The quality of combat in Bloodlines and other games

[Xard]

It's also better than most action games.

 

you've played lots of action games then I presume

[Darque]

Doesn't everybody?

 

Not according to some posts I've read over the years....

[J.E. Sawyer]

It's also better than most action games.

There are times, like this, when a simple "lol" says everything.

 

lol

[Gromnir]

Doesn't everybody?

 

Not according to some posts I've read over the years....

 

case in point

 

Gromnir hated kotor combat, but we still had fun. the kotor combat not depend on appropriate tactics or character building neither... and end battle were disproportionately tough of force users. horrible combat, but would be lying if we said we disliked game.

 

toee, on the other hand... some toee combats were slow death (and only partly due to inexplicable slow-downs) and reach weapons and aoo were wrong, but for the most part we really enjoyed toee combat. game were pretty darn terrible in spite of fun combat.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[newc0253]

They say a foolish insistence is the hobgoblin of small minds, Grommy. But I know you're being purposefully thick. It's okay.

 

actually, "they" says that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

actually, the correct quote is that 'foolishness is the consistent mental quality of little hobgoblins'.

 

not many people realise that emerson was a big sword & sorcery fan, and widely misquoted.

[Xard]

this reminds me, whose clever idea it was to put in radial menus in ToEE!?

 

Blergh

 

Out of NWN1, ToEE and PS:T only latter one had passable radial menus, basically because there was only one of them

[Gromnir]

They say a foolish insistence is the hobgoblin of small minds, Grommy. But I know you're being purposefully thick. It's okay.

 

actually, "they" says that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

actually, the correct quote is that 'foolishness is the consistent mental quality of little hobgoblins'.

 

not many people realise that emerson was a big sword & sorcery fan, and widely misquoted.

 

he actually invented d&d along with his pals...

 

we hear that thoureau always played as a ranger. emerson fancied himself a chaotic good unitarian cleric. apparently nathaniel hawthorne wanted to be a fairy princess...

 

HA! Good Fun!

[kirottu]

That doesn't make combat system good. JE's system is horribly flawed by being repetitive, having stupid AI and having overpowered win buttons (Jade Golem for starters destroys everything). It is not good combat system although it was good attempt.

 

Sawyer often criticises this thing that people forgive crappy combat because "it's RPG and RPG's have crappy combat!"

 

It

Edited August 28, 2008 by kirottu

[Volourn]

"you've played lots of action games then I presume"

 

Yes. Some good ones. Some bad ones. *shrug* Thankfully, JE isn't an action game. It's an Action RPG.

 

 

 

"Out of NWN1, ToEE and PS:T only latter one had passable radial menus, basically because there was only one of them"

 

NWN's radial menu was aweosme. As was PST's for the most part. TOEE's was subpar but that's mainly because if you click too many times it could eventually lead to the radial menu section youa r eopening to go right off the screen.

 

 

 

 

"lol"

 

L0L

Edited August 28, 2008 by Volourn

[Starwars]

Bloodlines combat was a big pile of lame. I will say that I found it rather satisfying to send people spinning through the air though when kicking their asses with melee weapons (or unarmed), but that didn't exactly even begin to make the combat enjoyable.

 

I always disliked the radial menus in NWN1 and PS:T, but for some reason I really liked ToEEs (the rest of the interface, like inventory management, sucked though).

[Gromnir]

for Gromnir, toee may have been the worst of the radial menus. with multi-tiers, you could literally has radial menu extend complete across screen before accessing required spell or whatever. typically Gromnir is okie dokie with radial, but toee radial were a bit cumbersome.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[newc0253]

all things considered, the radial menu was the least of TOEE's flaws.

 

looking back, that game involved some of the most bewildering design choices in an ostensibly story-driven CRPG: minimalist dialogue, minimal characterisation, minimal flavour - hell, even the items in the inventory lacked frakking descriptions.

 

and all the more bizarre coming from a company otherwise known for story-driven games: Arcanum and Bloodlines each had flaws of their own but neither of them lacked for interesting characters or depth of story.

Edited August 28, 2008 by newc0253

[Killian Kalthorne]

I didn't like the combat in Bloodlines or Oblivion all that well. Combat in ME and JE were fine for action CRPGs, but if they could have merged the two together that we could have shooting and furious martial arts action it would have been more fun. Melee combat in ME was just poor. I think the most fun I have had, combat wise, was with the old X-Com games and perhaps the Fallouts. Of more recent games I have to say I had fun with NWN2's combat.

