dknight99
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Posts posted by dknight99
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I picked no for all of them because I don't want a system that tells me being a wimp, not killing ****, and being Mr. "Fetch me that" is good because that is definitely not my definition of being a good guy.
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I think a key part when dealing with this aspect if you are talking about the "MAIN" villain is that you can't have it be too sympathetic. Especially since you are usually a character with free agency. For me when I'm in a game where the villain is a well intentioned extremist or something of the sort, I usually want to take other approaches as opposed to "I MUST STOP YOU BLAHMCEVILPANTS". The man or woman basically has to have broken a moral taboo and I think it has to not be abstracted , I think it needs to be in the viewer's face. And they need to be resolute and unapologetic (ultimately).
For a villain to be conflicted or anything of that sort causes them to enter tragic villain/figure territory, which works in some stories. I don't think it works for stories where you want "BIG BOSS FIGHT". I kind of went on a tangent.
Who sez you MUST have a Big Boss Fight? What makes you think that is a requirement?
In Fallout you could convince the Big Bad he was wrong, and he would kill himself.
You could avoid him completely and arm the nuke in his base, killing him without ever talking to him. I didn't felt cheated after that. I felt smart.
You could even agree with him and join him.
Why not?
Give us damn options as to how to handle the villain(s).
I disagree about the Big Boss Fight because I believe there needs to be a final confrontation in the climax in the narrative structure. There needs to be that confrontation that leads to the resolution. However that 'fight' does not need to be combat as demonstrated in the Phoenix Wright series, you can have wonderful pacing, confrontation and reveal through just dialogue. Who doesn't like a good back and forth with objections with good evidence?
There's a problem with the balance between player choice vs telling a story and Obsidion needs to know the line. How much freedom should they be giving the player as oppose to their need to tell a story. Good stuff
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Team Rocket
Oh yeah! XD
Won't steal my pikachu
'Cause I don't use one :|Kefka was great. Unlike a lot of villains who do nothing but talk and scheme and manipulate people, Kefka actually trashed the place and drove everyone to despair. Most scheming villains... scheme and scheme and scheme until the moment of their ascension comes around -- wheeen they're suddenly stopped by the heros. -__-' An enormous display of evilness - that's what Kefka had.
Also Irenicus was whiny. After listening to his speeches, I just wanted to curb stomp him - but he'd run off on me. :/ He never felt like a threat, because he never threatened me in-game with his power (I mean by trouncing my party in a battle) or even did anything other than defeat a few low level mooks in cutscenes.
A competent villain would also get in the party's face a lot. Not just once or twice or even three times. Not, 'the villain does something bad in the first quarter of the game yet we don't see him again until the finale'. Try to stop the party from messing up his plans. Be nasty about it - no weak assassin or underlying attacks. Come after the heros!
I like villains that
- threaten me with their power. Makes me respect their power.
- do some big bad - not just 'almost' do big bad.
- get in my face a lot. Don't ignore me.
Yup ^-^ That was all totally coherent.
EDIT - Zero, "Blah McEvilPants" is the best villain name ever. ;3
That list is pretty much what I want to see in my villain. I think a villain needs to do bad things, not almost doing it or accidentily did it or even for the greater good or whatever.
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@ogrezilla
I agree absolutely. It's the same as the Alien Queen in Aliens. The real villain really was Burke and the Corporation trying to make the Aliens a biological weapon, and Ripley even asked, "Who is worse? Us or them?" Despite Burke getting killed earlier in the story it doesn't make the ending any less satisfying with that end fight. There was so many elements at work in that movie and I think at the end it's just really good story telling. I really do believe that great villains help drive a narrative and stories do not need to limit themselves to only needing one villain. There can be multiple villains who serves in different roles with different motivations. The different villains can work against each other because after all an enemy of my enemy is an ally. Perhaps the PC is actually the villain if looked on from a different set of eyes like in Blade Runner.
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Think of the Alien from 'Alien.' No shades of grey there.
I would say the Alien there wasn't the real villain in that story, though. The alien was just an "elemental" force, providing a background for the conflict with the true villain - the "company" acting through the android character (forogt his name).
