Poll: Who here actually wants RPGs to get easier?

[Schaaka]

I was a hardcore gamer, then apocalypse happened and my life was remade.
So easy rpg's work well. Just go round, do stuff, make someone look cool and wig out. Go do something else.

Im.. Sorry. Sounds like a part of your life was torn away. Im not gona ask what happened but you have my condolences.

 

[Bostur]

I think it's good to make them accessible to more fans so more people can see how good a given game can be isn't good. I think there needs to be a limit to how accessible it is. That point is what needs to be discovered. Too many games were damaged by how accessible they were made. Personally I think that the FF and ME series have been good examples of how dumbing down can hurt a game. I'm sure people would say the same of others like WoW or whatever else.

Accessibility is a must for these types of games. Sometimes people forget that with new players, they dont have the past experience of 10-50 games of the same genre. However, like others said, if they are having trouble, perhaps they should read the manual, or a tips and tricks section =P.

I dont think WoW got hurt from any "dumbing down" that it has done, if anything, it made the game less tedious. Hell, when cata released, the game was so "hard" that people on forums complained until there was a a nerf to nearly all the dungeons. Some people were just so use to the "gogogogo we dont need cc because we are so geared!" mentality of the last expansion. For another example,LFR didnt make the game "dumbed down", if anything it helped a HELL of a lot with people being able to do dungeons instead of waiting around org for a group. However, LFR did kind of kill some of the comradery that goes with having a group. Pros and cons.

I do like the way they have the difficulty set in the newest raid(and they have done this in the last expansion as well), where there is a stacking debuff to the enemies of the dungeon that reduces their health and damage. It however, can be removed by talking to a person in the dungeon, so both the "hardcore" and "casual" crowd get catered to. It is unfortunate that people stil complain about it.

I think it's better to have a variety of games with different levels of complexity. Then in the fact box of the game tell the potential buyer if it's meant for beginners, intermediate players or experts. I think it's a false premise to think it's possible to make games for everyone.

The 'dumbing down' of WoW made it playable for some people, and that was a good thing. But for others it ruined it. Blizzard turned away the established player base, but then tried to win them back at various occasions. The hard dungeons in Cataclysm was an attempt to get some of the old players back, but at the time that was unacceptable for the newer players who had gotten used to a different kind of game.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Chess has the tactical depth to last through the ages, yet so simple i can write it on a piece of A4

Chess is a great game, and arguably the best game. It's also a highly abstract game. Not every game has to be chess, particularly when game design features simulationist and narrativist goals alongside gamist goals.

It was really just to prove the point that you dcan have depth without the needless complexity.

It is one of my major bugbears that people keep wanting the DnD rulesets implemented in games as an excuse for depth. We can make a deep gameplay that doesn't require the understanding of an incredible amount of rules.

The witcher 2 is another good example. It doesn't hit you over the head with large amounts of math. You just make strikes and get a visual response that can be understood. Combat there is a lot about understanding position and reflex based counter ect. Strikes a fine balance of knowing what to do and having the skill to do it. A perfect system would instantly relay your abilities and your limitation, while still allowing for a diverse choice of actions. Allowing you to figure out what the best action would be and test you if you can do said action.

I think that Witcher 2 is a great ARPG, but that not every RPG needs to have an action component. For those that don't, they could do a lot worse than adopting a tried-and-true system that allows for wargaming, non-combat actions, etc., and is a system many players are already familiar with. Homebrew can be pretty hit-or-miss - sometimes it works and you get something like MegaTen, but sometimes you get something awkward and unbalanced like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Chess has the tactical depth to last through the ages, yet so simple i can write it on a piece of A4

Chess is a great game, and arguably the best game. It's also a highly abstract game. Not every game has to be chess, particularly when game design features simulationist and narrativist goals alongside gamist goals.

It was really just to prove the point that you dcan have depth without the needless complexity.

It is one of my major bugbears that people keep wanting the DnD rulesets implemented in games as an excuse for depth. We can make a deep gameplay that doesn't require the understanding of an incredible amount of rules.

The witcher 2 is another good example. It doesn't hit you over the head with large amounts of math. You just make strikes and get a visual response that can be understood. Combat there is a lot about understanding position and reflex based counter ect. Strikes a fine balance of knowing what to do and having the skill to do it. A perfect system would instantly relay your abilities and your limitation, while still allowing for a diverse choice of actions. Allowing you to figure out what the best action would be and test you if you can do said action.