 

AI is always going to be bad. That is why I like Tony K's AI mod for NWN2.

[Gromnir]

"looking back, that game involved some of the most bewildering design choices in an ostensibly story-driven CRPG"

 

tim didn't view as a story-driven crpg. tim saw as duplicating an old ad&d 1e module. unfortunately, am suspecting that he never actually were part o' a game group (as a player or dm) that tackled the adventure. toee, like most ad&d modules, were little more than a framework for players and dms to build 'pon. tim put up frame and declared his work finished.

 

plus, while toee were big, it kinda sucked. am able to see why he chose (as a lead-in to g and d modules,) but regardless, the basic material were terrible.

 

he starts with a bad module, and di almost nothing with it. huh?

 

but to stay on topic, the combat were pretty good.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Dark_Raven]

he quality of combat in Bloodlines and other games, ... or lack thereof. BOOM! I went there.

Yeah I'll BOOM you big boy.

 

 

I think JE is just mad at Troika because they put in BIS Sucks in Bloodlines.

That makes me more sad than mad. My dislike of Bloodlines' combat doesn't have anything to do with Troika. It has to do with the combat in Bloodlines being terrible. Even when it was buggy, I thought ToEE combat was very fun.

 

Ok lets get nit picky at combat eh? Fallout series. Target shot to the head and especially to the eyes should be instant death, which they are not. If you didn't score a critical it only knocked a few hit points off them. Kotor series, blaster fire at some one who isn't wearing armor should either cripple the target or outright kill them depending on where they were hit. Same goes with lightsabers. Hell lightsabers can cut thru most armor. Enemy AI in most games is not tactical or logical.

I'm not equating realism with quality. You're free to do so, but most people don't make that association. I don't think any of the games we're talking about are particularly realistic. I think Fallout's combat was pretty bad in a lot of ways, anyway.

 

Don't get me started on party AI. Icewind Dale had the worse party AI in any game I played. They usually just stood around to "think" before they responded while hordes of the enemy are attacking them and before you know it a few of the weaker party members are dead.

BG/IWD party AI wasn't particularly great, but you had full party control. Using full party control, the IE was responsive and the combat encounters, when designed well (over the course of seven-ish games), were pretty fun. The only combat fun I had in Bloodlines was avoiding gunplay and melee to Theft of Vitae (or whatever the BL equivalent was) everyone I came across.

 

I said for an RPG. I'm not very good at real fighting games, and I hate button mashing hack'n'slash because it's so boring. Obviously if they made JE like Ninja Gaiden, 90% of RPG players would never get through it.

You hate button mashing hack'n'slash because it's so boring, but you enjoyed JE despite the fact that it basically tries to emulate the basic combat style of of a pure action game. Bad action games are button mashing. Good action games are pretty tactical and require more quick thinking than quick button-pressing. Action games also vary a lot in their combo structures. The Ninja Gaiden series has pretty long and complex combos that use two buttons, character state, and stick input to determine what Ryu (or Rachel) does. God of War has a pretty shallow system overall. DMC3 and DMC4 actually had reasonably shallow systems, but the ability to switch styles on the fly gave them amazing depth for "pro players". But I think most people... EVEN RPG PLAYERS... could win DMC4 on Human difficulty. A character like Nero is surprisingly easy to play at that difficulty, and they introduce his mechanics quite gradually.

 

Of course, any/all games of any genre that attempt to have fast-paced combat should have a high framerate. Bloodlines had a good framerate, Oblivion had a good framerate. JE and ME were usually sub-25. Bad news.

 

I liked BIS and was some what disappointed to see that in Bloodlines.

 

IWD was the worst when it came to party AI for whatever reason. The other IE games I didn't have a problem. IWD I had to make them force attack the enemy before their AIs kicked in. Not to mention its path finding was bad. I don't remember IWD2 being such a problem so whatever problems there was must have been fixed.

[Llyranor]

The problem isn't so much that action RPGs like Jade Empire (or, well, Mass Effect) can't compare to the cream of the crop of action games or shooters (after all, resources are spent much differently), it's that not only is there poor mimicry of said systems, but they also fail to provide the usual satisfaction brought on by combat in good RPGs.

