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OUT OF CONTENT - TIME TO RESTART, RIGHT?
Posts
LouisCyphre
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CloseSo I went to boot up a save of a fairly decent game that I had previously enjoyed. I went crawling around, looking for someone to throw down with. And I kept looking... And I kept looking.
...And kept looking.
Turns out, every encounter in the game world was dead. I had these awesome end-game swords, a bunch of kick-ass skills, and a couple of well-trained party members... for nothing. The game had no more content to offer me, not even repeatable content. Couldn't send my loot to a new cycle, find re-spawned enemies to stop, nothing. All of the rewards I had accumulated over the course of the game was wasted.
I was a tad miffed by this at first, but then I got to thinking - what are we doing to prevent this in our games? What's stopping all of those skills and powers from going to waste after the final confrontation?
The way I see it, there's a myriad of ways we can prevent this.
New Game Plus seems like the most obvious solution - allow the player to keep all of their goodies for a fresh playthrough of the game. This works best for games with multiple routes or other forms of non-linearity, obviously. It might be wise to make enemies stronger on a NG+.
Post-game quests are a wholly viable option. Bonus dungeons and tournaments are good ways for end-game characters to apply their abilities and powers. Bonus points if the quests require only the player's skill, by forcing a particular setup or eliminating common crutches, such as the Battle Tower in most Poke games.
Re-spawning enemies, especially of the extremely powerful kind, can give a player something to do every so often. These are especially nice if they take the form of oh shit enemies from earlier in the game, such as FFXIII's Adamantoise.
Seems simple enough to me. Why aren't you giving your player an incentive to stick around after the curtain call, if they so choose?
...And kept looking.
Turns out, every encounter in the game world was dead. I had these awesome end-game swords, a bunch of kick-ass skills, and a couple of well-trained party members... for nothing. The game had no more content to offer me, not even repeatable content. Couldn't send my loot to a new cycle, find re-spawned enemies to stop, nothing. All of the rewards I had accumulated over the course of the game was wasted.
I was a tad miffed by this at first, but then I got to thinking - what are we doing to prevent this in our games? What's stopping all of those skills and powers from going to waste after the final confrontation?
The way I see it, there's a myriad of ways we can prevent this.
New Game Plus seems like the most obvious solution - allow the player to keep all of their goodies for a fresh playthrough of the game. This works best for games with multiple routes or other forms of non-linearity, obviously. It might be wise to make enemies stronger on a NG+.
Post-game quests are a wholly viable option. Bonus dungeons and tournaments are good ways for end-game characters to apply their abilities and powers. Bonus points if the quests require only the player's skill, by forcing a particular setup or eliminating common crutches, such as the Battle Tower in most Poke games.
Re-spawning enemies, especially of the extremely powerful kind, can give a player something to do every so often. These are especially nice if they take the form of oh shit enemies from earlier in the game, such as FFXIII's Adamantoise.
Seems simple enough to me. Why aren't you giving your player an incentive to stick around after the curtain call, if they so choose?
post=138467You play the credits roll? Just ending the game with nothing left wastes everything you've given the player.
What about a credits roll, or am I being dense.
Darken
3626
Are you saying this is what happens BEFORE you fight the final boss? I mean it seems pretty simple that you'd have final boss, ending, then credits for most games. Of course some RPGs just decide to go on, but yeah whatever, nevermind.
I am saying that once the player hits the end of the game, then what? Do they just fight the final boss over and over every time they want something out of your game? If the game is that fun, why cockblock players that want to play more of it?
Expected response: "But RM games aren't good enough to play more than once!"
Answer: Go and make them that good. (but that is beyond the scope of this topic)
Expected response: "But RM games aren't good enough to play more than once!"
Answer: Go and make them that good. (but that is beyond the scope of this topic)
DFalcon
2066
Would you care to name some games (RM and/or RMN games, I suppose) that you feel would be especially improved by this?
I mean, I don't want to just blow you off with "there's something to be said for closure", but I can't recall ever seeing this as much of an issue.
I mean, I don't want to just blow you off with "there's something to be said for closure", but I can't recall ever seeing this as much of an issue.
VideoWizard
2841
There is an arena in one of my games that you can fight over 100 monsters to get a title and a bunch of neat items. It's likely that you'll need some of those items to beat the arena, as a few of the arena monsters are tougher than the final boss!
Of course, there'd be nothing to do after beating the arena, but that's still better than nothing, I suppose!