Villains (in my mind) cannot be inhuman - otherwise they become just another force of nature, like hurricanes or disease.
Elemental forces can make for very effective 'things that work against you', though. Say what you will about FFX, but Sin was fascinating and terrifying when it was just an unexplainable force of nature, lashing out and destroying everything with no reason, pity nor mercy, rich and poor alike. The real villains in that game were silly and lackluster, but Sin, Sin. Sin was wonderful, and I'm sure many people bought the game because of its powerful imagery. At least until they reveal what it actually is.
Sin was great, but that kind of threat needs to be used properly. The part of that story that really stuck out to me was how the entire world was just refined to the idea that the best they could do was temporarily defeat it. If the story was just about some monster that they all agreed they needed to destroy I think a lot of the emotion would have been taken out of it. But everyone had to be convinced that they didn't have to repeat history over again; they could stand up and actually defeat it.
But I do agree. Sin was great. It was just a constant feeling of looming defeat. Similar to Lavos in Chrono Trigger. Completely flat "character" but it didn't matter. It destroyed the world. I never hated Lavos yet it was a very effective big bad threat.
Funny you mention Lavos and Sin because I remember both of those villains / force of nature well and I thought they were wonderful antagonists when I was playing those games. They were the end boss but there were other villains to take of as well. DA: Origins also had a force of nature enemy at the end with the Scourge / horde dragon thing but I didn't have the same feeling for that enemy as compared to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy X. My biggest problem with DA: Origins was that it felt like it was only Act 1 of a three Act play and it just left me hanging after I defeated the dragon. I was like that's it? It's like playing BG2 and getting to Spellhold and beating Irenicus there and the game is over.
BG2 would not have been as well beloved if the game simply ended there and that was the feeling I got when I finished DA: Origins.
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I love me a good old mystery. Who wouldn't want a little Ace Attorney in my CRPG?
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Think of the Alien from 'Alien.' No shades of grey there. She wanted to eat and feed her young. You're food. Your moral compass and all of your shades of grey ideas are just chatter to her. She doesn't understand the ideas, let alone your words. I don't think every villain should be like that, but that 'bitch' was a compelling 'villain.' In that story, there were human villains also. They had motives and whatnot. Finally, while I also love the shades of grey idea, not every literary figure need have shades of grey. In fact, some folks in real life, while they still have a variety of motives and beliefs and predispositions, are basically bad at their core. There might be shades of grey in them, but they've beat most of those lighter shades to charcoal colored. Just saying we don't need to have every villain overwrought. Some of them might want nothing more than to feed you to their facesuckers.
I love how you brought up aliens and how there is no shade of grey but it's the Alien Queen was a formidable and memorable villain. I also agree with incubus9 and how it's more important to understand their motivation rather than sympathizing with the character. I also think it's why it's so neccesary to have secondary villains. I have maxim when things are going this bad, it's rarely one person's fault.
Back to the Aliens, I really enjoyed the Burke character and how Ripley commented "I don't know which is worse, us or them. You don't see them f'king each other over a damn percentage." When you think about it Burke was the real villain in Aliens because he sent a whole group of colonists to die for his own selfish greed while the Aliens are just there to survive.
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I think hating is a fairly easy to accomplish. All you need is feeling to be treated unfairly. That can even be a pompous boss in any action game. For villains to be really interesting they need a bit more. I think it's important to find them in way a character who you can at least occasionally see the point of or who maybe can do or does something that you wouldn't be too averse of being able to yourself, or which you see as merely rivalling your own status. But this should be only one dimension, or it's too shallow again, detached from any thematic treatment, and probaly poviding not enough closure and satisfaction. It should oscillate a bit between seeing them as genuine characters in their own right and between wanting to completely dismantle them. It doesn't have to be such a stereotype either, but can exist in different degrees and mixtures... Round characters or at least occasional glimpses of roundness, I guess.
I absolutely agree, making a villain you hate is easy to accomplish. Make him annoying as hell and be a buffoon but doesn't go away would be an easy villain to make. Making a villain that can outshine your protagonists now that is something difficult to do. More often than not villains exist only because of the hero, it's difficult to make a villain exist despite the hero and make the player looking forward to the villain's next appearance than groaning everytime he / she shows up.
