Common pitfalls of CRPG games to avoid

[Bryy]

Also, how "choice" and "consequence" have become these God-tier mythical concepts whenever we're talking about RPGs.

 

Actually, add "story" to that as well. How many times have you heard "I don't care about the gameplay/graphics as long as the story is good"?

Edited February 8, 2014 by Bryy

[Sarex]

I'm not following. I directly quoted his exact words, via the forum function. You can check. You put a bunch of words inside quotation marks that were very similar to Trashman's words but weren't the same words, claiming he said that.

 

Oh, wait. You're saying you realize your misquote now, and that his point wasn't what you were thinking it was, thus you have nothing further to argue? Ahhh, I see...

 

"/Thread," indeed. ^_^

 

Oh, except that there's still plenty of room to discuss not only the same pitfall (just not specifically your mistaken issue with Trashman's stance on magical loot), but other pitfalls already brought up in this thread, as well as any that have yet to be brought up.

 

So... ehhh, CTRL Z? /NotThread?

 

Referring to more that just the one post. Also it's hard to talk to you when you selectively read through a thread like always. I even quote the parts that you need to read to understand what I'm saying, but somehow you seem skip them. We went from he wasn't discussing BG, to he didn't specify a hard limit, to he didn't mean what he said, it was just a metaphor.

 

Always a fun ride with you Lephys, it's like going down a rabbit (troll?) hole.

 

 

Damn it Sarex, go back to the owl!

 

I am not familiar with that term.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Sarex

[Silent Winter]

Also, how "choice" and "consequence" have become these God-tier mythical concepts whenever we're talking about RPGs.

 

Actually, add "story" to that as well. How many times have you heard "I don't care about the gameplay/graphics as long as the story is good"?

Yep - choice and consequence should be the foundation of a good rpg but have all too often been put to 'choice A or B' ('Good' or 'Evil') and then 'Same result' but pretty graphical effects while doing so. (Or 2 endings with the 2nd ignored for the sequel, which, admittedly, is harder to do).

 

I do care about the gameplay as well as the story, I want both D***it!  (Graphics that have a consistent, fits-together-in-the-world feel are good.  'Fancy' graphics are too often done at the expense of other areas).

(Edit: I think PoE has been doing a great job graphically.  From the sounds of things the gameplay will be good and the choices and multiple endings are at least in the design goals - fingers crossed it comes out well).

Edited February 8, 2014 by Silent Winter

[Silent Winter]

Damn it Sarex, go back to the owl!

 

I am not familiar with that term.

 

Me neither - is this another internet meme I've missed?

<- locationally challenged web-surfer.

[IndiraLightfoot]

The last avatar of Sarex was an owl. That's why.

[Sarex]

The last avatar of Sarex was an owl. That's why.

 

Face palm, I'm dumb.

 

edit: there you go, I wanted to keep the paladin but not enough boob-plate for me sadly.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Sarex

[Bryy]

 

Also, how "choice" and "consequence" have become these God-tier mythical concepts whenever we're talking about RPGs.

 

Actually, add "story" to that as well. How many times have you heard "I don't care about the gameplay/graphics as long as the story is good"?

Yep - choice and consequence should be the foundation of a good rpg but have all too often been put to 'choice A or B' ('Good' or 'Evil') and then 'Same result' but pretty graphical effects while doing so. (Or 2 endings with the 2nd ignored for the sequel, which, admittedly, is harder to do).

You misunderstand me. These terms have such a high value now that no game can ever come close to attaining what players want. Alpha Protocol had way more choice than The Witcher 2 did, but nobody cares about AP because TW2 locks you out of half the game.

[JFSOCC]

Another common pitfall: repetitive banter. Characters with a limited set of blurt strings that they say over... and over... and over again.

you've left me an OPENING!

[Silent Winter]

You misunderstand me. These terms have such a high value now that no game can ever come close to attaining what players want. Alpha Protocol had way more choice than The Witcher 2 did, but nobody cares about AP because TW2 locks you out of half the game.

 

Ah, ok - never played AP (nor the WItcher 2) but wasn't the choice there a good thing?  Didn't know people were bashing it.

