas in Oblivion, but none of them originated with Oblivion, so it is incorrect to attribute the potential of those features to Oblivion's framework.  A more accurate statement would be "Bethesda's TES has presented some interesting idea for RPGs with varying levels of success over the years.  FO3 presents these ideas in a much better light than Oblivion did."
5  RPG / RPG Discussion / Re: Formative Experiances on: November 05, 2008, 11:06:42 pm
The first PC rpg I ever played was Eye of the Beholder 1.  I was in 4th grade at the time, and just generating the characters (and trying to get the best stats I could) was enough to get me hooked.  I had no familiarity with AD&D at the time, and didn't have the manual (the game was installed on my computer when I got it, along with Civilization) so I made some mistake like thinking I had to keep my dexterity low so that my AC would stay high.  EOB really did set the stage for my future rpg experiences, and ever since that game I always spend way too much time trying to optimize my characters.  I still have the manual from the (vastly inferior) EOB3.

My first turn based rpg was darksun: shattered lands, which really blew me away, and sucked countless hours from my youth.   One of my fondest gaming memories is spamming web and entangle during hard fights and then picking the immobilized enemies off with ranged fire.  Its a shame those spells are never useful anymore.  Darklands later introduced me to choices and consequences.  What an amazing game.
6  RPG / RPG Discussion / Re: My Fallout 3 adventures! on: November 05, 2008, 03:55:12 pm
FO3 is like a much better Oblivion. if you hated everything about oblivion, you will hate fallout.  if you thought oblivion had good ideas that were poorly executed, you may enjoy fallout.

I don't mean to sound like a dick, and certainly don't want to derail the thread, but what ideas exactly could someone see in Oblivion?  This is a serious question, because it seems to me like Oblivion objectively has no value as an RPG, as compared to better games made by better developers and even in comparison to Bethesda's prior works. 

The removal of stats from the game by getting rid of the to hit roll?  The exploration of bland generic prefab dungeons?  Morrowind had some mechanics in it that worked well enough (and were real improvements over Daggerfall), then Oblivion removed or ruined them.  Was anything other than level scaling, full voiced dialog, and the awful dialog minigames added?

The only reason I'm even looking at FO3 is that they rolled back the changes made from Morrowind to Oblivion (to hit roll is back, no dialog mini game, limited level scaling).  Is that not entirely true?
7  RPG / RPG Discussion / Re: Fallout 3 - The Beautiful Wasteland on: November 05, 2008, 03:10:12 pm
The female character model looks much better than the male one.  Too bad I hate playing games as a girl.
8  RPG / RPG Discussion / Re: My Fallout 3 adventures! on: November 05, 2008, 03:08:39 pm
Quote
Does Fallout 3 bring forth something that stands head and shoulders above other RPG and RPG-like products?  I would much rather play a deeply flawed game with something it greatly excels at than a polished, but generic game.
I'll ask you again, do you like sandbox RPG? Are you one of those people who think that Daggerfall is a top 10 RPG?


Is this game really only for fans of sandbox games?  Because I can't stand Daggerfall, only enjoyed Morrowind for about 30 hours, and thought Oblivion was about as bad as games (not RPGs, games in general) get.  I actually liked Mass Effect much more than I thought I would (the dialog system is terrible and the side quests are the worst I've ever seen, but combat outside the stupid tank was fun).  Do you think I could enjoy FO3, or should I just play the STALKER games for my post apocolyptic fix?  I've actually played and hated the vault.  Is it worth continuing?  Thanks.
9  RPG / The Depository / Re: Non-Combat Gameplay: Myths & Reality on: April 11, 2008, 09:30:32 am
When I said random, all I really meant was the choice made at the end (and some other specified portion) of the stat based decision tree.  Basically, at every step where what I called a "random" decision needs to be made, the system will generate an answer using an equation that factors in NPC stats, location, and the number of times that particular answer has been made, to avoid repetition.  So if there are 500 possible goal items some will be eliminated based on what the guard's stats are, so he can't get the pink tutu but it likely to get the dagger, drinks, or money.  Maybe this guard lives in a very pious town though, so the drinks are eliminated too, and the quest start for money will skew towards an option like needing it for a sick kid, vs to pay off gambling debt.  The only reason that I used the word random to describe this process is that you can't have it entirely determined by stats, otherwise you'll get the same outcome every time in any given situation, which kills replay.
10  RPG / The Depository / Re: Non-Combat Gameplay: Myths & Reality on: April 08, 2008, 01:31:50 pm
I haven't read the entire thread that closely, but I wanted to weigh in on the problem of developer time and procedurally generated dialog.