 

From a pure combat perspective, there's really no comparison, and anyone claiming that the responsiveness or actual aiming mechanics are better in Jade Empire or Oblivion or Mass Effect or Bloodlines than Virtua Fighter or Ninja Gaiden or Half-Life or whatever pretty much has some sort of agenda or has extremely limited experience in gaming outside RPGs when in comes to said combat. But that's because RPG devs can't invest the vast majority of their budget on fleshing out the combat system alone. Which is fine. The problem comes when people use that excuse as a crutch for simply poor combat.

 

Where RPG combat can have an edge comes in terms of the decisions you can make, or using the specific skills from a character you've developed. Heck, the IE games or any good turn-based RPG would do a good job of this, offering you a good breadth/depth of options to control the battlefield. In this instance, the RPG elements add to the combat, providing you various options based on your choices in character development.

 

Now, let's take a look at Jade Empire vs Ninja Gaiden. In terms of pure combat mechanics, NG has the obvious edge, so let's set that aside. What should JE be better at, then? Options, tactical choices, and so on. The inherent problem here is that it DOES not deliver this. Sure, you can choose between various weapons or styles, or transformations, but it's all very shallow in implementation. Sure, using a sword is different than using a freezing fist style, but you can pretty much approach any encounter using either. Which may have been Bioware's point, I guess. Sure, you have the choice, but it ultimately felt meaningless to me. Gross generalization, of course, but I found myself not really needing to switch between styles all that much, since the combat situations could be approached readily using most any of them. Heck, I plowed through the game using the straight sword for the most part. A 'button-masher', if you will. Sure, you can dodge and jump, which you can't so much in many RPGs, but these are pretty poorly implemented, and they're virtually the bare minimum for any action game anyway. In NG2, for example, while you're surrounded by various types of enemies with all various types of attacks, all of which can kill you if you stop paying attention briefly, you need to decipher enemy patterns warning you of upcoming attacks, all while figuring out which move (of which you have a good number per weapon) you need in which weapon set (of which you have a good number of) to use to take out specific enemies depending on their attack patterns (eg. you want a good move from a weapon that'll easily cut off arms against ninjas with rocket launchers, or cutting legs off sword ninjas to render them immobile while you focus on more important targets) and identifying threats (mages, archers, suicidal enemies whose limbs you've cut off). Do you risk taking a split-second pause to absorb the essence from the enemies you've killed in order to unleash a powerful ultimate technique, or will that slight pause allow an enemy to land an attack on you (and then get mobbed)?

 

The difference (all IMO, of course) is that one game rewards you for quick thinking (thus satisfying the tactical gamer) AND good reflexes (thus justifying the action component), whereas the other is both lesser from an action perspective, but also in terms of satisfying decision-making. Jade Empire ends up feeling very simplistic. You walk around the enemy, pretty much free of any risk of harm. If the enemy shoots at you, you roll. You're left at your own pace to go beat up the enemy. The AI is dumb. You can use anything you want on them. Some may argue that that's the point of a RPG system in an action combat system, 'options'. I disagree. The game needs to provide you with reasons for picking a specific option during a specific situation (I'm cutting that rocket launcher ninja's arm off because he will kill me if I focus on less threatening enemies first, and I'm not killing him outright because that'll trigger a spawn for another ninja; I'll focus on lesser threats before I cross that bridge) rather than 'I'm roleplaying a swordsman so I'll use a sword style against these guys. Chop chop chop'. You can even have an ice ranged spell, or a thunder fist, or transform into a frog, but ultimately it's all the same. You could go through the various battles using any or just one of those. I like to have my options available DURING combat, not just based on which skills I've upgraded. Eg. There should be different ways in which I could use a sword style, but which way would depend on what this specific scenario calls for.

 

As for games like Ninja Gaiden being too hard - that's what difficulty levels are for. Dumbing down the systems isn't the solution. That's what Jade Empire ultimately ends up feeling as. A dumbed-down combat system. Same with Mass Effect. Sure, you have biotics, but their application is virtually automation. Just use biotics whenever they recharge on any enemy you see. Otherwise just point and shoot. It's shallow, it's dumbed-down. It can be entertaining for a while, but it's not particularly satisfying from a pure combat perspective. Other shooters may try to provide challenge with various enemy patterns, AI adapting to the situation, or just simply different situations. ME doesn't do that. It just pitches you with enemies who stand and shoot at you, or who charge at you. Every battle repeats itself.