Early D&D games: 6 characters against multiple enemies
Witcher 2: 1 character against 1 enemy

In Witcher 2 you have a choice between moving left, moving right, moving back and striking or defending. In D&D you have the option to go to dozens of positions, attack any number of opponents, and use any number of weapons and special attacks or spells. That's only per turn!

Real-time will never be nearly as complex as turn-based, simply because you can't fit as many decisions into a limited time period as you cad an unlimited one.

Real time RPGs will always be little more than the thinking man's action games.

 

[Michael Collett]

As with every sane person:
Simplifying mechanics - Mechanics should be as complicated as needed to provide a compelling experience. Not an ounce more.
Making Easier - No!

A lot of the fun of old RPGs seems to be the learning of a games mechanics through experimentation. Well, nowadays we can learn all we need from Wikis. If you want this experience don't read the available information. This is counter-intuitive in a way because once upon a time friends would share their in game discoveries with each other. You CANNOT do that now, because your little friend group is the internet and they did all the experimentation and documentation for you.

I like a game to be upfront about it's mechanics. I like to plan a strategy and not be punished unfairly when it doesn't work. Levelling up into an impossible corner after 20hours is a bad punishment. Finding out I only have 30% of the maximum total stats is a bad punishment(Oblivion!!).

I'm actually most excited about Diablo 3 at the moment. The mechanics are all out there ready to be read. The acquisition of this information is practically in-game, and there is no punishment for failure beyond a minor currency penalty and you sucking in front of your friends until you are convinced to stop with that stupid Jar of Spiders already. If the skill system works (seems to in beta) then there is no 'Best Way' to play. What combination of skills will you determine to be the most efficient? Better go experiment!

 

[Atmos Duality]

The Problem with RPGs is that you can grind your way to victory in most of them. Most of the challenge comes from higher leveled monsters or cheap tactics. What RPGs need is some sort of non-stat based modifier to combat such as strategy (over come bad odds with tactics) or real time combat (I.E. demons' souls).

That exactly what RPGs should require. Legitimate difficulty from design that rewards (or punishes) the player's choices; not just grinding for a higher stat-block.

But that takes EFFORT; both on the part of the player and even more on the part of the developer.

Incidentally, most designs that result in "artificial difficulty" are the same designs that result in "artificial ease", only scaled backwards (stat-mongering especially).

 

[Kahunaburger]

DnD isn't the thinking mans game. Just nerds game. Wasteful use of mechanics. The kind of enjoyment you get out of solving math.

Because using "nerd" as a pejorative on a video game forum is totally something that makes sense

Unless math is the point of the game it an outdated solution. Tieing random generated numbers down into the limitation we had with using dices as a random number generator is a perfect example.

There are certain advantages in using dice. If a game tells me my sword does 2-12 damage, that doesn't give me as much information re: how reliable the damage is compared to the game telling me the sword does 1d11+1 or 2d6.

There can be deep combat in everything. Even the ones you find dumbed down. The CoD series that everyone tries to take out as your standard "dumbing down" example. The addition of Iron Sight Aiming/sprint from from the games where it came from makes a person take a tactical decision without even noticing it. When you sprint you cant shoot sacrificing offence for defence. When you Iron sight aim you move slower sacrificing defence for offence. All without people noticing.

The goal isn't about solving math., but solving the games objective.

Call of Duty is a good example of why I like the way RPGs are up-front with their mechanics. There's quite a lot of math [http://denkirson.xanga.com/715966769/modern-warfare-2/] involved in CoD - it's just all behind the scenes. Now as a nerd who likes winning, I like to know exactly what stuff like slapping a silencer on my gun, adding a 25% damage bonus - or both - will affect things like my TTK and where I have to aim my sniper.

So, if I want to optimize my CoD character, I have to look up a chart on the internet. If I want to optimize a character in an RPG, the game will generally tell me what effect skills/perks/feats/proficiencies/items/etc. have on my damage/swing time/THAC0/damage reduction/etc. I prefer the game that understands that I'm a nerd who likes winning, and gives me the numbers up front.

 

[Atmos Duality]

And even with all that math it is still easy enough to pick up.

If you like math then go do math. You dont need a game for that. Go calculate the world. If you like solving objectives, then let that be the focus of your game. Not doing the math.

There's actually an advanced statistical concept called "Game Theory" that attempts to unify math, marginal thinking, strategy and decision-making for both real-life applications and fictitious. It's a concept most commonly applied in Economics, but it has other applications.