Of course, there'd be nothing to do after beating the arena, but that's still better than nothing, I suppose!
post=138475
I am saying that once the player hits the end of the game, then what? Do they just fight the final boss over and over every time they want something out of your game? If the game is that fun, why cockblock players that want to play more of it?
I mean...the game gotta end sometime.
post=138480post=138475I mean...the game gotta end sometime.
I am saying that once the player hits the end of the game, then what? Do they just fight the final boss over and over every time they want something out of your game? If the game is that fun, why cockblock players that want to play more of it?
Players who want to complete the game should be allowed to proceed to the finale; players who want more out of the game should be allowed to move to bigger and grander things. The question I'm posing is what those things should be, and how to make them engrossing enough that a player can get as much of that game as they want without the penalty of having to restart (well, restart FRESH) five times or fight the same sequence of fights continuously.
post=138482post=138480Players who want to complete the game should be allowed to proceed to the finale; players who want more out of the game should be allowed to move to bigger and grander things. The question I'm posing is what those things should be, and how to make them engrossing enough that a player can get as much of that game as they want without the penalty of having to restart (well, restart FRESH) five times or fight the same sequence of fights continuously.post=138475I mean...the game gotta end sometime.
I am saying that once the player hits the end of the game, then what? Do they just fight the final boss over and over every time they want something out of your game? If the game is that fun, why cockblock players that want to play more of it?
Hmm. Yeah, I mean, some games do that. But where does the line draw between having cool shit to do, and the developer infinitely coming up with more and more shit once the player inevitably finishes stuff to do?
I'm working New Game + into my main game, and in my other game I would hope the numerous missions and optional bosses would suffice, though they aren't TECHNICALLY restricted to post-final boss.
Feld: Games like Pokes and Diablo II come to mind. D2 is an excellent example of New Game Plussing to a higher difficulty, keeping everything you've accumulated and adjusting accordingly. Pokes often have distractions like the Battle Tower, rare dudes to track down, and the obvious PvP aspect. Both are kind of non-examples since they do stuff that we just can't normally - random EVERYTHING and PvP, respectively. But it's that kind of "the game ain't over until you want it to be" factor that I want to encourage and propagate.
FF2bro: That's the standard route, and it's perfectly valid when done well. FFX's Monster Arena was arguably its best feature, for example. I loved bringing every I WIN ability to bear on superbosses and still only barely making it out alive.
FF2bro: That's the standard route, and it's perfectly valid when done well. FFX's Monster Arena was arguably its best feature, for example. I loved bringing every I WIN ability to bear on superbosses and still only barely making it out alive.
NicoB
3056
You could do like Dragon Quest 8 and make so you have to beat the final boss at least once to unlock additional bonus dungeons, powers, and other content. Although, even those have to come to an end eventually....
Shinan
4314
post=138464
Seems simple enough to me. Why aren't you giving your player an incentive to stick around after the curtain call, if they so choose?
I'd say my reasoning is basically "The game's over, time to move on to other games". I'd say that post-final quests are pretty useless. You beaten the final boss. There shouldn't be anything more to accomplish. I know that strategy games tend to have the option to continue once the time has run out but even then I rarely do it. Because, after all, what's the point? I've either succeeded or not and no matter how much I concquer the world it's already over. In RPGs the story won't progress after the final boss. You've saved the world and the game is over. Of course one could potentially write in a wrap-up epilogue into the game. But that shouldn't be something that happens after the end of the game.
I have to admit I never really got the New Game+ option either. The only time I've tried it was in RE4 where I wanted fifteen minutes of killing zombies with my uberweapons. Of course if people are REALLY that into your game it probably can't hurt to throw something like that in but essentially I'd say that new content after the game is over is a strict no-no. Basically it's a waste of time and effort and could potentially take resources from parts of making the game that should have been used to actually make a better game.
With all that said I don't mind unlockables (like minigames). And stuff like being able to load a game from nearly any chapter so it'd be easy to replay those sequences that were really fun.
All post games should come down to improving your Turtles Per Hour (ff13 has the worst postgame)
More seriously, commentary on each proposal:
New Game Plus: A quick and easy way of adding replayability. Quick, easy, and dirty at least. Most NG+ just end up with playing through the game again except now everything dies in one hit. Some people enjoy this and given how easy it is to make a NG+ I don't see much reason to not make one besides feature creep and another potential source of issues (see Demon's Gate List of Shame for the list of NG+ bugs fixed in 1.6).