 

Thinking about it, maybe the games just don't make good use of their options. Rather than providing with similar combat situations over and over again, they should provide enough variety to reward different types of character, rather than every battle being the same for every character (eg. one battle being easier with biotics, the next being more accessible for the soldier, etc, while providing OTHER options - perhaps more difficult, but still possible - for other types of characters). Provide variety to take advantage of your character skills. Thanks.

 

For the record, I played JE and ME to their completion. I even enjoyed ME and look forward to the sequel. But the combat system has little to do with that. I also think action RPGs have a lot of potential. I actually quite enjoy the Tales line of JRPGs, for example. They provide satisfying action combat, while still allowing you access to a wider set of skills that you wouldn't really get in a pure action game. It works well.

 

Alpha Protocol and Aliens RPG essentially need to get their shooting mechanics down pat first and foremost, and THEN integrate in 'RPG elements'.

 

I lost my train of thought a while ago. Oh well.

 

/textwall

Edited August 29, 2008 by Llyranor

[Volourn]

"From a pure combat perspective, there's really no comparison, and anyone claiming that the responsiveness or actual aiming mechanics are better in Jade Empire or Oblivion or Mass Effect or Bloodlines than Virtua Fighter or Ninja Gaiden or Half-Life or whatever pretty much has some sort of agenda or has extremely limited experience in gaming outside RPGs when in comes to said combat"

 

All this, and the rest of your spam tells me nothing other than your opinion. Perhaps people don't look for the same things you do in their combat. To me, JE and ME were a good mix of action and rpg hence why it's an Action RPG. The combat in both work for me just fine as theyw ere fun, reasonably challengeing, and cool.

 

I have played my share of full fledge action games. They are fun; but they don't really require any thinking. I didn't play NG (the new modern one); but it looks like any bland action game. The old NG was fun when it was out.

 

Again, the cool thing was that JE (and ME) weren't competing with NG. NG is an Action game. JE is an Action RPG. HUGE difference.

[J.E. Sawyer]

"From a pure combat perspective, there's really no comparison, and anyone claiming that the responsiveness or actual aiming mechanics are better in Jade Empire or Oblivion or Mass Effect or Bloodlines than Virtua Fighter or Ninja Gaiden or Half-Life or whatever pretty much has some sort of agenda or has extremely limited experience in gaming outside RPGs when in comes to said combat"

 

All this, and the rest of your spam tells me nothing other than your opinion.

Responsiveness is not opinion-based (unless you want to argue that having something be less responsive makes it feel better). This is the second time in about a month that you have made this goofy claim. Unless you're bending the spacetime continuum, the time it takes for something to respond to input can be calculated in a pretty straightforward fashion.

 

http://cowboyprogramming.com/2008/05/27/pr...responsiveness/

 

The short version: optimized input at 60 fps will always be faster than optimized input at 30 fps. Ninja Gaiden, DMC, and God of War run at 60. All non-terrible fighting games run at 60. And it's really giving console ME and JE the benefit of the doubt to say they ran at 30. I dipped into the low-20s in empty rooms in JE. V-sync tearing owns.

 

I have played my share of full fledge action games. They are fun; but they don't really require any thinking.

Feel free to talk about your experiences with any/all of them.

 

I didn't play NG (the new modern one); but it looks like any bland action game.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realized you had looked at it. Had I known you looked at it, I wouldn't have questioned you.

 

Again, the cool thing was that JE (and ME) weren't competing with NG. NG is an Action game. JE is an Action RPG. HUGE difference.

Any time a game apes the mechanics of another game, it will draw comparisons. This is why, despite liberally ripping off Dante's Air Hike/Stinger moves and gun-juggling, Baldur's combat in Too Human feels and looks bad to a lot of people who have played DMC games. Too Human is billed as an action-RPG. But if you're going to spend 75% of the game beating the hell out of things, the mechanics need to feel as sharp as possible.