Don't be so quick to dismiss the "math nerds who like solving problems" so quickly; video games are a very good way to study the theory as a control system without introducing needlessly high stakes.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Call of Duty is a good example of why I like the way RPGs are up-front with their mechanics. There's quite a lot of math [http://denkirson.xanga.com/715966769/modern-warfare-2/] involved in CoD - it's just all behind the scenes. Now as a nerd who likes winning, I like to know exactly what stuff like slapping a silencer on my gun, adding a 25% damage bonus - or both - will affect things like my TTK and where I have to aim my sniper.

So, if I want to optimize my CoD character, I have to look up a chart on the internet. If I want to optimize a character in an RPG, the game will generally tell me what effect skills/perks/feats/proficiencies/items/etc. have on my damage/swing time/THAC0/damage reduction/etc. I prefer the game that understands that I'm a nerd who likes winning, and gives me the numbers up front.

And even with all that math it is still easy enough to pick up.

Yeah, it is. So are most RPGs. The difference is that the RPGs give me the numbers I need to do simple optimization up front, and I have to dig up the Call of Duty numbers on the internet. IMO, there's really no excuse for a game not being transparent about simple mechanics like damage numbers.

If you like math then go do math. You dont need a game for that. Go calculate the world. If you like solving objectives, then let that be the focus of your game. Not doing the math.

Doing well at many games requires simple math. Let's go back to Call of Duty - if I want to snipe dudes with a silenced sniper rifle, my gun and perk set-up can make or break my loadout. Or if I'm playing Bad Company 2 and I want to roll with the VSS Vintorez, knowing the gun's unusual mechanics (and how BFBC2 gun mechanics work well in general) is going to be very important in terms of picking the right perks and actually being able to hit anyone.

We expect people to be able to read simple things in order to play video games - I don't think it's unreasonable for some games to also expect them to be able to do simple math.

 

[templar1138a]

I never liked the very old RPGs, but the modern ones are definitely too easy. I stopped playing Skyrim until some decent mods were made because of how it was too damn easy to exploit the game mechanics. It wasn't until there were mods to add hunger, thirst, fatigue, risk of hypothermia, and to turn off the scaling of fights, loot, and shop merchandise that I went back to playing.

Thing is, I don't care about the "challenge" of an RPG so much as the immersion. Old RPGs weren't immersive because you had to draw maps on graph paper and take notes on which spell incantations had what effect (though I do like the glyph-casting system in Legend of Grimrock), and don't get me started on their graphics.

But modern RPGs don't make me feel like my character is a person. I liked Fallout 3 because a post-nuclear-apocalyptic setting is the closest thing you'll get to an American fantasy genre, but I kept finding food items that I didn't need because 1. The amount of health they recovered was abysmal, 2. The ratio of weight to health recovery was moreso, given that medpacks were weightless, and 3. They added rads. This broke the role-playing experience and just made me feel like I was in an old shooter (especially since ammo was also weightless).

But then came Fallout: New Vegas and its hardcore mode. I LOVED hardcore mode. It felt good to be keeping track of my character's hunger, thirst, and sleep deprivation. It made me feel like my character was mortal. A capable and powerful mortal, yes, but still mortal. And I feel the same way about my Skyrim experience now that I have the right mods.

I don't need my RPGs to be more difficult. I just need them to be more immersive and less empowering when I don't want them to be. Basically, I want it to be about survival. When playing Legend of Grimrock, what pressures me to move forward isn't the fear of being ambushed by an enemy I haven't seen; it's the thought of my characters starving to death because I need to pick up and keep food as I go. It adds a whole new level to the experience.

 

[Bostur]

"Game theory" doesn't go against what my original statement was. That a game should aim to be easy to learn, hard to master. You might be able to see "code" after reading up the game to a certain degree, but if you need to read up to that degree to enjoy it then it failed on a basic lvl.

You do push this argument quite often. As usual I challenge your perception that Chess is easy to learn and therefore I don't think it's a good example. Your ideal is one I agree with, but I'd like to claim that it's so hard to implement thats it's practically irelevant.

Easy to learn hard to master is the holy grail in gaming. The ideal is worth searching for but impossible to reach in practice.

 

[Twilight_guy]

"I agree with (mostly)", name me one situation where not explaining the rules or purposely hiding something about the game from the player is ever a good idea. I honestly can't think of any situation like this.

There are a number of games where spoilers are part of the fun - if you a friend are playing Zelda: Link's Awakening, and he/she tells you "hey, if you fire an arrow and drop a bomb at the same time, the bomb sticks to the arrow!" it's a much cooler discovery than the game telling you how to fire bomb-arrows.

