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Posts
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
LockeZ
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Closeauthor=Snodgrass
Um...no that's not my premise. I just brought up because that's the common strategy in many rpg games and many rpgs break if you try to get past that which is why the genre became bland and cheap
What do you mean by "break" and what do you mean by "get past that"?
author=Snodgrass
In most rpgs, there's no such thing as mastering those roles simply because those roles are cheap designs and also because they are closer to the cheap designs of earlier games when things such as choice and consequences were slim.
What do you mean by "cheap designs"? What do you mean by "closer to the cheap designs of earlier games"? Have you ever actually played a game where choice and consequences didn't matter? (If you did, I would like to suggest that maybe you were actually watching a movie and not playing a game)
And stop with the analogies, please? I don't need you to make an analogy to chess or sports or fighting games. I am hundreds of times more familiar with RPGs than I am with any of those things.
Break as in such stupid things like say a character who knows heal changing classes and in turn forgetting to heal even if he should know how to or such instances where say a character should fit a certain class if only one of their companions would train them and share their armor with them but because the design is cheap, you're sort of put in a world where snowflake #1 is snowflake #1 simply because the game designer says he should and the game designer is sometimes doing so in the name of balance so sometimes you end up with a character who's script is supposed to be that he's so powerful and confident that the opposing boss is a joke but then the difficulty doesn't match that in combat just so the designer and the player can feel there was fake meaning to the challenge.
As far as the analogy to chess, I didn't raise that. Someone else did. Sports...it's just unavoidable. Some of the deeper combat videogames have more semblance with sports take the gladiator fights in Mage Duel Extreme compared to your average Rpg Maker game. I'm not familiar with many Rpg Maker games though so I'm not saying this is the best, just one of the deeper ones that I've encountered.
Cheap designs are relative to what isn't cheap design but let's say your average SNES level rpg is using cheap design. Closer to cheap designs is simply the idea that a character is born to be played a certain style because of design.
It's worse if it's very traditional level up style of fighting.
The difficulty in narrowing cheap designs is that it can be dependent on the depth of the topic and both our familiarity with what games we know.
You can insert SOL for example because you know SOL. Because of that knowledge, you can have a standard of what's common and what's "cheap" about the common designs and what interesting aspects the unorthodox design does.
In this case, as far as the initial topic, cheap is this traditional expectation of easy->normal->hard curve (or even an end game flat curve) because we're so used to so many games that begin that way and we're so used to this idea that newer players need time to know the world that we fail to actually analyze whether the games are really introducing us to the world or simply giving plot delays and unnecessary bosses that doesn't really teach the players anything except for harder games where it's closer to a puzzle sequence game.
In terms of actual strategy, cheap in the sense that tanks for example are basically "shields for all purposes" and that they are often weak only because of arbitration rather than logic or design quality and they are an extension of past game concepts that never matured or matured only in a semblance of balance not in the name of roleplaying or reality. (Even fantasy reality)
As far as the analogy to chess, I didn't raise that. Someone else did. Sports...it's just unavoidable. Some of the deeper combat videogames have more semblance with sports take the gladiator fights in Mage Duel Extreme compared to your average Rpg Maker game. I'm not familiar with many Rpg Maker games though so I'm not saying this is the best, just one of the deeper ones that I've encountered.
Cheap designs are relative to what isn't cheap design but let's say your average SNES level rpg is using cheap design. Closer to cheap designs is simply the idea that a character is born to be played a certain style because of design.
It's worse if it's very traditional level up style of fighting.
The difficulty in narrowing cheap designs is that it can be dependent on the depth of the topic and both our familiarity with what games we know.
You can insert SOL for example because you know SOL. Because of that knowledge, you can have a standard of what's common and what's "cheap" about the common designs and what interesting aspects the unorthodox design does.
In this case, as far as the initial topic, cheap is this traditional expectation of easy->normal->hard curve (or even an end game flat curve) because we're so used to so many games that begin that way and we're so used to this idea that newer players need time to know the world that we fail to actually analyze whether the games are really introducing us to the world or simply giving plot delays and unnecessary bosses that doesn't really teach the players anything except for harder games where it's closer to a puzzle sequence game.