[RangerSG]

Dark Raven,

 

Since this is about combat in RPGs, I'll simply say that I've never seen 'pathfinding' in an RPG that wasn't problematic. I remember having my party get stuck on virtually every tree in IWD2. And the bridge...*sighs* But Morrowind had it the worst on this score. The "follow me" quests in Morrowind were dodgy no matter how well you knew where you were going simply because the AI pathfinding could get hung up on 1 plant on a road. And I also preferred BG's combat to IWD's. Don't know why it seemed IWD's AI was less responsive.

 

I didn't think Morrowind's combat was worse than Oblivion's. Autohit was not nearly as big a deal as the fact in Oblivion if you don't carry 3 sets of armor you can't wander a dungeon without losing all your gear and wandering around naked. Unless you're a master armorer, of course. I don't think there was a single thing Oblivion did better than Morrowind, to be honest.

 

As for NWN2 combat...I don't know what to make of it. I'm in the camp that thinks magic in NWN2 is hosed...but that may be simply because 3.5 nerfed the direct damage spells so badly that only a melee mage or a party buffer is workable. But the animation on certain spells (like magic missile) makes them nearly useless from the beginning, and too many times I've seen fireballs go off too slow to prevent friendly fire just so the animations could look right. I played NWN1 in core rules, but NWN2 I won't touch there.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Now, let's take a look at Jade Empire vs Ninja Gaiden. In terms of pure combat mechanics, NG has the obvious edge, so let's set that aside. What should JE be better at, then? Options, tactical choices, and so on. The inherent problem here is that it DOES not deliver this. Sure, you can choose between various weapons or styles, or transformations, but it's all very shallow in implementation. Sure, using a sword is different than using a freezing fist style, but you can pretty much approach any encounter using either. Which may have been Bioware's point, I guess. Sure, you have the choice, but it ultimately felt meaningless to me. Gross generalization, of course, but I found myself not really needing to switch between styles all that much, since the combat situations could be approached readily using most any of them. Heck, I plowed through the game using the straight sword for the most part.

So did I. In an RPG you make choices, and you have to be able to finish the game with any of the choices, unlike an action game where every choice is always available.

A 'button-masher', if you will. Sure, you can dodge and jump, which you can't so much in many RPGs, but these are pretty poorly implemented, and they're virtually the bare minimum for any action game anyway.

So it's not a button masher, and I disagree that those were poorly implemented. May be it's true if you compare it to NG, but that's supposed to be a pinnacle of action games, so the comparison is a bit unfair.

In NG2, for example, while you're surrounded by various types of enemies with all various types of attacks, all of which can kill you if you stop paying attention briefly, you need to decipher enemy patterns warning you of upcoming attacks, all while figuring out which move (of which you have a good number per weapon) you need in which weapon set (of which you have a good number of) to use to take out specific enemies depending on their attack patterns (eg. you want a good move from a weapon that'll easily cut off arms against ninjas with rocket launchers, or cutting legs off sword ninjas to render them immobile while you focus on more important targets) and identifying threats (mages, archers, suicidal enemies whose limbs you've cut off). Do you risk taking a split-second pause to absorb the essence from the enemies you've killed in order to unleash a powerful ultimate technique, or will that slight pause allow an enemy to land an attack on you (and then get mobbed)?

In JE, the enemies are there for you to kill. In NG, the enemies are there to kill you. If you provided combat of that complexity in an RPG, most people wouldn't be able to finish the game. If you just make it very easy to compensate, it becomes a boring button masher, so JE solution of simplifying combat yet still keeping it challenging on high difficulty is a better solution.

 

The game needs to provide you with reasons for picking a specific option during a specific situation...I like to have my options available DURING combat, not just based on which skills I've upgraded. Eg. There should be different ways in which I could use a sword style, but which way would depend on what this specific scenario calls for.

Then play action games, RPG's are about picking a specific path. And I did have to vary my tactics during different encounters, so I don't see that complaint as valid.

 

ME doesn't do that. It just pitches you with enemies who stand and shoot at you, or who charge at you. Every battle repeats itself.

ME has some more interesting (and very difficult) battles up front, but then it does degenerate as you say. It's still a decent shooter IMO, but doesn't compare to the best out there.

 

Thinking about it, maybe the games just don't make good use of their options. Rather than providing with similar combat situations over and over again, they should provide enough variety to reward different types of character, rather than every battle being the same for every character (eg. one battle being easier with biotics, the next being more accessible for the soldier, etc, while providing OTHER options - perhaps more difficult, but still possible - for other types of characters). Provide variety to take advantage of your character skills. Thanks.