I like what I did in Demon's Gate: The NG+ lets the player choose what they want to carry over into the new game. There was almost no reason for the NG+ since nothing really changed except the option to try a single class challenge but it was easy to implement and I see no reason to restrict player choice. In another project when you restart you can change the difficulty with the choice of carrying titles, gold, and equipment if the player needs a starting boost on harder difficulties. The choices let the character choose if they want to curbstomp the game or retry it with a boost in difficulty (if they didn't already beat the hardest difficulty).
The perfect NG+ would also have the ability to skip cutscenes (although preferably without having to be in the NG+ to use) so you can skip that stupid scene where the villain shows up, monologues, kills everyone but the hero, and leaves laughing maniacally so the story wouldn't immediately end.
Post-game Quests: I think this is the best way to go. Instead of refreshing content, there's new stuff to chew on. It'd also take the most effort to do right otherwise you'd just get Disgaea postgames: Here's a level 5000 enemy in the middle of a completely bland battlefield! Enjoy your grind so you can actually do damage! Most post-game content in RPGs unfortunately come down to the grind. Then you grind some more. I'd like to see some new content that isn't just a bunch of superbosses that are ten times stronger than the final boss. At the same time avoiding stuff like the FF6 postgame where the difficulty comes down to "Am I going to let the enemy actually take a turn?" (oh hi Gau).
But then all the time spent making post game quests could've been spent making the main game better; Something a lot more players would see and be able to appreciate. (but then again Song Yong)
Re-spawning enemies: One of my most agonizing moments in games is when you fight a cool boss and then move on but with no way to go back and refight them. The only solution is to drop a save right before the fight but even that has its own issues (what save is for who? / cutscenes or other gameplay before the boss / control over options and what's available, god forbid if you have to leave the area. Worse if you can't / I forgot to make the save :saddowns: ). Some games have retries like God Hand's arena (but you're stuck at a certain level. You can't fight Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver at Level Die, you're stuck at 3), MMZX lets you refight the eight major bosses but if you ever want to redo the P&P Duo fight you're out of luck (or have to make multiple saves). RPGs have an even bigger issue due to stats and growth. Going back to a mid-game boss after you beat the final probably won't do much beyond get beat into a bloody pulp. Some sort of scaling would be required to even make the fight not end in two actions, much less interesting (oh hi Chrono Trigger!). It could work in some games with a minimal focus on character avatar growth but regardless it would still need some time and effort to make it worth while. Maybe remembering player stats/skills each time they level and let the player 'de-level' their party? Of course that is also dependent on how growth works; It'd be borderline useless for a game like FF10.
More seriously, commentary on each proposal:
New Game Plus: A quick and easy way of adding replayability. Quick, easy, and dirty at least. Most NG+ just end up with playing through the game again except now everything dies in one hit. Some people enjoy this and given how easy it is to make a NG+ I don't see much reason to not make one besides feature creep and another potential source of issues (see Demon's Gate List of Shame for the list of NG+ bugs fixed in 1.6).
I like what I did in Demon's Gate: The NG+ lets the player choose what they want to carry over into the new game. There was almost no reason for the NG+ since nothing really changed except the option to try a single class challenge but it was easy to implement and I see no reason to restrict player choice. In another project when you restart you can change the difficulty with the choice of carrying titles, gold, and equipment if the player needs a starting boost on harder difficulties. The choices let the character choose if they want to curbstomp the game or retry it with a boost in difficulty (if they didn't already beat the hardest difficulty).
The perfect NG+ would also have the ability to skip cutscenes (although preferably without having to be in the NG+ to use) so you can skip that stupid scene where the villain shows up, monologues, kills everyone but the hero, and leaves laughing maniacally so the story wouldn't immediately end.
Post-game Quests: I think this is the best way to go. Instead of refreshing content, there's new stuff to chew on. It'd also take the most effort to do right otherwise you'd just get Disgaea postgames: Here's a level 5000 enemy in the middle of a completely bland battlefield! Enjoy your grind so you can actually do damage! Most post-game content in RPGs unfortunately come down to the grind. Then you grind some more. I'd like to see some new content that isn't just a bunch of superbosses that are ten times stronger than the final boss. At the same time avoiding stuff like the FF6 postgame where the difficulty comes down to "Am I going to let the enemy actually take a turn?" (oh hi Gau).
