GET GUD: THE PLACE OF PURE SKILL IN GAMES

Some of you may have seen the status I made (which I'll delete now I guess lol) which celebrated Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song for PS2. Long story short, some friends were talking about grindy (J)RPGs and I noted that well, there really kind of aren't any. A lot of JRPGs are either easy or you're able to sort of push through once your numbers are up. I can't think of too many JRPGs that are actually grindy outside certain Dragon Quest games.

But Minstrel Song is different. Outside of very very high numbers in your stats (which would take an incredible, prohibitive amount of time), you're not grinding through that game. Unless you know how to play the game and you've been paying attention and prepped properly, you're not beating Saruin (the final boss), period. Point blank: Period.

While Minstrel Song has a ton of issues, that aspect of it is really refreshing: it's not even just because of scaling that SaGa is known for, it's just how the mechanics and the fight itself is structured; it requires knowledge of the game and the mechanics it taught you, you must know how to play the game, and you can't really grind through it.

It's not the only game to do so; Dark/Demon Souls/Bloodborne has made a name off it (even though yeah those games have flaws as well), older video games (like the NES/SNES Super Mario games) did it, and entire genres thrive from it, fighting games, RTS games, and others have built pillars of themselves of being locked up unless you put in the time and put in the work.

Does this lock some, or even many players out? Yes, it does. Should all games be this way? Absolutely not. But do I think it's a good thing to have in the community? Yes, it is. While it wouldn't be a good thing for all video games to follow this strategy, I do think as video games expand (and as its player base gets older and better at them) there should be enough room in the industry for video games or even genres that demand you actually learn the game to beat it.

In recent times video games have gotten easier and simpler for the sake accessibility and to relax, and that's fine! But as much as I like games to just relax and veg out, I do miss having more games available that were fun through intellectual and mental stimulation (which is part of the reason why I'm so big on fighting games). There's a ton of casual games, and that's fine, but I do think that there's also room in the industry for games that demand your skill and attention. I'd like to see more RPGs follow this pattern.

Thoughts? (before it inevitably comes up because of either poor reading comprehension on your part or a poor conveyance of ideas on my part, I'm not talking about games that are purposefully or mistakenly obtuse and frustrating or games are just hard for the sake of being hard like Kaizo Mario)

author=AubreyTheBard
I'd regard the mechanic of convoluted (and worse, secret) button inputs in fighting games of the Street Fighter vein as falling under obtuse and frustrating.

All of the newer games have the command inputs available from the menu, so there aren't any secret moves anymore, other than combos that players discover.

Other than that, I heartily disagree; it's just a matter of practice and skill, since you can literally teach a dog (it's been done) to do a quarter circle command. That, and there are characters with differing button commands, charge characters like Guile and M. Bison have always been a part of the roster, and most recently SFV introduced Ed, a character who doesn't have quarter circle commands, but just straight up buttons, and while interesting and it adds diversity to the set, it just reinforced that fundamentally the game wouldn't work if everyone, or even most of the characters operated that way. That's just a prime example of 'get gud', but with practice you'll get there!

Smash Bros is great, but it's not everyone's flavor; the problem with it's simpler button imputs (and part of the reason why it struggles to gain it's place in the fighting game community) is that it's simpler gameplay makes it's skill ceiling much, much lower than the likes of Street Fighter, Tekken, or Guilty Gear.

author=Red_Nova
Depending on how literal you're using the word "pure" in pure skill, there comes a time where you have yourself an action game with RPG elements instead of an action RPG. For example, the original Deus Ex vs. Human Revolution/Mankind Divided. The former is a true action RPG, whereas the latter is an action game with RPG elements.

When I say 'skill', it's not always in the context of twitch skills or reflexes, although that certainly counts, alas, in RPGs that doesn't matter at all. When I say 'skill', I mean the skills the player has picked up in learning the mechanics. I'll give two contrasting examples;

In Final Fantasy VII, there are very few situations that demand the player's knowledge about the Materia system, which can get incredibly in depth. However, for the most part, the system doesn't require the player to learn it; many battles can be won simply via leveling up and pressing X through battles. Only the WEAPON battles demand the player know what they're doing.

Conversely, Final Fantasy Tactics is a good example of the opposite; it's really not that hard of a game, but in order to play it, you must know what you're doing and be familiar with the mechanics beyond a surface level. Port City Dorter in the first chapter is usually the wall that new players face where the game demands you know what you're doing before you progress further. Even if you grind, random encounters level with you.

author=Red
I have not played Minstrel Song, so can you explain in greater detail/give examples as to how you can't just grind levels to overcome a challenge? It may be a source of inspiration for someone. Based on a short video I saw, it looks like a turn-based RPG. As such, numbers HAVE to come into play at some point, right? It's not like a Souls game where you have a dodge button that lets you avoid danger no matter the level.

The simplest reason is that the final boss of Minstrel Song has stats beyond your ability to grind past. The way leveling works in RS, is that you can't really 999/99 out your stats, your stats to get that high just isn't practically attainable, and the rest of the gap has to be filled with smart armor choices, class choices, and skill usage and using the right skills/magic for the situation. Saruin does have some pretty interesting moves such as reviving your dead party members in battle to use against you.