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I'm really sorry that you haven't heard of Kefka, he was such an incredible villain that really drove the plot in Final Fantasy. I suppose the problem is we need a better definition of what is insanity. To me insanity is being absolute irrational despite the consequences. You can have motivations but those motivations can be absolutely irrational at the same time. Kefka is very similar to the Joker in how he just wanted to see the world burn and he succeeded. In terms of the bests ones are the ones who serve some greater good, I don't know of any good ones. Could you name some of your best villains for me?
Magneto is a good example. He would argue he is liberating the mutants from the oppressive humans. Ozymandias from Watchmen is another that could fall into that category.
I love Magneto as a villain and he's very similar to Magnus from Chrono Trigger in the term of doing bad things for the greater good. However I would argue although both Magento and Magnus were wonderful villains they also didn't pose as a credible threat to the world when compared to Apocalypse. I would love to have Magento on my side against Apocalypse and I would enjoy having him for the main villain at the end and having Magneto as a redeemable villain. There's definitely no reason why there can't be more than one villain in a story and I think it's better that way. Darth Vader was a main villain in the first Star Wars, but The Emperor was the bigger threat behind the redeemable villain.
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The villain above all else must possess personality traits and motives that at least make them seem like a person; their flaw(s) might be selfishness, cruelty, insecurity, hunger for power or just simple madness -- they need to be marginally relatable on some level -- but what makes a villain suck is being "bad" just for the sake of being bad.
Shades of grey are important.
A villain should absolutely have motives and motivation but I disagree with villains suck at being bad just for the sake of being bad. Kefka was bad because he wanted to be god. He was insane, but it worked because he made it personal.
I don't know who Kefka is, but doesn't your description of insanity dovetail with my inclusion of madness as a personality trait? The trick is that a villain usually doesn't see themselves as evil, the best ones usually think they are serving some greater good by serving their own ends -- i.e. saving the world from itself, purging some hated enemy from the land, etc.
The villain above all else must possess personality traits and motives that at least make them seem like a person; their flaw(s) might be selfishness, cruelty, insecurity, hunger for power or just simple madness -- they need to be marginally relatable on some level -- but what makes a villain suck is being "bad" just for the sake of being bad.
Shades of grey are important.
A villain should absolutely have motives and motivation but I disagree with villains suck at being bad just for the sake of being bad. Kefka was bad because he wanted to be god. He was insane, but it worked because he made it personal.
I don't know who Kefka is, but doesn't your description of insanity dovetail with my inclusion of madness as a personality trait? The trick is that a villain usually doesn't see themselves as evil, the best ones usually think they are serving some greater good by serving their own ends -- i.e. saving the world from itself, purging some hated enemy from the land, etc.
I'm really sorry that you haven't heard of Kefka, he was such an incredible villain that really drove the plot in Final Fantasy. I suppose the problem is we need a better definition of what is insanity. To me insanity is being absolute irrational despite the consequences. You can have motivations but those motivations can be absolutely irrational at the same time. Kefka is very similar to the Joker in how he just wanted to see the world burn and he succeeded. In terms of the bests ones are the ones who serve some greater good, I don't know of any good ones. Could you name some of your best villains for me?
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I liked Loghain from Dragon Age: Origins. He had a lot of what nikolokolus and Raithe describes... but more importantly, he was voiced by Simon Templeman! Now THAT is something I love in a villain!
I winced when I think about Loghain cause he had so much potential in the beginning and he just didn't deliver as a character. Not only is he not the main villain he also didn't do that much after the initial betrayal. He also didn't make it that personal. So his betrayal led to the deaths of almost all the wardens, I don't care the wardens didn't do that much anyway and I just joined it so why should I care and he was doing so to because in his mind was for the good of the kingdom. So I can't hate him that much either and he can join my party at the end at the expense of the whiny Alaster! Just so much potential but failed for me as a bad guy.
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The villain above all else must possess personality traits and motives that at least make them seem like a person; their flaw(s) might be selfishness, cruelty, insecurity, hunger for power or just simple madness -- they need to be marginally relatable on some level -- but what makes a villain suck is being "bad" just for the sake of being bad.