In terms of actual strategy, cheap in the sense that tanks for example are basically "shields for all purposes" and that they are often weak only because of arbitration rather than logic or design quality and they are an extension of past game concepts that never matured or matured only in a semblance of balance not in the name of roleplaying or reality. (Even fantasy reality)
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
It's not that I don't understand the logic behind your ideas, it's that I don't understand what you are saying. That second to last paragraph for example is so far beyond being comprensible that I can't even ask questions about it because I don't know what part to be confused about. Serious question; how much cocaine did you use today?
DFalcon
2141
Disregarding some of the digressions, I think some of what Snodgrass was getting at is:
Difficulty can be used as a tool for generating a feeling that there are many things in the world more dangerous than you. Within the arc of a general RPG, this use tends to be more appropriate early on, when you're nobody really special, rather than later on when you're the next thing to gods. It's also a nice sense of progress to come back and whip somebody who used to intimidate you.
I would emphasize that this usually doesn't lie on the "you must play this well to pass" graph going around earlier. It's avoidable or at least ameliorable stuff: the boss fight where you're expected to lose so it's not a game over, the area you can't easily explore because the enemies there are strong, FOEs in Etrian Odyssey, etc.
This also can be a way of accommodating players who have come close to mastering current battles with their current party, by leaving them a higher-difficulty, higher-reward outlet where they can progress faster.
Difficulty can be used as a tool for generating a feeling that there are many things in the world more dangerous than you. Within the arc of a general RPG, this use tends to be more appropriate early on, when you're nobody really special, rather than later on when you're the next thing to gods. It's also a nice sense of progress to come back and whip somebody who used to intimidate you.
I would emphasize that this usually doesn't lie on the "you must play this well to pass" graph going around earlier. It's avoidable or at least ameliorable stuff: the boss fight where you're expected to lose so it's not a game over, the area you can't easily explore because the enemies there are strong, FOEs in Etrian Odyssey, etc.
This also can be a way of accommodating players who have come close to mastering current battles with their current party, by leaving them a higher-difficulty, higher-reward outlet where they can progress faster.
I'm assuming you meant this:
In this case, as far as the initial topic, cheap is this traditional expectation of easy->normal->hard curve (or even an end game flat curve) because we're so used to so many games that begin that way and we're so used to this idea that newer players need time to know the world that we fail to actually analyze whether the games are really introducing us to the world or simply giving plot delays and unnecessary bosses that doesn't really teach the players anything except for harder games where it's closer to a puzzle sequence game.
In the earliest of videogames, it was rare to have an easy->normal mode.
Of course over time something like balance needs to be made. The allure of games for being games wasn't there as much. There had to be something that makes games more than games.
This was coincidentally the time when story actually mattered thanks to the rpg genre who put the story aspect more to the forefront but was still a game much closer than the image interactive novels and click and point adventure games had and rpgs became a balance of those who love the combat as much as those who love the story. A hybrid that would even be more pronounced with the advent of mainstream English JRPG games thanks to the SNES and PSX.
The SNES made the concept of level ups a stock idea. A traditional concept that was much simplified from the PnP or early sandbox games that would branch off to CRPGs. The PSX made the concept of graphical presentation more pronounced in such games while also introducing the more niche genres like SRPGs and Dungeon Crawlers into a more mainstream concept.
At this stage, game design was limited because the rpg genre had not exploded and medieval themed designs that often stem from a nameless hero slaying a big boss and becoming a legend still prevailed but was often stretched out with cheap roadblocks in order to establish games as games and not just 15 min. boss battles.
That era made famous the traditional cheap design where even popular unorthodox rpgs like Valkyrie Profile, Xenogears and Legend of Legaia still took a backseat to the general basic concept of a SNES rpg. Even mainstream titles like Final Fantasy VIII's system was rarely fully explored and attempts to combine a SNES themed rpg still prevail in most RP Maker games.
Even the basic RP Maker interface despite several renditions is still rooted closely to the Dragon Quest style of games on the SNES. There's nothing bad about that which is why I call it cheap rather than bad. It's also not outdated.
At this point, I still don't see what's so complicated that you don't know what part to be confused. I'm not even sure if that's possible.
Times have changed though.
The depths of roleplaying has changed. The methods of implementing difficulties more varied from game to game.
It is now possible today to have an rpg that is difficult in the beginning but no longer impossible or rogue-like and deliver a much richer, much more meaningful and ultimately much more educational and suspenseful design than the older types of difficult games as well as the older types of easy-normal-difficult curve games.