If the battles are a little different depending on your skills, you wouldn't even notice most likely. That is in fact the idea, but because of game balancing issues, that never makes that much of a difference. You really need to provide different paths for different skill sets, but that's not what designers like Bioware and Obsidian do. Hopefully that will change with AP.

 

Alpha Protocol and Aliens RPG essentially need to get their shooting mechanics down pat first and foremost, and THEN integrate in 'RPG elements'.

Totally disagree. If I want great combat, I'll play an action game. RPG's main focus should be on things other than combat, although having good combat certainly helps. The fact that most players and even designers can't see the horrible design flaws in Mass Effect is really making me despair of whether a good mainstream RPG will ever be made again. Edited August 29, 2008 by Wrath of Dagon

[Niten_Ryu]

I really liked Bloodlines combat, but that's because my long history with fps games. There was nothing better then to beat zombie graveyard zerg with lousy weapon skills. Your characters aim would wander around and you would have to carefully time your shots or be at certain range to hit. Too bad that game didn't have archivements, it would have been nice to know how many headshots I got. "One shot, one kill" system worked suprisingly good for action RPG.

 

Mass Effect's combat system is definately a step up from KotOR's and zero skill sniper rifle is lot of fun. Whole combat system from how buffs work to manual aiming, everything just feel better then in KotOR. Then again, that's more of d20 problem as something like unbuffed 8 str / 8 dex character couldn't hit anything while maxing one of those stats let you kill everything with ease. On my last playthru, final battle with Malak was fun as I didn't get a single hit thru. I had to kill him with granades. Normally you just flurry him few times and he's chopped.

 

Oblivions combat was fun only as stealth marksman, othewise with Morrowind it's the worst combat system I've seen in any games. Arcanum and Fallout's also had hidiously crappy combat system, but at least it did work at certain stages of game with certain amount action points. I'd even say shotgun / low quaily melee weapon with 6-8 action points combat vs. equal opponents was really fun (especially in maps with some cover).

 

ToEE, Silent Storm and Jagged Alliance series have fun combat systems. Then again, all those games were more like "strategic combat simulators", then actual RPGs (or the quality of RPG elements were very low).

[Xard]

WoD:

 

RPG's are nothing more than tactical combat simulators with experience gaining and character building.

 

That's how they started and that's their ultimate definitive meaning as far as etymology goes.

 

 

In an RPG you make choices, and you have to be able to finish the game with any of the choices, unlike an action game where every choice is always available.

lolwut

 

 

"So it's not a button masher, and I disagree that those were poorly implemented. May be it's true if you compare it to NG, but that's supposed to be a pinnacle of action games, so the comparison is a bit unfair."

 

They're poorly implemented compared to any decent action game. Heck, I've been replaying old ps1 titles lately and them > JE

 

JE is really sad attempt if one compares it with masterpieces like God of War or Ninja Gaiden, but it is nearly just as sad when you compare it against any good action game. Heck, Metal Gear Solids of Splinter Cells > JE and they're not action games foremost.

 

If you provided combat of that complexity in an RPG, most people wouldn't be able to finish the game. If you just make it very easy to compensate, it becomes a boring button masher, so JE solution of simplifying combat yet still keeping it challenging on high difficulty is a better solution.

 

this is honestly one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in a while and reason why I wrote this post (because you keep repeating this)

 

Imagine that this place would be Codex or Iron Tower forums or whatever. You go there to praise Kotors rather simple combat because it allows most casual and newb players to assimilate game mechanics and that they are "sufficiently tactical" to make game fun for most people and not "too hard and complex" so it harms the game.

 

They'd laugh and ridicule you to no end, lambasting you as typical retarted modern gamer who is too stupid to read through ****ing brick for a manual that comes with "da real rpg's" and lern teh system.

 

There's ridiculous amount of hypocrisy and prejudice in "hardcore" RPG community. (I'm generalizing of coure) They view your typical action game as kind of retarted "button smashing" ADHD kiddie style game without any depth in combat. Funny thing is many "mere" action games require more skill and dedication, fast decision making capability + sense of tactics than your average RPG.