Shades of grey are important.
A villain should absolutely have motives and motivation but I disagree with villains suck at being bad just for the sake of being bad. Kefka was bad because he wanted to be god. He was insane, but it worked because he made it personal.
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The bad guy needs to have soul.
Soul and dripping atmosphere that provides that loathing/hatred/respect that digs down and propels you forward to stop his plans.
It's also kind of fun to have the bad guys who really, truly don't think of themselves as bad guys. Sure, there have been some fun "i'm crazy and evil" bad guys, but the ones that felt that what they were doing made them the heroes and you the bad guy in their story.. Those can be memorable.
Absolutely. The Joker doesn't think he's a bad guy at all. He would argue that "He's just ahead of the curve" in this dog eat dog world of survival of the fittest.
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I am not going to trouble myself with tropes or characteristics like wit or style or urbanity.
The bottom line is that the bad guy needs to do something to you that is beyond the pale. It should become, if it isn't already, personal.
Absolutely in agreement with this. It has to be personal if not directly to the PC but to a companion. That may lead to darker themes though. One scenario is if one companion joined you and then she / he was captured and raped. He / she rejoins your party and is scarred. Question is do we as gamers want to go to such dark themes? I mean the question is where should the line be for a villain?
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Give me some smug bastard like Walton Simons from Deus Ex.
I love smug bastards. It's satisfying to slap that smugness off their faces at the end.
Another smug bastard / insane villain is Luca Blight from Suikoden 2. He made a villager act like a pig in front of him and promise to free him after. He freed him by 'skewing the piggy'
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Many modern games these days like to gloss over the villain as a mere obstacle to the player’s hero. It’s understandable since the hero is the one in which the player spends most of his / her time with. In recent years I cannot recall any wonderful video game villains at all and most seem to be either mindless world eating threat or a misunderstood grey character in which the character was suppose to pity or redeem. After finishing a modern RPG I would remember some of the companions and some of the more interesting quests but I cannot remember the villain at all. Who was the villain in Oblivion? I think it was a demon thing, but it had a wonderful Dark Brotherhood quest! Who was the villain in Skyrim? I think it was a dragon, but forget about him I can dragon shout people off cliffs! Who was the villain in Dragon Age: Origins? I think it was again a dragon…or was that the villain in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm? Anyways, I can’t think of any real memorable villains in modern times so let’s talk about some villains I do remember and they are Irenicus from Baldur’s Gate 2, Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 and the Joker from The Dark Knight.
Spoilers Alert if you haven’t play through Baldur’s Gate 2, Final Fantasy 6 or watched The Dark Knight
Irenicus
Irenicus does not mess around. He always had a plan and he tortures you in a self-righteous tone asking “You have such…potential.” Even after you escaped the initial dungeon and he is long gone he haunts your dreams with such command. He controls the PC. I can still remember the chilling word, “Stand” or in another dream when he goes on about a story of a woman who works hard to raise her children and then mercilessly kills her “And now she is dead.” Doing all this just to make a point to the PC about the nature of life and how it’s a world of survival of the fittest. I remember an exchange between Imoen and him after he had broken free from Spellhold.
“Hello, little one. You and I have a great deal to do.”
“Wh-what are you planning?”
“Not to worry, nothing worse than what I shall do to your friend.”
I remember hating Irenicus but along with that hatred came with certain respect. He was winning and I was always a step behind. I respected his plans, and I respected how he can lay waste to a bunch of mages in seconds. If the boss fight against Irenicus weren’t hard then perhaps that respect would have faded but the fight was hard and you needed to break down his magical defenses to even start damaging him and when he finally dies at the Elf home city, he drags you into hell with him. At the end it was so satisfying finally beating him and watch him rot in hell. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone else anymore and I put a formidable foe away.
Kefka
This crazy clown is one of the few villains who actually won. Many villains go out there and try to destroy the world. Kefka actually does it mid-way through Final Fantasy VI. Before he destroys the world, he had poisoned an entire town, enslaved Terra, killed General Leo and kicked around his corpse, killed all the Espers and finally betrayed his emperor to become a godlike being. After he already won and reshaped the world in his own image he likes to fire down laser beams on any survivors for a laugh. There was no redeeming quality to him and I loved that in a villain. It was so satisfying to finally put him down after all he did to everyone in Final Fantasy VI.