But then all the time spent making post game quests could've been spent making the main game better; Something a lot more players would see and be able to appreciate. (but then again Song Yong)
Re-spawning enemies: One of my most agonizing moments in games is when you fight a cool boss and then move on but with no way to go back and refight them. The only solution is to drop a save right before the fight but even that has its own issues (what save is for who? / cutscenes or other gameplay before the boss / control over options and what's available, god forbid if you have to leave the area. Worse if you can't / I forgot to make the save :saddowns: ). Some games have retries like God Hand's arena (but you're stuck at a certain level. You can't fight Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver at Level Die, you're stuck at 3), MMZX lets you refight the eight major bosses but if you ever want to redo the P&P Duo fight you're out of luck (or have to make multiple saves). RPGs have an even bigger issue due to stats and growth. Going back to a mid-game boss after you beat the final probably won't do much beyond get beat into a bloody pulp. Some sort of scaling would be required to even make the fight not end in two actions, much less interesting (oh hi Chrono Trigger!). It could work in some games with a minimal focus on character avatar growth but regardless it would still need some time and effort to make it worth while. Maybe remembering player stats/skills each time they level and let the player 'de-level' their party? Of course that is also dependent on how growth works; It'd be borderline useless for a game like FF10.
Sated
4005
The only game I have ever played where I've used anything approaching a "New Game+" is Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter. And that is because you have to in order to complete the game. Aside from this, once I have finished a game I generally move onto the next game. The only other exception is the aforementioned Diablo II, which is an exception because it is an MORPG.
GRS: You have probably already played this, but the best post-game dungeons/content I've seen (as in the only stuff I've ever bothered to do in an RPG) is Last Scenario's optional content. It's cool because it's been built up to throughout the game with other optional content, and there's a nice progression in terms of difficulty so that you will get to L99 as you just... do optional stuff. It is cool+ because one of the optional bosses in Last Scenario is a story boss in Exit Fate.
It's kind of an FF6 "fake optional" in that you can fight tooth-and-nail through the final dungeon when it opens, just to find that the final boss will be too hard (it won't RUIN you but another five-ten levels wouldn't hurt you), but there is no reason other than enjoyment to pursue more than a single tower or two.
And then there's Hex (I got 94/100 Hex tiles iirc; the only one I knew of that I didn't get was ksadnflksadnfknasflkns Alexander).
To most people in this topic:
<chaos> so let's discuss a popular thing in games; there are plenty of people who want to keep playing with a cool game's systems after the final boss, and (EDITOR NOTE HERE:) NG+ especially is almost an absolute "must have" from what I've seen of modern RPG fans on SA and NeoGAF
<RMN> FUCK YOU there is no reason to let people enjoy a game more
It's kind of an FF6 "fake optional" in that you can fight tooth-and-nail through the final dungeon when it opens, just to find that the final boss will be too hard (it won't RUIN you but another five-ten levels wouldn't hurt you), but there is no reason other than enjoyment to pursue more than a single tower or two.
And then there's Hex (I got 94/100 Hex tiles iirc; the only one I knew of that I didn't get was ksadnflksadnfknasflkns Alexander).
***
To most people in this topic:
<chaos> so let's discuss a popular thing in games; there are plenty of people who want to keep playing with a cool game's systems after the final boss, and (EDITOR NOTE HERE:) NG+ especially is almost an absolute "must have" from what I've seen of modern RPG fans on SA and NeoGAF
<RMN> FUCK YOU there is no reason to let people enjoy a game more
Well, post-game content often feels tacked on, sloppy and subpar compared to the actual game, and can sometimes make the entire game seem worse! If you finish the game and feel unsatisfied with how underused your uber-endgame party is, then the game didn't do enough in the final dungeon!
Of course, I just finished playing Lost Sanctum in Chrono Trigger and it has left a terribly bitter taste in my mouth because of how shitty, pendantic, infuriating, awkward and lame it is. It made then entire game feel worse and now my view of that epic game is tainted.
I also find MMORPGs boring, and I usually quit Diablo II LOD after beating Baal on Hell difficulty so I may be biased. (once the final boss is defeated the game is done! If I want more "post-game" fun I play the game again).
EDIT:
Thoughts on the matter: If you decide to add post-game content, make it of the same quality as the original game! But if you're going to do that, make it part of the original game!
Of course, I just finished playing Lost Sanctum in Chrono Trigger and it has left a terribly bitter taste in my mouth because of how shitty, pendantic, infuriating, awkward and lame it is. It made then entire game feel worse and now my view of that epic game is tainted.
I also find MMORPGs boring, and I usually quit Diablo II LOD after beating Baal on Hell difficulty so I may be biased. (once the final boss is defeated the game is done! If I want more "post-game" fun I play the game again).
EDIT:
Thoughts on the matter: If you decide to add post-game content, make it of the same quality as the original game! But if you're going to do that, make it part of the original game!