The examples are also varied enough that it is possible to call these concepts cheap because certainly it's not just one set of unorthodox games that exist today. It's a myriad of different games that break each mold.
Even without talking about difficulty:
-There are combat systems that allow rock-paper-scissors in a single instance of moves where as in the past, units of armies were necessary.
-There are combat systems where counterspells can be set and it's no longer a your turn after my turn of battle
-There are narratives that allow an opponent/the player to receive a penalty before the combat even happens
-There are combat systems that determine the difficulty based on which class you choose at the beginning
-There are combat systems that are so rich, there's no way an easier time in the beginning can make up the difference.
...the list goes on and on. Generic is no longer optimal, it's simply the most common design. I am just as confused as you are. Believe me I am trying to answer and this topic was asking for each of our opinions. It wasn't like I came here to prove the cheap design wrong. I'm simply explaining my position.
In this case, as far as the initial topic, cheap is this traditional expectation of easy->normal->hard curve (or even an end game flat curve) because we're so used to so many games that begin that way and we're so used to this idea that newer players need time to know the world that we fail to actually analyze whether the games are really introducing us to the world or simply giving plot delays and unnecessary bosses that doesn't really teach the players anything except for harder games where it's closer to a puzzle sequence game.
In the earliest of videogames, it was rare to have an easy->normal mode.
Of course over time something like balance needs to be made. The allure of games for being games wasn't there as much. There had to be something that makes games more than games.
This was coincidentally the time when story actually mattered thanks to the rpg genre who put the story aspect more to the forefront but was still a game much closer than the image interactive novels and click and point adventure games had and rpgs became a balance of those who love the combat as much as those who love the story. A hybrid that would even be more pronounced with the advent of mainstream English JRPG games thanks to the SNES and PSX.
The SNES made the concept of level ups a stock idea. A traditional concept that was much simplified from the PnP or early sandbox games that would branch off to CRPGs. The PSX made the concept of graphical presentation more pronounced in such games while also introducing the more niche genres like SRPGs and Dungeon Crawlers into a more mainstream concept.
At this stage, game design was limited because the rpg genre had not exploded and medieval themed designs that often stem from a nameless hero slaying a big boss and becoming a legend still prevailed but was often stretched out with cheap roadblocks in order to establish games as games and not just 15 min. boss battles.
That era made famous the traditional cheap design where even popular unorthodox rpgs like Valkyrie Profile, Xenogears and Legend of Legaia still took a backseat to the general basic concept of a SNES rpg. Even mainstream titles like Final Fantasy VIII's system was rarely fully explored and attempts to combine a SNES themed rpg still prevail in most RP Maker games.
Even the basic RP Maker interface despite several renditions is still rooted closely to the Dragon Quest style of games on the SNES. There's nothing bad about that which is why I call it cheap rather than bad. It's also not outdated.
At this point, I still don't see what's so complicated that you don't know what part to be confused. I'm not even sure if that's possible.
Times have changed though.
The depths of roleplaying has changed. The methods of implementing difficulties more varied from game to game.
It is now possible today to have an rpg that is difficult in the beginning but no longer impossible or rogue-like and deliver a much richer, much more meaningful and ultimately much more educational and suspenseful design than the older types of difficult games as well as the older types of easy-normal-difficult curve games.
The examples are also varied enough that it is possible to call these concepts cheap because certainly it's not just one set of unorthodox games that exist today. It's a myriad of different games that break each mold.
Even without talking about difficulty:
-There are combat systems that allow rock-paper-scissors in a single instance of moves where as in the past, units of armies were necessary.
-There are combat systems where counterspells can be set and it's no longer a your turn after my turn of battle
-There are narratives that allow an opponent/the player to receive a penalty before the combat even happens
-There are combat systems that determine the difficulty based on which class you choose at the beginning
-There are combat systems that are so rich, there's no way an easier time in the beginning can make up the difference.
...the list goes on and on. Generic is no longer optimal, it's simply the most common design. I am just as confused as you are. Believe me I am trying to answer and this topic was asking for each of our opinions. It wasn't like I came here to prove the cheap design wrong. I'm simply explaining my position.
author=DFalcon
Disregarding some of the digressions, I think some of what Snodgrass was getting at is:
Difficulty can be used as a tool for generating a feeling that there are many things in the world more dangerous than you. Within the arc of a general RPG, this use tends to be more appropriate early on, when you're nobody really special, rather than later on when you're the next thing to gods. It's also a nice sense of progress to come back and whip somebody who used to intimidate you.