 

Hypothesis :

 

Player who has never bothered to learn how x equipments stack with Improved Dickery Sling spell etc. and thus fail in complex combat and goes to fora whine about too hard complex combat and gets ridiculed... And "real" RPG players scoff and humiliate him and his stupidity with righteousness. Guess what, they have just as much right to call "lern2play" card as your average gamer listening whining of RPG player about how he can't do this "stupid reflexe based ****".

 

If JE is defendable by dumbing it down so that "RPG players" (lol) can "win" the game then those same people don't have any right to criticise e.g Oblivion's combat mechanics.

 

If these "RPG players" can't learn to play the system properly why the **** should developers care?

 

The game needs to provide you with reasons for picking a specific option during a specific situation...I like to have my options available DURING combat, not just based on which skills I've upgraded. Eg. There should be different ways in which I could use a sword style, but which way would depend on what this specific scenario calls for.

Then play action games, RPG's are about picking a specific path. And I did have to vary my tactics during different encounters, so I don't see that complaint as valid.

 

I did too, but not because there was any reason to. Game was just way too easy, stupid and repetitive if I didn't try to do something like "kill them with Matrix style" or "flame first enemy to death and hit second with stick and punch thirds teeth in while dancing polka and bunnyhopping" to increase challenge artificially. And even then it was easy.

 

Bio TRIED to get some variety in game by making ghosts immune to fists and demons immune to magic, but as differences between combat methods were minimal it felt mostly just cosmetic.

 

"ME has some more interesting (and very difficult) battles up front, but then it does degenerate as you say. It's still a decent shooter IMO, but doesn't compare to the best out there."

 

ME's combat system is notch to right direction

 

"If the battles are a little different depending on your skills, you wouldn't even notice most likely. That is in fact the idea, but because of game balancing issues, that never makes that much of a difference. You really need to provide different paths for different skill sets, but that's not what designers like Bioware and Obsidian do. Hopefully that will change with AP."

 

another lolwut. And what exactly you mean with "different paths"? And how is it related to how crummy combat in RPG's tend to be?

Alpha Protocol and Aliens RPG essentially need to get their shooting mechanics down pat first and foremost, and THEN integrate in 'RPG elements'.

Totally disagree. If I want great combat, I'll play an action game. RPG's main focus should be on things other than combat, although having good combat certainly helps. The fact that most players and even designers can't see the horrible design flaws in Mass Effect is really making me despair of whether a good mainstream RPG will ever be made again.

 

 

I havent' played ME but your hatred for it seems to be utterly irrational. I've read about many tough choices in it and a lot other good stuff too - I won't be surprised when I finally get my hands on it it'll be best Bio game since BG2.

 

And what are ME's horrible design flaws? Is the game brilliant? I doubt it. Is it good? Most certainly

 

 

 

And I agree with Nick; getting combat and other game mechanics right are the biggest reasons why I anticipate AP and Aliens RPG, not story or writing (as we don't know anything about Aliens and not much about AP either ) or "choices and consequences" or whatnot. Alpha Protocol might be first RPG in long, long while that has awesome game mechanics and way it achieves it is by going Deus Ex. There's something very telling about it.

 

Besides, by going with meaning of word RPG gameplay mechanics overrides anything else because it is ****ing game.

 

I've also been playing old great platformers on PS1 and I can't help but admire the way developers for such titles have been forced to perfect their mechanics ever more. The brilliance in gameplay of fundamentally simple 3D platformers is vast. Yet CRPG's seem to nearly never ever get such basic things right.

 

 

I'm really sick of all this RPG Apologists crap. "Well it's RPG!" "RPG isn't about gameplay, it is about writing and characters!"

 

How one can criticize cutscene heavyness and basic gameplay of JRPG's with straight face and yet defend RPG gameplay mechanics in games like Arcanum or JE or [add random title here] is just... weird

 

 

edit: WTF is wrong with my writing.

 

edit2: spelling and structure wise worst post in a while. Egad

 

 

edit3: reason why I use " and quote tags both is because of stupid quote limitations

Edited August 29, 2008 by Xard

[Wrath of Dagon]

WoD:

 

RPG's are nothing more than tactical combat simulators with experience gaining and character building.

 

That's how they started and that's their ultimate definitive meaning as far as etymology goes.

That's exactly why people accept piss-poor RPG's. Everyone concentrates on mechanics instead of content. The rest of your post is too meandering for me to attempt to answer it, please state your points more concisely.

