8 Ways We'd Like to See Gameplay Change in 2016
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I would like to see more AAA games without RPG elements. One of my favorite things about games like Counter-Strike is that at the beginning of a match, everyone's on equal footing. It kinda seems like, outside of Valve and Nintendo, this sort of design is a lost art.
P.S. Thanks
P.S. Thanks
That first one describes a game called Kingdom of Alamur if I I'm remembering the name. Definitely kingdom of something? 
Youre giving STALKER way to much credit here though...
The A-life never did what is described here. The A-life just generated random npcs and mutants and let them run around the map.. that is all it did. And in bluesky it would periodically spawn attack groups to take over enemy outposts.. if it didnt completly crapped itselfe in the process. The A-life made the zone "feel" alive.. but it actually had very little actual impact and the npcs sure as hell didnt had a "live" on their own.. or tried to find any secrets... the only thing they reacted to where threats to themselves they would encounter on their travel paths.
Now, would such an A-life system be awesome? Maybe in combination with the nemesis system? Absolutely.. and it should be possible with the technology available.
Its rather sad to see the only thing evolving in games are the graphics and gimmicks(and aparantly everything has to be voiced now). The writing has been rather stagnant and i would say that it was better in the RPGs of yore (baldurs gate 1+2 and planescape come to mind)
But then again the mass market seems to want their games fully voiced and it seems the times where you would get AAA niche/hardcore games ala baldurs gate 2 are long long past.
I would prefer a game where voice overs would only be played during cutscenes or important story points instead of having every joe schmoe NPC be fully voiced.
The A-life never did what is described here. The A-life just generated random npcs and mutants and let them run around the map.. that is all it did. And in bluesky it would periodically spawn attack groups to take over enemy outposts.. if it didnt completly crapped itselfe in the process. The A-life made the zone "feel" alive.. but it actually had very little actual impact and the npcs sure as hell didnt had a "live" on their own.. or tried to find any secrets... the only thing they reacted to where threats to themselves they would encounter on their travel paths.
Now, would such an A-life system be awesome? Maybe in combination with the nemesis system? Absolutely.. and it should be possible with the technology available.
Its rather sad to see the only thing evolving in games are the graphics and gimmicks(and aparantly everything has to be voiced now). The writing has been rather stagnant and i would say that it was better in the RPGs of yore (baldurs gate 1+2 and planescape come to mind)
But then again the mass market seems to want their games fully voiced and it seems the times where you would get AAA niche/hardcore games ala baldurs gate 2 are long long past.
I would prefer a game where voice overs would only be played during cutscenes or important story points instead of having every joe schmoe NPC be fully voiced.
Highly flexible RPG class system
This one has existed for nearly thirty years. The system in Final Fantasy II did this. Whatever a character used, got that character better at it. It was practice makes perfect. Arguably better than even selecting what to upgrade. It just did when you worked at it. Also, didn't Demon's/Dark Souls do this?
Customizable difficulty
This should make a comeback. Silent Hill 3 did this fantastically with separate difficulties for combat and puzzles.
Personally, I want to be able to map buttons however the hell I want at this point. We've been able to for nearly 20 years but still games lock you into their controls.
This one has existed for nearly thirty years. The system in Final Fantasy II did this. Whatever a character used, got that character better at it. It was practice makes perfect. Arguably better than even selecting what to upgrade. It just did when you worked at it. Also, didn't Demon's/Dark Souls do this?
Customizable difficulty
This should make a comeback. Silent Hill 3 did this fantastically with separate difficulties for combat and puzzles.
Personally, I want to be able to map buttons however the hell I want at this point. We've been able to for nearly 20 years but still games lock you into their controls.
The customizable difficulty is a great system, but it would be a hell of a lot more work to make it. Especially if you want triple A games to do it too with their limited development time. Same with the Nemesis and A-Life system. Shadow of Mordor was nowhere near perfect, in fact I reckon it absolutely failed in other aspects.
Yeah, we'd like everything, but it really should be noted just how difficult it can be. It would need some real passion from the developer to pull it off.
Yeah, we'd like everything, but it really should be noted just how difficult it can be. It would need some real passion from the developer to pull it off.
See the Space Ranger games if you want to see a system where the AI actually does do things the player would otherwise be tasked to do and could even beat the game on it's own, provided the difficulty was low enough.Charcharo said:
Bethesda actually tried to do that same thing with Oblivion and found it quickly resulted in a bunch of NPCs doing nothing but running around slaughtering each other. I think that a system that lets the AI do things the player would usually do among other things could work in Elder Scrolls or Fallout and other games like that, but it would take a lot of time and effort to be able to do it without making the player's existence irrelevant or royally screwing something up in the process or both.
