Common pitfalls of CRPG games to avoid

[Lord Gorchnik]

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

 

There is never any in-between.  I understand the developers can't imagine every single response their thousands of players could come up with in similar situations, but to hammer home the point I booted up an old save in Neverwinter Nights right before I turned in a quest and the reponses paraphrased (and I reloaded and chose them all) boiled down to this:

 

1) It was no trouble at all.  And I don't need a reward.  Just doing my duty to the people. Guaranteed alignment shift towards good and standard 500gp reward

2) I don't care, just doing what I want. I think this one upsets me the most as the "neutral" responses always seem to lean towards the sarchastic, "I don't give a **** tone"

3) Thanks for the reward, now you die as well!  Guaranteed alignment shift towards evil.

 

I mean literally, 95% of the quests in that game had those for the responses to when you finished a quest.  Holy hell there is more to "character" then that.  I think this is the one thing I am most scared about with Project Eternity.  I really do not want these cookie cutter responses in the game.

[Moragauth]

Agreed, more shades of grey would be welcome. This was one of my gripes when questing in TESO as well. A lot of the time, the options are painted as some Manichaean struggle between good and evil, and you're usually confined to the 'good' ones. So much for defining your own character.

[Mor]

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

It is always a balancing act. If you offer less defined Good\Neutral\Evil options in dialogue(i.e. paths with varied outcome that effect your gameplay), people might whine that their path choices wasn't meaningful, that they were railroaded into a certain path unable to RP an Good\Neutral\Evil character because lack of options.

 

As for PE, I believe that the disposition system in game which suppose to be for readers, will cause the devs to be more creative with their dialogue, thus addressing your concern.

 

The ones I loathe most are being too reliant on stereotypes or archetypes and not shaking it up a little.

Familiarity isn't necessarily a bad thing especially in game that suppose to bring warm fussy feelings of nostalgia inside.

 

I don't know how "common" this is, but I would definitely call it a pitfall: trapping us in a place where we have to fight a monster who can only be hurt by a certain weapon we probably don't have and may not specialize in even if we do have it, and then giving that monster regenerating health.

...

I think its good when in a game certain items/skills/specializations/characters make things much easier, otherwise what the point in your party and character progression choices if anything you'll pick will be always as viable, if so give me random button to spice things a bit. Still in this case it might have been a poor design choice if you haven't been given the information to make the right choice in the first place.

 

 

Btw, I liked the way the witcher handled monster fights, you had a codex detailing each monster weakness, though you start with an empty codex the way you commonly gain knowledge of new monsters is by defeating it, but for some more rare cases you could gain knowledge from books or questioning people.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Mor

[Volourn]

"I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response"

 

Actually, more than a few games don't have just those 3 options. Some have more some have less. Some had varities. You need to play more games.

[Lephys]

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

Me too, but I'm also pretty tired of companies not-making isometric cRPGs.

 

PoE is pretty encouraging when it comes to a lot of things we're tired of.

[Lord Gorchnik]

"I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response"

 

Actually, more than a few games don't have just those 3 options. Some have more some have less. Some had varities. You need to play more games.

 

Oh I've played plenty don't you worry dear.

 

 

 

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

Me too, but I'm also pretty tired of companies not-making isometric cRPGs.

 

PoE is pretty encouraging when it comes to a lot of things we're tired of.

 

 

Indeed.  I for one am very intrigued to see this reputation system in full swing.  Hopefully it really hammers home the multitude of ideas and thoughts our characters can have when dealing with certain situations.

[constantine]

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

 

There is never any in-between.

 

 

When you think of it in a realistic manner, that is what a possible response boils down to. What can add variety to that is flavored text and (ONLY where it is applicable) resourceful resolution(s) certain quests may offer.

 

So don't get to be so demanding over this guys, sometimes wonder yourselves how you would react against situations.

 

Certainly cheesy dialogue options found in many, many games contribute to that fear, but I am almost certain there is no need to worry about that, come with the quality of writers PoE has.