[Xard]

WoD:

 

RPG's are nothing more than tactical combat simulators with experience gaining and character building.

 

That's how they started and that's their ultimate definitive meaning as far as etymology goes.

That's exactly why people accept piss-poor RPG's. Everyone concentrates on mechanics instead of content. The rest of your post is too meandering for me to attempt to answer it, please state your points more concisely.

 

Yeah, that's what I get when writing post after getting barely any sleep or rest in last night and having busy day.

 

 

Anyway, that's not reason why people accept "piss-poor RPG's". After all people accepted games such as Arcanum and PS:T in addition to JE's and ME's as good or even excellent RPG's

 

That's what RPG means, RPG means tactical combat simulator with experience gaining and character building. For all I agree with Vince's philosophy it is not universal or fundamental truth despite what he may think

 

Just read this again:

 

If you provided combat of that complexity in an RPG, most people wouldn't be able to finish the game. If you just make it very easy to compensate, it becomes a boring button masher, so JE solution of simplifying combat yet still keeping it challenging on high difficulty is a better solution.

 

 

this is honestly one of the stupidest arguments I've heard in a while and reason why I wrote this post (because you keep repeating this)

 

Imagine that this place would be Codex or Iron Tower forums or whatever. You go there to praise Kotors rather simple combat because it allows most casual and newb players to assimilate game mechanics and that they are "sufficiently tactical" to make game fun for most people and not "too hard and complex" so it harms the game.

 

They'd laugh and ridicule you to no end, lambasting you as typical retarted modern gamer who is too stupid to read through ****ing brick for a manual that comes with "da real rpg's" and lern teh system.

 

There's ridiculous amount of hypocrisy and prejudice in "hardcore" RPG community. (I'm generalizing of coure) They view your typical action game as kind of retarted "button smashing" ADHD kiddie style game without any depth in combat. Funny thing is many "mere" action games require more skill and dedication, fast decision making capability + sense of tactics than your average RPG.

 

Hypothesis :

 

Player who has never bothered to learn how x equipments stack with Improved Dickery Sling spell etc. and thus fail in complex combat and goes to fora whine about too hard complex combat and gets ridiculed... And "real" RPG players scoff and humiliate him and his stupidity with righteousness. Guess what, they have just as much right to call "lern2play" card as your average gamer listening whining of RPG player about how he can't do this "stupid reflexe based ****".

 

If JE is defendable by dumbing it down so that "RPG players" (lol) can "win" the game then those same people don't have any right to criticise e.g Oblivion's combat mechanics.

 

If these "RPG players" can't learn to play the system properly why the **** should developers care?

 

 

AND

 

And I agree with Nick; getting combat and other game mechanics right are the biggest reasons why I anticipate AP and Aliens RPG, not story or writing (as we don't know anything about Aliens and not much about AP either ) or "choices and consequences" or whatnot. Alpha Protocol might be first RPG in long, long while that has awesome game mechanics and way it achieves it is by going Deus Ex. There's something very telling about it.

 

Besides, by going with meaning of word RPG gameplay mechanics overrides anything else because it is ****ing game.

 

I've also been playing old great platformers on PS1 and I can't help but admire the way developers for such titles have been forced to perfect their mechanics ever more. The brilliance in gameplay of fundamentally simple 3D platformers is vast. Yet CRPG's seem to nearly never ever get such basic things right.

 

 

I'm really sick of all this RPG Apologists crap. "Well it's RPG!" "RPG isn't about gameplay, it is about writing and characters!"

 

How one can criticize cutscene heavyness and basic gameplay of JRPG's with straight face and yet defend RPG gameplay mechanics in games like Arcanum or JE or [add random title here] is just... weird

 

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Each time you now attack Kotor's, NWN2's or whatever game's combat mechanisms I can just use same hypocritical fallacy as you do

Edited August 29, 2008 by Xard

[Llyranor]

And I agree with Nick

I'm going to kill you.

 

I'm actually looking forward to AP/Aliens most for the story/writing/characters/C&C/etc, since that's what Obs does. However, that does not mean in any way that substandard combat mechanics are acceptable. Frankly, if a developer knows that one aspect of their game (especially one that'll probably take most of the usual player's time in that game) is subpar, it should be changed fundamentally. If you can't do shooters, don't do shooter RPGs. If you're aiming for a specific type of gameplay, you better deliver.