I think that in order to have such a system there needs to be dozens or perhaps even hundreds of traits to act as particular limiting factors to the AI to determine what each NPC would do some that would be appropriate for the specific NPC but others randomly generated on creation to give all of them a host of activities that they will typically take, with modifiers both random and contextual that can temporarily suspend or permanently replace those traits. For instance, all guards would have something like a "Brave" trait, meaning they aren't likely to flee from battles, and a "Noble" trait that would cause them to come to the defense of innocent NPCs and also prevent them from ever attacking innocent NPCs, then a few randomly generated traits like "Drunkard" which would cause them to do things like drink on duty and hang around the tavern, and if they get caught doing this they decide to clean up their act or may decide to do so on their own, which would lead to the removal of that trait and slotting in another, like "hates corruption" which causes them to seek out guards that are doing inappropriate activities for a guard and arrest them, and that sort of stuff.
As has been mentioned you're probably thinking of Elder Scrolls, and the problem with any game that has had this sort of system thus far is it's rather blatantly exploitable and tedious, while preventing it from being strictly necessary to actually make progress in the game to become good at it. It leads to things like standing there while a mudcrab attacks you a few hundred times to level up your armor skill, or casting fire spells at yourself to level up your destruction skill, and other such things, and considering how often you'll find yourself getting your butt kicked if you don't do things like that all but mandatory.FoolKiller said:
True, it was called Kingdoms of Amalur. My problem with the game is that you are still basically limited to any combination(or lack of, if you wish) between Warrior, Mage and a Rogue. There is only one healing spell, you can't shapeshift, you can't summon hordes of skeletons/monsters to your aid, etc, so it was still limited.Dominic Crossman said:That first one describes a game called Kingdom of Alamur if I I'm remembering the name. Definitely kingdom of something?
OK, I haven't played FFII, granted, but if it is anything like V, then in the end your goal is not to tailor every party member to the role you want them to have, but to create a team of ?bermensches, who can do EVERYTHING.FoolKiller said:
But to be honest, Souls games actually do this, although not in the way I had in mind, but rather by giving you freedom of choice at the beginning and then taking this freedom away via increased prices of upgrades and leveling. However, I bet 10 USD that some crazy guy decided to actually level up his/her character to max level. And I think the very same can be said about Skyrim.
OT: Yeah, I too would like to return to text-based storytelling, because I always thought that voice acting is not only costly,but also limits RPG developers in their attempts to make branching storylines and such. But I don't want for VA to be put on a shelf permanently, beause it can sometimes have wonderful effects. For example, I wouldn't have cared as much about Lee and Clementine if it wasn't for their voice actors.
Regarding #1: How about we ditch classes and levels completely, and just go with attributes and skills? That's what many Pen&Paper RPGs do and what some Computer Games also did. The best implementation was the MMORPG "Neocron", which let you level in your attributes when you used them and then gave you skillpoints for skills tied to that attribute. Your "class" was not explicit, but implicit depending on what skills you raised.
The problem is, that most players don't like or get such a system. Neocron is long dead and forgotten, although its class-less leveling system was way better than the flat, broken and uninteresting mess, that were the first four Elder Scrolls games. Players don't seem to want clever systems, they want pretty, shiny graphics. Might also be the reason, why many of the remaining features in this list will never be implemented: the majority of the players would not appreciate it enough to justify the effort.
Then there is the thing with the A-Life component in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: as several other commenters already mentioned, there were similar mechanics in different games, but they were cut, because they effectively broke the game. It just does not fit the game. If you want a simulation, play Dwarf Fortress, Creatures, Banished or whatnot. There you've got your A-Life, and it fits the game.
It's the old "Why not make a game where you can do anything and that emulates real life? Wouldn't that be awesome?". Yeah, why not? Because it would not be awesome, it would suck and almost nobody would play it.
The problem is, that most players don't like or get such a system. Neocron is long dead and forgotten, although its class-less leveling system was way better than the flat, broken and uninteresting mess, that were the first four Elder Scrolls games. Players don't seem to want clever systems, they want pretty, shiny graphics. Might also be the reason, why many of the remaining features in this list will never be implemented: the majority of the players would not appreciate it enough to justify the effort.
Then there is the thing with the A-Life component in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: as several other commenters already mentioned, there were similar mechanics in different games, but they were cut, because they effectively broke the game. It just does not fit the game. If you want a simulation, play Dwarf Fortress, Creatures, Banished or whatnot. There you've got your A-Life, and it fits the game.
It's the old "Why not make a game where you can do anything and that emulates real life? Wouldn't that be awesome?". Yeah, why not? Because it would not be awesome, it would suck and almost nobody would play it.
Hah, somehow I guessed you'd show up where STALKER was mentioned.Charcharo said:
The A-Life system is really cool, I'll grant that. I especially liked joining campsites so I could sit and listen to the guitar playing, at least until mutant warthog things came and chased everyone away. Only the guitar player survived. His next song was pretty tragic, all things considered.