I would emphasize that this usually doesn't lie on the "you must play this well to pass" graph going around earlier. It's avoidable or at least ameliorable stuff: the boss fight where you're expected to lose so it's not a game over, the area you can't easily explore because the enemies there are strong, FOEs in Etrian Odyssey, etc.
This also can be a way of accommodating players who have come close to mastering current battles with their current party, by leaving them a higher-difficulty, higher-reward outlet where they can progress faster.
Yes, that's partly what I meant. As you showed by your examples, it's easy to misinterpret and problematic to just stop at such a simple idea.
I get the sense that part of your example is referring to something like in Valkyrie Profile where you can immediately go to a tough cave that's unrelated to the early chapters. I apologize if this isn't what you mean because I haven't played the games you listed.
Where as I'm talking more about games executed closer to pseudo-rogue-likes.
It's not just the combat that's difficult but the pre-narrative as well as the post-narrative is very delicate.
It's also part of "you must pass" graph. Passing = education. Passing = respect for opponents. Passing = right track to the right build.
...but it's important to emphasize that this doesn't mean just a simple change from "skippable" to "unskippable". If you do that then players get the frustrations used against my reasoning. That's why it's game design and not preference for more hardcore games.
You have to design this in such a way that it becomes one of the catalyst for making your game better and that's why both gameplay and narratives weave together.
A basic mind boggling example of this is again showed in STRPG elite.
It's not quite the perfect game to showcase it but it has some of the most basic designs that it's a better example than something more complicated.
In that game, escaping = xp so passing does not mean beating. This holds true just as much to you as to the opponent.
There's also two ways to win and this is an example of taking an unorthodox system of older games and merging it to a more modern and simple RP Maker level type of game. (though it's not a RP maker game)
It uses the Sid Meier Pirates way of choosing between close range/ship hijaking vs. long range torpedoes.
Because of this mechanic, every ship is beatable so even npc ships require some respect.
It one ups this system by weaving combat to the narrative. By virtue of doing so, there's a huge difference between fetch contract hits as opposed to random battles.
Add that you have to be careful of killing the wrong faction and that your role makes up the difference of choice (as a pirate, it's beneficial to you to become a bandit/as a bounty hunter, it's bad) then the spike in difficulty in the beginning is what gives life and value to every aspect of combat, quest and challenge.
The end result is that the game can be challenging but it can also be easy without needing any "extra" special events for each scenario script to complicate the world thus a world that should be bland and predictable ends up being fresh each and every time until you get bored by the limitations and the repeat sprites.
@LockeZ: To be fair, I made the chess analogy, but in my case you could easily replace chess for "insert game here".
Snodgrass, I find it really hard to follow your train of thought in your posts. I can see that you think some games are too easy for players and I agree, but I'm having a really hard time trying to understand most of what you're saying.
Oh right, the run-on sentences don't help.
My point is that it's unfair and frustrating to kill the player before they know how to play the game, what the right buttons are, or even was HP means. Some games are innate enough where players can pick it up and know all of the rules, but not many. It's not like I think games shouldn't contain challenges.
Snodgrass, I find it really hard to follow your train of thought in your posts. I can see that you think some games are too easy for players and I agree, but I'm having a really hard time trying to understand most of what you're saying.
Oh right, the run-on sentences don't help.
My point is that it's unfair and frustrating to kill the player before they know how to play the game, what the right buttons are, or even was HP means. Some games are innate enough where players can pick it up and know all of the rules, but not many. It's not like I think games shouldn't contain challenges.
Well it depends on which train of thought.
For example, I easily countered your case of "easily replace chess for "insert game here" with Go by showcasing how unlike Chess, there are games where there can only be technically one class of players.
My suspicion though is it's not the sentences that's making it hard to understand but the type of games you may have experienced.
It's very hard to imagine a game that's hard at the beginning until you play a game that's hard at the beginning but where it's not frustrating to get killed. Of course it's a gamble of how much you love the initial game but if you've played a type of game like that, you'd just know it.
Even for rpg maker games I see some designers doing this but because of the system, you don't get the type of last boss and more of a "this is a dangerous beginning" but the potential and the relevant designs are still there.