The Joker
The Joker from the Dark Knight was great. Even though he was on film and in a different medium he had both the traits of both Kefka and Irenicus. The Joker made plans, a lot of them and he lies how he’s only a mad dog chasing cars which isn’t true at all but with his appearance and chaotic nature it was easy to believe him. The Joker was genuinely funny, who didn’t laugh at least a little after seeing the pencil trick or seeing the irony of ‘let her go’ and his rebuttal of ‘Very poor choice of words.’ The Joker was both endearing in his humor but he was so incredibly intelligent. The Joker won so many times over Batman and only in the very end at great cost to himself was he able to finally put the Joker away. It was a pyrrhic victory, but that’s what made the Joker so memorable. He was a worthwhile foe that both humor and terrified the audience.
The traits these three villains shared are that they’re all very intelligent and had plans to get what they want. There are so many times when a villain would allow the hero a chance to escape. Not these villains, they plan for keeps and will get what they want and the hero and his companions must suffer from it. A good villain should be a viable threat that the hero must witness first hand. In Dragon Age: Origins they would build up the threat in the map and you cannot revisit a village because it was destroyed but it would have been so much better to revisit that village and see the destruction firsthand. The hero should see a companion be irreversibly changed by a villain’s evil act. Imoen changed after her encounter with Irenicus and depending on how you played; Celes was going to commit suicide. Villains should also make things personal. I know there’s the old RPG cliché of having a villain burning down your village and you have to go on a quest of vengeance. It’s cliché now but what it did do was to make things personal for a character and provides motivation to pursuit that villain.
Above all, a villain should not be a dragon. Dragons make wonderful boss fights and should be included, but for the main antagonist, a dragon is simply too foreign to relate unless he can morph into human being so that’s different. But still just don’t do it. Don’t make another dragon the main villain in an RPG!
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I think that's a great idea about getting other group members to distract the merchant and then stealing. I really hated needing to save and reload if I missed an internal roll for the pickpocketing stat. I also agree that you should be able to get some really good loot through stealing. Remember evil wins because good is dumb, why shouldn't some who steals get something that helps them along the way, and also why can't my charming good rogue thief not steal something when I'm out trying to save the freaking world right?
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I'm not a fan of firearms in a fantasy setting mainly because magic already serves as a great long range artillery force. Why bother investing in firearms when you can have magic and be throwing fireballs? Early inaccurate firearms would be very inefficient compare to magic.
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Well I think one of the most well known companion has to be Minsc and Boo, it could have been stupid but Misnc was just so endearing. His banter was hiliarious but he's not stupid. When facing a dragon and being underlevel he knew to tell us that we may need bigger swords!
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- "taboo subjects": some things that just won't ever be included - rape, incest, torture... depending on the focus of the game, having these as story points (since they are real things that really happen) and the player character and companions having to deal with these things being in the world would be a very mature game, if handled right.... and this isn't to suggest that players are allowed to rape, torture, or have sex with their parents... but if it's good enough for Greek myths and the Bible, why can't the subject matter be in an M rated game?
Why am I suddenly reminded of the Imoen Romance mod for BG2 (which, considering the subject matter, is remarkably well done and surprisingly tasteful)?
Dragon Age: Origins also dealt with rape actually. A good portion of the City Elf origin revolves around a group of elves being kidnapped by humans during a wedding ceremony and several of the female elves being raped and killed. You don't see anything of it directly of course, but it's pretty damn clear it happened, and the PC's own cousin is rather traumatised by the event. It was emotionally quite powerful and worked rather well, IMO. I seriously despised the main antagonist in the affair, and it was the kind of thing that made my otherwise good-aligned character go to a very dark places and choose options they normally wouldn't. And I think content that can make you do that is, by and large, good.
I remember that part and I thought it was very well done unfortunately once the beginning story ended it didn't really revisit that. I think if the cousin was an actual companion it could have been better but in DA: Origin, they just left it there. A shame really wasted potential.