[tajerio]

 

 

 

 

Also, how "choice" and "consequence" have become these God-tier mythical concepts whenever we're talking about RPGs.

 

Actually, add "story" to that as well. How many times have you heard "I don't care about the gameplay/graphics as long as the story is good"?

Yep - choice and consequence should be the foundation of a good rpg but have all too often been put to 'choice A or B' ('Good' or 'Evil') and then 'Same result' but pretty graphical effects while doing so. (Or 2 endings with the 2nd ignored for the sequel, which, admittedly, is harder to do).

You misunderstand me. These terms have such a high value now that no game can ever come close to attaining what players want. Alpha Protocol had way more choice than The Witcher 2 did, but nobody cares about AP because TW2 locks you out of half the game.

I think that particular generalization is a bridge too far. There's definitely a vocal minority of players who say "this game sucks!" if they're not on mutually exclusive pathways by halfway through the story. But for the more realistic crowd, which I trust is the majority, choice and consequence of the desired level are definitely attainable for a conscientious developer.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I've always felt that choice is more important than consequence. While having reaction to choice is certainly nice, not every action will result in significantly different NPC reaction, but is still good when role-playing a character.

[Jobby]

Surely choice without consequence is meaningless?

Edited February 9, 2014 by Jobby

[tajerio]

Surely choice without consequence is meaningless?

True enough, but there are grades of consequences, which I think is KaineParker's point. In the first case, some choices merely have as consequence that you picked them, and they let you define your character. In the second case, some branch only to reconverge later, so the consequence is achieving the same objective but doing it differently or seeing/hearing/reading different things on the way. And some, thirdly, give mutually exclusive end results. Choice without ANY of those consequences is meaningless, and a series of choices with only the first consequence gets boring quickly. But not every choice needs to have the third kind of consequence in order to be meaningful.

Edited February 9, 2014 by tajerio

[Sherr]

Surely choice without consequence is meaningless?

 

yeap. Sometimes it become ridiculous - i still remember some dialogs in IWD 2 when NPC said something like - "Listen carefully, i wouldnt repeat twice", and then u can make this NPC repeat this 100 time more. Or u can piss some of them so they stop current chat with you with something like - "I will never speak to you again" and then talk to you like in first time.

 

No consequence = lazy writing. 

[Bryy]

 

You misunderstand me. These terms have such a high value now that no game can ever come close to attaining what players want. Alpha Protocol had way more choice than The Witcher 2 did, but nobody cares about AP because TW2 locks you out of half the game.

 

Ah, ok - never played AP (nor the WItcher 2) but wasn't the choice there a good thing?  Didn't know people were bashing it.

 

Being forced to replay the game if you want the full story is never a good thing.

[Kjaamor]

Being forced to replay the game if you want the full story is never a good thing.

 

You may find yourself in quite the minority on these forums with that opinion, Bryy.

[Bryy]

 

Being forced to replay the game if you want the full story is never a good thing.

 

You may find yourself in quite the minority on these forums with that opinion, Bryy.

 

I fully understand this. Say it on NeoGAF and they act like you shot their mother.

[Silent Winter]

I don't need "locks you out of half the game" consequence, just meaningful consequence.  So if you act one way or another, the NPCs will react a certain way to it.  Perhaps some quests open up because of choices but not, say, a whole chapter of the game.

So as Tajerio said - some choices might be character-defining flavour, some might have minor consequence and a few might have farther reaching consequence.

 

So depending on what you mean by 'the full story', I might agree/disagree.

I quite like having different endings based on choices througout the game (not just last minute 'I'll take ending A' choices) - this seems to be in for PoE so 'yay'

Nonetheless, I expect one playthrough will give you the main-story.

[Bryy]

I don't need "locks you out of half the game" consequence, just meaningful consequence.  So if you act one way or another, the NPCs will react a certain way to it.  Perhaps some quests open up because of choices but not, say, a whole chapter of the game.

I have nothing against Branching Plot. 

 

Branching Story is a whole 'nother matter.