[Chippy]

Drop percentages as a do or die concept.  Example:  in Total War a Ninja had 96% chance to succeed.  He fails.  In Assassins Creed, you send an assassins in with 99% chance.  They fail.

 

Convince me that the engine is capable of interpreting that 1-4% (and you only need look up conversations on dice rolls for NWN to see people's thought on that), but otherwise anything above 95% should be a pass.  It's an analysis through the percentage mechanism designed to evaluate an overall skill, not random 1% interferes with skill and it all goes critically wrong.

 

I don't have a problem with a random thing causing failure, I just see the communication of it happening through percentages (of this value)  to be flawed.

[Volourn]

"Oh I've played plenty don't you worry dear."

 

Then you are obviously playing the wrong ones, honey.

[Chippy]

 

Yeah, if someone does not grasp the meaning of percentage...

 

 

...Then clearly they don't understand the mechanics of the game...?

[Moragauth]

 

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

Me too, but I'm also pretty tired of companies not-making isometric cRPGs.

 

PoE is pretty encouraging when it comes to a lot of things we're tired of.

 

 

 

The irony is that the isometric games have held up the test of time very well. They still look beautiful.

 

Morrowind, FFVIII etc? Not so much. Great RPGs but it is amazing just how terrible some of these games look when you see more contemporary 3D games.

[tajerio]

 

 

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

Me too, but I'm also pretty tired of companies not-making isometric cRPGs.

 

PoE is pretty encouraging when it comes to a lot of things we're tired of.

 

 

 

The irony is that the isometric games have held up the test of time very well. They still look beautiful.

 

Morrowind, FFVIII etc? Not so much. Great RPGs but it is amazing just how terrible some of these games look when you see more contemporary 3D games.

 

 

A lot of that's a question of taste I guess.  To me PS:T especially is eye-searingly awful graphically.  On the other hand, so are all those earlier 3D RPGs, so maybe I just hate everything.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Alas, PoE already has two design decisions which I consider pitfalls at this point in my gaming "career": using tolkinesque races and having generic fantasy art design (although better than some other generic fantasy games). I suppose those two could be summed up as having a generic fantasy setting.

 

I'm so tired of these things when I see them in a game I just sigh with resignation.

 

And no, throwing a few new ideas on a stale base doesn't help. An elf is still an elf, a dwarf is still a dwarf and its all been done to death. Fantasy has become a contradiction, a word so wide in meaning but you could practically build an ISO standard around the end product.

 

Why do I say this? Because we knew nothing of PoE even as it was funded other than the promise of a familiar gameplay model. Apart from that it could have been anything and I guess I expected something new and familiar at the same time. 

[illathid]

A lot of that's a question of taste I guess.  To me PS:T especially is eye-searingly awful graphically.  On the other hand, so are all those earlier 3D RPGs, so maybe I just hate everything.

 

 

Yeah, although I'd argue that has more to do with PS:T interface than the actual gameplay graphics.

[Lephys]

 

The irony is that the isometric games have held up the test of time very well. They still look beautiful.

 

Morrowind, FFVIII etc? Not so much. Great RPGs but it is amazing just how terrible some of these games look when you see more contemporary 3D games.

 

A lot of that's a question of taste I guess.  To me PS:T especially is eye-searingly awful graphically.  On the other hand, so are all those earlier 3D RPGs, so maybe I just hate everything.

 

I think the 3D has a lot to do with it. I mean, I know the 2D games are often trying to simulate 3D effects/forms/shapes/space, but, not quite to the same degree.

 

It's kind of like watching a cartoon (2D), versus watching a 3D CG show. In the cartoon, you get the idea things are in front of other things, and stuff's shaped a certain way, etc., but you aren't really worried about the exaggerations, unrealistic proportions, or lack of detail in stuff. But, the second something's blatantly rendered 3D-space, you're super aware of how much detail is trying to be represented, even by just a solid color simple shape.

 

*shrug*

[Moragauth]

Familiarity isn't necessarily a bad thing   especially in game that suppose to bring warm fussy feelings of nostalgia inside.