My only real problem with it is that I imagine it's part of the cause of my quest-essential NPC getting fucking iced while I was on a mission for him.
As for the first slide, about the complex levelling system - Elder Scrolls Online. A mage can wear heavy armour and put their skill points into sword-and-shield if they want. To double the fun, at level 15 you can equip another weapon set and switch to it in combat, and it comes with its own skillset, so you can switch from a stealth-based archer to a brawler in a split-second. Which is how I intend to mitigate my inability to do anything except really slowly fire arrows at angry men rushing at me.
How about this:
LESS FOCUS ON 'NEW' ENGINES, REFINE THE ONES WE HAVE!
It seems to be a fairly Japanese heavy thing, though 'the west' can get pretty bad at this as well.
We have so many, solid, graphics engines that can do damn near everything we need them to do but companies like S-E would rather build one from the ground up for half their damn games.
It seems like a HUGE waste of time, money, and manpower to constantly build a game engine for one or two games.
LESS FOCUS ON 'NEW' ENGINES, REFINE THE ONES WE HAVE!
It seems to be a fairly Japanese heavy thing, though 'the west' can get pretty bad at this as well.
We have so many, solid, graphics engines that can do damn near everything we need them to do but companies like S-E would rather build one from the ground up for half their damn games.
It seems like a HUGE waste of time, money, and manpower to constantly build a game engine for one or two games.
Quite suprised to see my threat featured on the front page.
It would be interesting to see more in-depth articles focusing on single gameplay mechanics and how their implementation effects the overall experience. That is, a few pages deconstructing the nemesis system in TF2 or Power ups in multiplayer Quake, etcetera.
It would be interesting to see more in-depth articles focusing on single gameplay mechanics and how their implementation effects the overall experience. That is, a few pages deconstructing the nemesis system in TF2 or Power ups in multiplayer Quake, etcetera.
I would love to see the A-Life system be experimented a bit in open world games. Though vary the scripts a little bit. For example, NPC-1 wants to become the best merchant in the land, so he buys low and sells high, NPC-2 wants to become an assassin, so he takes out important figures in power structures. It might all decend in to chaos, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.Thyunda said:
Telltale should use text based dialogue in their games, then we might actually be able to play out the story how we like and not just click our way through a half a dozen variations all leading to the exact same result.
1. Was in lots of older RPGs. But they are all crap, modern ones are so much better.
2. Was in Doom and many other games. Fine in theory, but maps bloat as soon as custom assets kick in.
3. Was in space rangers and lots of other games.
4. Did text-based dialogs go anywhere? I saw them in PoE, Wasteland 2, etc. After reading TONS of responses like 'But I don't wanna READ, I wanna PLAY' from self-proclaimed RPG fans, we won't get much more of those.
5. Yes, this one is basically gone nowadays.
6. This one won't change, it's rarely OK even in books.
7. Yes, good one.
8. Again, noone will do it, for noone bothers with it anymore. Too much work, while Arkham Knights sell pretty well and get PRAISED.
2. Was in Doom and many other games. Fine in theory, but maps bloat as soon as custom assets kick in.
3. Was in space rangers and lots of other games.
4. Did text-based dialogs go anywhere? I saw them in PoE, Wasteland 2, etc. After reading TONS of responses like 'But I don't wanna READ, I wanna PLAY' from self-proclaimed RPG fans, we won't get much more of those.
5. Yes, this one is basically gone nowadays.
6. This one won't change, it's rarely OK even in books.
7. Yes, good one.
8. Again, noone will do it, for noone bothers with it anymore. Too much work, while Arkham Knights sell pretty well and get PRAISED.
No... definitely thinking of Demon's Souls. I haven't played any of the Elder Scrolls yet. And based on the description for the category and what you wrote, I was right. It lets you level up anything. I thought that was the point.Gundam GP01 said:
I'd like to see games (particularly RPGs) utilize superbosses more often. This is different than either optional bosses or true final bosses, in that superbosses in general are much harder than a game's final boss, but are not mandatory to complete a game.
For all the issues I had with both Final Fantasy XII and XIII, I feel that both of these games had fairly good superbosses. The Elite Marks of FFXII are what I would consider the superbosses, by far the most famous of whom is Yiazmat. FFXIII, meanwhile, had the Long Gui and Vercingetorix, both of whom could smash even a very well-prepared party into the dust faster than you could believe. I *still* haven't beaten Vercingetorix without Poisoning him...
For all the issues I had with both Final Fantasy XII and XIII, I feel that both of these games had fairly good superbosses. The Elite Marks of FFXII are what I would consider the superbosses, by far the most famous of whom is Yiazmat. FFXIII, meanwhile, had the Long Gui and Vercingetorix, both of whom could smash even a very well-prepared party into the dust faster than you could believe. I *still* haven't beaten Vercingetorix without Poisoning him...