OVERWHELMING ASPECTS IN RPGS

Posts

Pages: first prev 12 last
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=pianotm
Why do we love Final Fantasy so much when most of our complaints about video games apply to it?

EDIT: Or is that part of "loving something because of its flaws"?


I assume because it was y'all's first RPG back when y'all were dumb innocent babbies.

Having experienced it mostly as an adult, my conclusion has been that the Square and/or Enix game design philosophy is "fuck you, players!"

To be slightly on-topic-- though perhaps "tedious" is a better word then "overwhelming"-- cut scenes where the characters sllloooooowwwwllllly puzzle out a plot detail that the player figured out already, going over each step carefully, as though the writer assumes the player is a concussed puppy. Shit like that just leads to me hammering the "skip" button in hopes that someday I get to play a video game again, rather than read a transcript of "Complete ninnies finally grasping the obvious: Chapter 1 of 20"
Morrowind is much better in figuring out the plot - you can grab Sunder, Keening and Wraithguard and go wreck Dagoth Ur right at the beginning of the game if you already know about them.

Also, the overwhelming linearity in FF13 wouldn't have been too much of a problem on a new IP (I think), since Final Fantasy was always big on open-world exploration (despite a relatively linear plot).

My #1 overwhelming aspect is Genre Parodies. Doubly so if it's related to either anime or JRPGs. This is because the tropes they're trying to parody aren't overused at all (A lot of iconic scenes/ideas in FF7 are things you won't find in other JRPGs, not even in other FFs) or don't even exist to begin with (It took me a lot of looking and found a 2008 anime that's the only one to use overly long attack names without playing it for laughs). Not to mention that the execution of these jokes is completely terrible and always follows the pattern of repeating this very trope and basically saying "Look, ma! A cliché!".

EDIT: I never liked Final Fantasy. However, I appreciate how the games consistently fail to interest me in the same way.
Trihan
"It's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly...timey wimey...stuff."
3359
If you've struggled to find a game or anime that doesn't use overly long attack names without playing it for laughs, you clearly haven't played many games. :P

"Sworn enemies...you shall be defeated! Sky Dragon Slash!" wants a word with you.

Though honestly Cam Clarke is amazing and he can announce overly long attack names as long as he wants and I will GLADLY LISTEN EVERY TIME
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
So the go-to image for making fun of overwhelming interfaces looks is usually this one:



But honestly this is better than 90% of MMORPG interfaces.

Here's a screenshot of Talisman Online, with lines and numbers pointing to various parts of the interface (this screenshot is from their online knowledge base for helping new players)



And here's a screenshot of Rift, with the equipment screen and quest log open.



Seriously what the heck. Nothing about these games justifies the interface being any more complex than, say, Dragon Age, which still has pretty awful menus but at it doesn't look like this when you're fighting. And I think with only a little effort they could reduce the complexity of the menu down to the level of Kingdom Hearts.
Also gotta love World of UIcraft.
To be fair, the UI of WoW is (from what I've heard) easily moddable, so the screen is only as complex as you wanna make it. The default interface is relatively tolerable.
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 bad but it's still not good. I mean most of that info is still there in the default UI, it's just only visible via mouseover tooltips. Is that better? Uh, it lets you see the enemy a lot better, and I guess it's less overwhelming, so I guess it is. But man, to some degree, Blizzard just made a complicated-ass game that requires processing a lot of information. And of course a hundred other MMORPGs have copied their example.

Generally speaking I think the whole "represent each possible action with one permanently-on-screen button" type of combat interface that modern PC RPGs like to use doesn't work so hot when you have 40+ buttons.

I also don't understand what happened to our ability to change what information is on the screen based on context. Surely some of that stuff is only relevant in combat and other stuff is only relevant outside of combat. I remember when Donkey Kong Country came out and one of the things it did that had never been done before in an action game was show info like your number of lives/points/bananas only for a moment when it changed and then hide it. Everyone was like "Whoa this is really smart." And almost all action games have done it ever since. But RPGs, which have vastly more information, have moved in the other direction, taking info out of the menus and putting it permanently on-screen all the time.
I am waiting for an RPG where it's just menus all the time. Visually representing the action on screen with enemies, avatars, and attack animations is just a bothersome distraction anyway!
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
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
thankfully, ffxiv lets you customize the ui freely... but it still needs add-on support for some classes. dragoon and mechanist live and die by their able-to-use-this-skill-now procs, but it's really annoying to check them or watch the states on you while also attacking and dealing with mechanics.
I'll go and say too much freedom (or conversely, lack of limitations). Don't get me wrong, it's great and all that you're allowed play however you want. However, playing around set restrictions just feel far more rewarding. Especially on a strategy-focused genre like RPG's. It's an accomplishment when you manage to 'game' the game; As if you've defeated the enemy by your own 'prowess', your own hands.

Basically, a game is only fun if there are rules. And the fun comes from circumventing, or even breaking these rules to achieve your goal. Unless if the game is about not having rules to begin with, I don't see how this can be wrong.
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
FFXIV's user interface is pretty horrible, just like all other MMOs. Everything is overlaid on top of the play area in obnoxious ways, whether you need it at the moment or not, just like all other MMOs. The menus are completely disorganized and the "armory chest" is the most idiotic thing. Permanently-on-screen quest trackers are probably the worst invention of modern RPGs, and FF14 technically lets you turn it off but if you do then you can't do quests, because so many quests give you special items that have to be used mid-fight and the only (reasonable) way to use them is a button that appears in the quest tracker. The game also doesn't let me disable the chat window, I don't understand why that's the only UI element that can't be disabled. And anyway, no matter what you can customize, the base UI is where the overwhelmingness kicks in.
I can't get behind the enthusiasm of game makers to want every game ever become an MMORPG, especially of existing RPGs (mainly, Pokémon). Generally, this only means that you play the same RPG as always, except you're constantly annoyed by other players. Things that usually hamper my enjoyment in MMOs due to other players:

-Chat window full of beggars
-Shops being risky due to players snatching the good stuff (Neopets is a very bad offender here)
-Getting destroyed by long-time players and/or big spenders
-Quests becoming tedious because too many players are killing/collecting quest targets

Multiplayer in non-MMO games is far better because I can pick and choose whom to play with.
I always thought the purpose of MMO's was to have fun with people due to the sheer boredom and drag that is the usual gameplay, keeping you occupied for as long as possible near to infinity.
Partly anyway :)

But the interface definitely is messed up and would be a pleasure to have cleaned up. Not to mention that allowing for different playstyles when that's what the MMO's are all about should be a natural thing to do. You often can leave public chats, sucks to see that's not a standard.

Otherwise .. the usual other overwhelming practices are cluttered tutorials with everything coming at once to never be learned, and maybe later be picked up by trying random things out.
Or by tutorials being so overwhelmingly slow that it drains any energy.

And I agree ATB systems can be a royal pain with bad naming and/or too many spells, submenus etc. Many times when they are fast-paced selecting any spell (unless you need healing or something crucial) is a bad idea since you just lose a turn while selecting things.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=LockeZ
Oh buddy do I have a game for you

Or, to a smaller degree, Eden Legacy.

Praise for Eden Legacy:
"It's practically a menu that tries to kill you." -Corfaisus
Pages: first prev 12 last