Typically these types of rpg have a premise where you're not supposed to go to a place. Once you get to a place, you realize your character can barely defeat things and there's at least a 30% chance that if you over-stretch and overgrind without a dozen of potions your character may die.
They are not as good as high spikes that are well designed but given what most of RPG Maker games are made of, they are rarely the horrible Rpg Maker games.
In fact, it's wrong to say I think games are too easy. I'm the opposite of a hardcore gamer. Given a chance, I'd cheat before I would play unless a game can convince me that I'd lose something if I cheat in terms of plot sense and combat meaning.
That's where I think mainly the gap is. The run-on sentences as annoying as they are were there because the counter points you guys raised sometimes demand that. It's not like it's hard to verify my statements. Some of the examples I provide are free flash based games that doesn't take an hour to play to get an idea of. Neither are they so hardcore of a game that you would die time and time again.
...and again you just have to take responsibility for the counterpoints in relation to game design.
If you just say "oh are you on cocaine" or "oh I won't bother with your examples" or "oh I think you are for more challenging games because you think games are easy (even if I didn't say I thought that)" - then you are being irresponsible in the name of game design.
You're taking the route that least leads you to understanding. If a game theorist doesn't follow what a person is saying even after following up - they'd check up on the citations. In this case, I don't even get a sense that any of you tried to play the games I've mentioned. If you did, you certainly haven't mentioned your impressions of it.
I'm not even sure you guys have even tried to install a basic Go program. Go is one of those games where you learn the most from your first capture unlike Chess where you have to wait for an entire board game to finish especially if you don't know the rules.
Even in rpgs it doesn't make sense. How can you know all the rules if you don't know what skills you're about to get at level up? How can you know all the rules from killing slimes? I've played several Rpg Maker VX games where I didn't even know you press Shift to run because the initial ease was there but the games rarely even mention something as basic as player controls. Am I supposed to experiment on my keyboard instead of actually playing a game?
For example, I easily countered your case of "easily replace chess for "insert game here" with Go by showcasing how unlike Chess, there are games where there can only be technically one class of players.
My suspicion though is it's not the sentences that's making it hard to understand but the type of games you may have experienced.
It's very hard to imagine a game that's hard at the beginning until you play a game that's hard at the beginning but where it's not frustrating to get killed. Of course it's a gamble of how much you love the initial game but if you've played a type of game like that, you'd just know it.
Even for rpg maker games I see some designers doing this but because of the system, you don't get the type of last boss and more of a "this is a dangerous beginning" but the potential and the relevant designs are still there.
Typically these types of rpg have a premise where you're not supposed to go to a place. Once you get to a place, you realize your character can barely defeat things and there's at least a 30% chance that if you over-stretch and overgrind without a dozen of potions your character may die.
They are not as good as high spikes that are well designed but given what most of RPG Maker games are made of, they are rarely the horrible Rpg Maker games.
In fact, it's wrong to say I think games are too easy. I'm the opposite of a hardcore gamer. Given a chance, I'd cheat before I would play unless a game can convince me that I'd lose something if I cheat in terms of plot sense and combat meaning.
That's where I think mainly the gap is. The run-on sentences as annoying as they are were there because the counter points you guys raised sometimes demand that. It's not like it's hard to verify my statements. Some of the examples I provide are free flash based games that doesn't take an hour to play to get an idea of. Neither are they so hardcore of a game that you would die time and time again.
...and again you just have to take responsibility for the counterpoints in relation to game design.
If you just say "oh are you on cocaine" or "oh I won't bother with your examples" or "oh I think you are for more challenging games because you think games are easy (even if I didn't say I thought that)" - then you are being irresponsible in the name of game design.
You're taking the route that least leads you to understanding. If a game theorist doesn't follow what a person is saying even after following up - they'd check up on the citations. In this case, I don't even get a sense that any of you tried to play the games I've mentioned. If you did, you certainly haven't mentioned your impressions of it.
I'm not even sure you guys have even tried to install a basic Go program. Go is one of those games where you learn the most from your first capture unlike Chess where you have to wait for an entire board game to finish especially if you don't know the rules.
Even in rpgs it doesn't make sense. How can you know all the rules if you don't know what skills you're about to get at level up? How can you know all the rules from killing slimes? I've played several Rpg Maker VX games where I didn't even know you press Shift to run because the initial ease was there but the games rarely even mention something as basic as player controls. Am I supposed to experiment on my keyboard instead of actually playing a game?