- "taboo subjects": some things that just won't ever be included - rape, incest, torture... depending on the focus of the game, having these as story points (since they are real things that really happen) and the player character and companions having to deal with these things being in the world would be a very mature game, if handled right.... and this isn't to suggest that players are allowed to rape, torture, or have sex with their parents... but if it's good enough for Greek myths and the Bible, why can't the subject matter be in an M rated game?
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I prefer one large city and small villages / places of interest not too far from the city.
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I'd prefer there weren't any. No objection to the idea in principle, but given finite resources, I'd much rather go with the assumption that the PC is a heroic type as the starting point, and offer more choices from that perspective.
I pretty much agree with this--I'd like to have complex choices, but I'd prefer dialog not breakdown like this:
1. Ghandi and Mother Teresa Lovechild
2. Bland Man from Blandistan
3. BITCH WHERE'S MY MONEY
4. Puppy kicking and baby eating
It's not the good/evil options that I object to so much as the idea that good vs. evil breaks down to "save the baby" vs. "eat the baby".
That being said, I'm also not a huge fan of choices that break down to things like "which one of these people do I feed into the chipper shredder so that the other two can live?" That's not a difficult choice. That's a *stupid* choice. Granted . . . I could see having a couple of situations like that come up (infrequently), if you make a series of bad or confused decisions because running up against the Chipper Shredder Roulette is a great way to startle people into THINKING about this stuff, particularly if they come back through that situation on a later playthrough and discover, ZOMG, I could have AVOIDED all that?!?!?!
And, lastly, I'd like to have tons of decisions that don't just come down to picking one dialog option over another. It's an IMPORTANT decision if you, say, decide to go clear out the side rooms or charge straight to the end boss. It's an important decision if you take the time to disarm the traps. It's important if you decide to investigate around and get more info rather than just taking the first person you talk to at their word. These things should have story effects even though they aren't the kinds of decisions you make by clicking a particular line of dialog over another.
Bioware in particular has pretty much abandoned those kinds of decisions, so it feels like the gameplay and story are locked in different rooms.
I have to agree with you and why choices seem so strange in modern games. The choices are simply so extreme from one choice to another. In one instance I can choose to be a saint and then another I can be a baby eater in my next choice. The game really forces me to either roleplay one or the other and if I do not choose a side I'll lose out on buffs (in Bioware games at least). I much rather not make choices that are good, neutral or evil but rather meaningful choices for that particular situation. I'm a fan of unintentional consequences, something I did that I thought was good might have made a situation worse or doing something evil was actually the way to go in the long run.
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"Perhaps holding on right click on an enemy and then choosing if that character should engage aggressively or defensively. Aggressive stance would result in a gamble with higher attack output but also higher health loss, while a defensive stance will result in more visual dodges or blocks. The engagement by the player is to know when to switch between the stances or when to activate a skill. For example an enemy may be very aggressive and charges at the character at that point the player can pause quickly and activate a trip command and does an instant deathblow. Reward players who are engaged with what
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I like them, but prefer them in a subverted, non-traditional form
I would like to see some suggestions, seeing that this seems to be the most popular option atm.
I actually like the idea of "demon elves". Combined with the traditional tree-hugging aspect, they could look normal at first glance, but if seriously threatened, transform into something between a treant and an alien (you know, branches, skin as bark, perhaps tentacles, and the whole thing oozing black mucus...). They could wield magics related to wild, ever-growing life (along the line of unstoppable growth) and/or death/decomposition. Dual aspect of nature, and all that.
Not like it's original, or the devs would be very likely to be able to use it, but a cool idea, which hasn't been represented in a video game yet.
That's a little bit like Dark Elves no? I mean the whole evil elves thing. In forgotten realms they have the matriach and have slaves and do unelfy stuff. It's cool and all but it has been done before. At the end I keep asking myself what makes evil elves different from just very bad humans with pointy ears? Or hippy humans tree huggers with pointy ears?
'Cause I don't use one :|
What was your favourite quest in an RPG? Why?
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
My personal favorite is in Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood quest in which you're in a house with six other people trying to survive the night and you can pick them off one by one and the other people start panicking. One of the most satisfying quest in my mind.