[^Rayne^]

Pitfall: Party characters with boring life-stories and very little of interest to tell you for large parts of the game.  It is disheartening to talk to an party character that only has the same four or five dialog chains available for most of the game and this info is mundane.  As time goes on even their standard dialog chains should adjust and change and characters should say and do things that will surprise you.

 

Examples of what I'm hoping to see in the game:

 

1. You get a thief in your party and your own PC has a fairly high perception rating and they notice that while they're visiting a shop the thief is actually stealing stuff.  You can then have options to talk with them about this (evil path: ask them to cut you in or tell them what you want them to take, good path: try to get them to stop or understand why they would steal what they could easily buy).

 

2. Your visiting with some lords arcanist and your wizard notices that one of the setups they're working on is refining some type of poison - the party wizard attempts to tell you and you think its just one of their common banter conversations...  If you answer their request they tell you what they saw and that could give you some sort of investigation side quest or if you ignore them it could setup a dialog later where you confront them about not telling you about some other interesting factoid along the way and they remind you of how you ignored them when they tried to tell you about this poison manufacturing event.

 

3. One of the party members sees someone using bullying tactics to get some lowly citizen to provide information about something they might have seen and they say something about absolutely hating these overhanded tactics...  Then if you resort to doing something like this later int he game and they see it they become agitated and threaten to leave and you may have dialog options to smooth things over or possibly dissolve the partnership.  Either way, this makes for a more interesting class of dialog.

 

I want the limited number of party members to have much more interactivity and dialog trees that are dynamic and evolving.  What they have to say should adjust based on what you're doing.  If they become afraid of you along the way and follow you our of fear then their dialog with your PC should reflect this.  If they're working with you for ulterior reasons they might occasionally say or do something out of character (at least as the person you know) that will allow you to investigate them either directly or indirectly.  For example having one of the other party members keep an eye on them might open up new dialog options with that party member that would be worth reading more about.

 

Maybe the dev team has stuff like this in the work or maybe threads like this might spark some initiative to add some more dimension.  Either way, I'm hoping for a very exciting game.

[TrashMan]

Also, how "choice" and "consequence" have become these God-tier mythical concepts whenever we're talking about RPGs.

 

Actually, add "story" to that as well. How many times have you heard "I don't care about the gameplay/graphics as long as the story is good"?

 

I'd say that for a RPG, the story (and your journey/discovery of it) is part of the gameplay.

 

And people usually say gameplay >>>>> graphics or story >>>>> graphics.

I don't recall people saying they enjoy bad gameplay

 

****

 

@Sarex:

 

You're being quite agressive about this, and I think I made my position quite clear. But fine, let me spell it out for you.

 

I PREFER BG1 DESIGN. The entire world feel more real and more close to reality, more tangible. and the loot system was part of it.

 

I don't like ToB because there's just too much loot.

 

BG2 was somewhere in between and I'm fine with it. However, I still prefer BG1.

 

 

And no, I was never saying every character should have just one magical item (even Aragorn had 3 IIRC). I was saying not everyone should have every slot filled with a magical items (unless you are a die-hard completionist or using walktroughs to get every last items you can).

 

I'm speaking of items a regular player will come across in an average playtrough. People who go hunting Drizzit because they know he has a magical swrod tend to skew that.

[TrashMan]

Being forced to replay the game if you want the full story is never a good thing.

 

 

"Full" story?

What makes you think you aren't getting a full story.

 

In a branching story you aren't getting the full content, but you do get a full story - for the character/path you selected.

 

Wanting mutually exclusive things and meaningful consequences without anything being locked out is an oxymoron. You cannot have mutually exclusive things at the same time.

[Bryy]

 

Being forced to replay the game if you want the full story is never a good thing.

 

 

"Full" story?

What makes you think you aren't getting a full story.

By the fact that the main campaign is split into two separate groups.

[Bryy]

Unless you claim that if you cannot let both sides to win in the same playthrough it's not full story.

 

Does me not liking one feature of a game really warrant strawmen?

[datanoppa]

This goes bit OT, but just for the giggles i would love to see RPG game that would be based and develobed by direct forum suggestions. Also input to the content would be in correlation to amount of money that backer would "invest". i just wonder how many pitfalls that abominatio would avoid and what kind of gameplay experience it would give in the end.