His most interesting tactic is erecting a 'barrier' of sorts, where damage you do against him is reduced significantly until your party whittles down that barrier via damage, enabling you to hit him for higher damage. Additionally, every few turns he throws that barrier at your party for whatever damage is left on it, and then refreshes the barrier.

Basically what this does is force the player into a balancing act of not using all of their WP/SP into eroding the barrier, but still needing to take down that barrier with sufficient power skills to damage him, and to reduce the damage that barrier does when he tosses it at you. It's pretty interesting!

Oh, this I have GOT to see.

I gotchu fam.


Yeah, so I don't want to hear 'wah fighting games are too hard'. It's just a skillset that you have yet to learn. Get on that level. It's like me wanting to join the football team and saying that throwing a spiral is too hard. Yes, it is difficult, but entirely attainable with practice, and once you learn you'll never forget it. I understand there's next to no overlap between RPG fans and fighting game fans, but you can do it, I believe in you.

In both cases with the sports/video game analogy, changing the rules of the game to make them simpler would damage the hobbies and make them fundamentally stuck with a much lower level of play. This will even be more of a topic coming up with the rise of ESports.

author=Yuki
People are already prone to dropping games (especially as they grow older), and challenges requiring any sort of mastery will only exacerbate that. If your goal is to tell a story, which a lot of RPGs are about, then you really don't want that. People are going to drop your game without experiencing that mindblowing plot twist you've got in the latter half.

I respect that, but I really sort of resent that mindset (not you personally).

Yes, if you want to reach the largest audience with your game, then yes, you want to make it as accessible as possible. But to me, games are fun not only because of a story, but because they demand some sort of challenge or skill to learn to progress (like any other game/hobby). There's a point where you make it so easy that you really might as well make a visual novel. I don't want my combat to require an advance degree or even make it particularly hard, but if the gameplay in my RPG is just a formality, then why have it at all? Have it mean something.

There are going to be some people that this doesn't jive with, but that's fine, but I'd rather make something that's true and personal to my philosophy that hopefully others can enjoy than something that's watered down for the sake of not pissing anyone off. There's still a market for games that require two brain cells to rub together.

If anything, as I get older, I want games to do that. I play games to relax, but I'm getting older, not dying. I still want my time to be respected with some sort of challenge or satisfaction through mastery. As I get older I feel that '30 hours of easy as fuck' is really just sort of shitting on my limited time.

If someone doesn't like that, then perhaps a game I might make isn't for them. And that's fine! There's plenty of people who drop games at the drop of the hat, but I'm not making games for them. Hopefully they'll dig what I have to offer, but if not, that's fine.

I'd rather zero in on my desired audience and do that well than water it down for literally every player ever. It seems as if too many games out there already do that, and there's enough players that lament that for me to feel confident in what I'm proposing.

author=Yuki
Add to that, are people playing RPGs really looking for a challenge? It's a genre where your ability to damage something is abstracted to a number game.

I know this answer might be unfamiliar to those who only play JRPGs, but...yes? Plenty of WPRGs still (and always had) have challenging and rewarding combat, and even more JRPG fans are crossing over to WRPGs to see what the fuss is about, and wondering why more JRPGs can't be the same way. While I don't want my gameplay to be mega hard or even maybe hard at all, I want it to be meaningful and challenging, and not a formality to get to cutscenes. I want it to matter.

Even those who are JRPG faithfuls wish that combat was more challenging, and it was one of the biggest complaints of FF15 (and the one of the biggest accolades to the otherwise polarizing FF13, at least the combat was challenging!) The fact that RPGs have gotten easier and easier is a complain that I even see JRPG fans voice recently.

author=Yuki
In the case of Souls, it exploded because it's basically babby's first "difficult" game. It's also made by devs that are experienced in creating great atmospheres for their games, so it has the necessary aesthetic appeal. The game itself is more annoying than challenging, tbh. It happens to be difficult and punishing enough to gate a lot of people interested in trying it out, and also easy enough for random dudes to feel accomplishment from clearing them. I always laugh when I see "souls veterans" try out the actually difficult games I've played, and cry out "artificial difficulty" and "clunky combat".

That's fair, as Souls definitely isn't perfect. Can you give me some examples?

I like the rest of your post, but...

author=LBR
The SaGa series is a poor example of a difficult jrpg that requires skill - Monsters in the SaGa series will often have an "instant-death-skill" that they will use at random on one, or all your party members - The reason why this is a poor example is because, there is absolutely no opportunity to avoid this attack, even if you're prepared and make all the necessary moves - the game ultimately comes down to luck - No matter how good you are at the game, you can still lose against all odds - (and it's only through numerous attempts where your chances are more favourable that you can actually win, which is something the average player will not want to commit to, even if they are the challenging seeking type, when it comes to video game.)

I'm very familiar with the SaGa games but unfamiliar with this. Examples?