The way that I see it, there is no reason that 90% of the dialog in a game which offers viable non-combat options can't be procedurally generated.  The system I propose would involve assigning "dialog stats" and "quest stats" to NPCs, in the same way that combat stats are assigned now.  Essentially, dialog stats will determine how hard it is to convince an NPC of something (think of how the player's  Strength and the NPC's Defense are used in combat).  Quest stats will be fields allowing for randomly chosen desires/fears/motivations to be assigned to each NPC.  An example is the easiest way to demonstrate.

Player wants to get past the gate.  The gate has a guard.  The player has three immediate options:  1)  attack the guard, 2) hide until either the guard says something to himself, talks to someone else, or in some other way gives a clue about motivation (success is based on stealth ability), or 3) go talk to the guard.
When you talk to the guard, you will have a randomly selected set of options, including trying to bribe him, trick him into letting you pass, or intimidate him/appeal to authority.  With a sufficient skill check, you can succeed at any of these, but the skill checks are so high, that you will only succeed if you really outclass him, much like how you can one shot kill rad scorpions later in fallout, because you're so much stronger than them.  You will also always have some sort of small talk/feel out the situation option, the purpose of which is finding out the guard's motivation.  So he may say "I can't be bothered by you now, I'm looking for my lost dagger" or "You can't come in here.  Don't like it?  Tough, I don't like that I forgot my lunch either."  Better writers than me could obviously craft better options.  The key is that all of these possible lines are procedurally generated, so that no two guards will say the exact same thing twice.  The more frameworks, and objects included, the lower the chance dialog which just feels repetitive.

The real aim of the encounter is to obtain some information, either by overhearing, or asking.  In addition, once you initiate the fact finding with the guard, randomly generated NPC's could be placed on a bench talking about a problem the guard is having, or something similiar.  So, armed with knowledge about what the guard wants/fears, you have to set out to find it.  This will be accomplished by randomly generating NPCs who either have the item the guard wants, know a secret about the guard you could black mail him with, etc.  Ideally,  either multiple NPC's, each with a different possible "key" to pass the guard are generated, or multiple existing NPC's have the keys and accompanying random dialog assigned to them.  Of course, these NPC's probably won't just give the item/information up, and they will each have something THEY want.  Again, randomly generated.  In this way, an entire bargaining chain resulting in getting the key to get past the guard has been procedurally generated. 

Of course, it doesn't have to stop at bargaining.  Maybe Farmer Bob won't give you his sandwich unless you get revenge for stealing his pig/having sex with his daughter/building his fence on Bob's property.  So you have to go to the person Bob designates and work out a solution.  Of course, for a non-violent resolution to that, you'll probably have to do a favor for this person too.  This could result in a pretty interesting and unique quest line to get into the castle, and none of it has been custom made.

The key to this whole system is to have a large selection of possible tasks, each with multiple frameworks for the introductory language (since having a randomly picked dialog choice with randomly filled in information will keep things feeling more unique and less procedurally generated) and each with a variety of randomly chosen solutions.  Since we don't want to eliminate combat from the game entirely, we could even have randomly generated combat encounters like saving a daughter from kidnappers or recovering a stolen item from a local street tough thrown in.  Of course, even these encounters could have randomly generated non combat solutions (maybe sometimes the street tough's gang can be turned against him, and sometimes he's standing below a window you could push a flower pot out of to knock him out).

Another important point is that each of these randomly generated quest lines will actually have different possible solutions.  So maybe you don't have the skill set to complete the line for the sandwich, but you do have the skills to get the information to blackmail the guard.  A wide variety of stats could be incorporated into these randomly generated quest lines, to make sure that every skill in the game is actually useful.  When you get to short circuit the entire quest line because you have a high enough medicine skill to cure the sick kid instead of having to barter for the drugs, you'll really feel like you're character is interacting with the world, instead of ignoring his own skill set just because the linear quest design doesn't permit him to remember that he's the chief of surgery.  And unlike with conventional games, no hand written events are skipped by using skills as a short cut, so you don't have to worry about missing content.

I know this is all rough, and maybe a little bit confusing, but I think there is real merit here.  While implementing these random quest fragments is more time consuming than throwing together filler combat, the return on investment is MUCH better than time spent hand crafting dialog.  I think this system is preferable to abstract persuasion too, because it allows the player to use diplomacy in the same way for random encounters as key story dialogs, much like how a combat character uses the same combat engine to fight 30 rats as the king of the trolls.  I'd love to hear what people think of this idea.
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