I actually find that many (not all, don't kill me) RPGs tend to fail by either trying to front-load everything (here's some text about how weapon types work and are affected by other weapons, here's what stats do, and magic and this and that, and here's some stuff about doing this other thing, etc. etc.) since players need to actually see something happen before they can associate a particular rules with a practical situation, or the stats tend to be arcane like with situations where the player knows that strength, precision, and accuracy all make your attack go up but when he must choice between them he has no idea which one to choose since the only way to figure it out is to run a math equation.

I think that some games are better-off giving you all the mechanics at once rather than gradually introducing you to them. If Portal is the ideal "introduce the player to the game gently and gradually" tutorial, Oblivion (but with a 3-hour tutorial instead of a 1-hour tutorial) is what it would look like if they tried that with an RPG. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of an RPG tutorial that drags on like that, particularly because the RPG is a genre that is incredibly rewarding of experimentation. Don't know if this build is effective? Roll one up and find out! (If anything, I think that the best way to introduce new players to RPG mechanics without punishing them for experimentation is just to give them some way to re-spec a character that doesn't work.)

As for 1. The fact that some one needs to tell the player a mechanic exists is a failure on the developer's part. This is coming directly from everything I've ever learned on game design and from the philosophies of a number of major game studios. (not to mention that that sounds like a glitch which obviously the game is not going to teach you about since its unintended behavior and if you don't play the game with friends this event will never occur). It's like never telling the player that there's a run button and then forcing them into a section where they must run. That's not fair. Not to mention that if they accidental discover it later when it would have been useful elsewhere they are going to be pissed that you didn't say it existed. On a more core level its like playing monopoly except you hold the rule book and you selectively tell other players the rules while holding them to all the rules. That's unfair and is just going to make people mad. You can argue over over major and minor importance of rules here but I think at its base this idea of withholding rules is fundamentally broken.

As for 2, I think good games should take the portal route more and develop games that involve extended tutorial sections but that try to implement them in such a way that they are fun. People don't complain that portal is 80-90% tutorial because they did it right. There is a way to distribute the task of actively teaching the player accost more then just the first 20 minutes. Although I do agree that having an option to re-spec is almost a necessary feature since you can make a failure of a build and forcing players to start the game again to try a new build is a pain.

 

[Kahunaburger]

As for 1. The fact that some one needs to tell the player a mechanic exists is a failure on the developer's part. This is coming directly from everything I've ever learned on game design and from the philosophies of a number of major game studios. (not to mention that that sounds like a glitch which obviously the game is not going to teach you about since its unintended behavior and if you don't play the game with friends this event will never occur). It's like never telling the player that there's a run button and then forcing them into a section where they must run. That's not fair. Not to mention that if they accidental discover it later when it would have been useful elsewhere they are going to be pissed that you didn't say it existed. On a more core level its like playing monopoly except you hold the rule book and you selectively tell other players the rules while holding them to all the rules. That's unfair and is just going to make people mad. You can argue over over major and minor importance of rules here but I think at its base this idea of withholding rules is fundamentally broken.

I like stuff like that when it's optional - it's sort of a fun little easter egg the player can discover. There are also games like NetHack, where a large amount of the fun is digging through guides and wikis to find out about things like carving "Elbereth" and kicking sinks. I don't think that stuff that's necessary to progress should be hidden, but I think that extra stuff being hidden adds a lot of spice to the game.

As for 2, I think good games should take the portal route more and develop games that involve extended tutorial sections but that try to implement them in such a way that they are fun. People don't complain that portal is 80-90% tutorial because they did it right. There is a way to distribute the task of actively teaching the player accost more then just the first 20 minutes. Although I do agree that having an option to re-spec is almost a necessary feature since you can make a failure of a build and forcing players to start the game again to try a new build is a pain.

Portal's a different case, because it's a puzzle game. Most puzzle games do exactly this - adding layers and layers of mechanics throughout the game to keep the puzzles fresh. RPG elements aren't puzzle elements, and don't follow the same rules. Unlike puzzle games, RPGs give you a system, and give you an increasingly difficult set of challenges against which to apply your skills with that system. Where there's an introduction of mechanics, it's best when it's organic and play-driven - unlocking new abilities to experiment with, running into enemies with new capabilities, and so on. Also unlike Portal, RPGs need to be designed for players who want to replay the game with different builds and different choices, and RPGs should not punish replays by subjecting players to a tutorial they no longer need.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Difficulty doesn't really matter to me. I don't want games to become Fable 3 easy, but I think they're at a fine point as they are right now.

Basically, I don't play RPGs for their challenge

 

[GameSoundMe]

I think rpgs should have deep gameplay and mechanics that vary the difficulty depending on the situation