Imbrium
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Blog Comments posted by Imbrium
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I feel Oblivion gets a lot of undue criticism because of it's hype and fame. I thing Oblivion got a lot of things "right" as far as mixing action and stats. Sure, it's not 100% perfect, but I still feel its a very engaging game, if your into sandbox games.
I will say with "traditional" CRPG games, as long as the game is linear enough, it is pretty easy to balance difficulty. A party of level 5 characters need X level 4-6 monsters.
Oblivion tried having scaled monsters, which broke many players immersion, and leave any feeling of progression almost the window.
I think future action-RPG hybrid games are going to run into this issue, and something never going to be completely solved. How do you balance action mechanics, and enemy difficulty/AI when you have a stat-driven progression. How difficult do you need to make enemies for the player to truly feel challenge?
The DMC series meets a pretty good balance of stats and action. Most the time, you are buying new moves, not more numbers to you existing moves. Every move has pros and cons. Just because you have new moves doesn't mean much without the knowledge of when and where to apply it.
I haven't had a chance to play Dark Messiah, but it looks pretty good on paper. Buy abilities that add to your utility more than just "bigger numbers" all the time.
EVE online also does a great job of balancing combat mechanics and skills. Skill increase your "utility" (being able to equip more >kinds< of weapons) but your damage output is bottlenecked by you ship. A given ship my only be able to have 3 weapons, and carry only so much weight. So having bigger guns will decrease your cargo size/and how many other combat-helping modules you can have on board.
I think that is the best way to handle having Stats/Skills in an action-RPG hybrid. Skills should increase your utility, but your still bottlenecked by your paper doll. Having skills that give different functionality, not just higher numbers.
What I mean (just pulling stuff out of my hat)
A sword skill in most games:
Level 1: crap damage
level 2: moderate damage
level 3: good damage
level 4 great damage
I propose
Level 1: equip a sword
level 2: be able to parry with sword
level 3: be able to disarm opponents
level 4: every attack "bleeds" opponent.
that way, you feel real progression with your skills. Not unlike getting Expert/Master/Grandmaster ranks in the old Might and Magic games.
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I think Arcanum did a pretty good job of placing serious issues within its game story. More prominent if you did side-quest and read the various books lying around the game. Granted not on the scale your talking about, but I felt there were enough in the game to warrant it a rather profound stance on serious issues.
I think a real problem with making a game that deals with such issues is what do you do in the game? At what point do you break the barrier between playing a game, and watching a discourse on morality and ethics, and just end up getting depressed?
Can the main character change the story? If so how? Does the main character become some Superman-esqe hero running around fixing things? Or do you play some twisted corrupt guy making things worse? Playing the guy in the middle would probably mean you wouldn't have much impact on the story. When returns to my first point, how does gaming in such a situation not turn into a discourse on morality/ethics.
I certainly enjoy more interesting themes in video games. I loved it in Arcanum, but it was something in the background, and you don't really deal with it much in the main plot. Some side-quest dealt with them, sure.
A whole 'nother issue is what genre of game would you do this with? an RPG? Would too much combat detract from the seriousness of the game? etc.
I'm not trying to dog on ya, but just food for thought. I really dig what you're saying.
rpg mechanics 'n stuff
in Joshin' Around!
A blog by J.E. Sawyer in General
Posted
It doesn't require a "high" amount of player skill at all IMO. Just look at Oblivion. I have plenty of friends who aren't action gamers that still play the game obsessively. Another great thing about such a progression is that it slowly introduces the player to the different fighting mechanics while they played, so new players don't get overwhelmed.
It is all about meeting that "balance" point between requiring player skill and character skill.
In my mind, it's more rewarding to feel like I've swung the sword, than just having a dice-roll generator telling me I hit or missed. At that point, I might as well be playing Progress Quest.