 

 

To an extent. I have just grown jaded after repeated exposure to some stereotypes I've never really liked, I guess, for certain races, which has held them back even when innovative twists were introduced for them.

 

 

Alas, PoE already has two design decisions which I consider pitfalls at this point in my gaming "career": using tolkinesque races and having generic fantasy art design (although better than some other generic fantasy games). I suppose those two could be summed up as having a generic fantasy setting.

 

I'm so tired of these things when I see them in a game I just sigh with resignation.

 

And no, throwing a few new ideas on a stale base doesn't help. An elf is still an elf, a dwarf is still a dwarf and its all been done to death. Fantasy has become a contradiction, a word so wide in meaning but you could practically build an ISO standard around the end product.

 

Why do I say this? Because we knew nothing of PoE even as it was funded other than the promise of a familiar gameplay model. Apart from that it could have been anything and I guess I expected something new and familiar at the same time. 

I actually agree with this. Not that I have issues with elves or dwarves, per se, it's more the way they're introduced, in exactly the same way, following the same archetypes/stereotypes, that annoys me, so much so that even when the developers are breaking serious new ground, they still feel compelled to refer to these races by names like 'elf' or 'dwarf', shackling them back to the stereotypes to placate player demand. To an extent this applies to classes, as well, albeit less so.

 

I'm not that gripped by a desire for novelty, but really all fantasy settings seem to proceed based on a template these days. The last one I saw with much potential, that intrigued me, was Monte Cooke's Diamond Throne, which does tread quite a lot of new ground, although it's not as developed as other fantasy settings, and more of a showcase for his Arcana Evolved ruleset, which is, by all accounts, excellent, and would make for a great fantasy setting one day.

 

 

 

 

 

I for one am just tired of the standard:

 

Good response

Neutral reponse

Evil response

Me too, but I'm also pretty tired of companies not-making isometric cRPGs.

 

PoE is pretty encouraging when it comes to a lot of things we're tired of. 

 

 

 

The irony is that the isometric games have held up the test of time very well. They still look beautiful.

 

Morrowind, FFVIII etc? Not so much. Great RPGs but it is amazing just how terrible some of these games look when you see more contemporary 3D games.

 

 

A lot of that's a question of taste I guess.  To me PS:T especially is eye-searingly awful graphically.  On the other hand, so are all those earlier 3D RPGs, so maybe I just hate everything.

 

Aye, I am referring more to the likes of BG2 or IWD/IWD2, both of which remain pretty. They haven't aged nearly as badly as their 3D counterparts, like NWN.

 

PS:T wasn't the prettiest of games. Diablo 2 has the same issue, methinks.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Moragauth

[PrimeJunta]

I didn't originally care for the looks of PS:T either. However, after I replayed it with the widescreen mod, I did, and now it's my favorite among the IE games in this respect too, with IWD a close second.

[Zwiebelchen]

BG2/Planescape-esque Walls of text.

Yes, I know this goes against the spirit of the IE games and may cause hardcore roleplayers to beat me with their plastic figurines, but with a game that is announced to have no voice-over, I just don't want to read three pages of text for every random NPC I talk to.

 

This does not say I want meaningless dialogue or no choices; hell no! I just want NPCs to threat me like the busy adventurer I am and go straight to be point.

 

A well written interactive story provides narrative by a combination of text, actions, art and mechanics. A game is not a book. I'm totally fine with reading a book when I'm actually reading a book. But a game is an interactive medium that has so many other ways of delivering a message. At the very least, if you have a lot of information for the player to swallow, chop it up into smaller pieces by good quest design. There's no reason a questgiver should give me lengthy background lore on a temple to investigate when I can be presented with that lore in a more interesting way (for example, by solving a puzzle).

 

This is one of the things that old JRPGs just did right. While they suck at making dialogue matter (since basicly, your protagonist auto-talks without any choice), they excel at presenting both lore and relevant information in a usually straight-to-the-point and interesting fashion.

I NEVER skipped dialogue in games like FF7, even if there was no voice-over at all.

 

I think a huge part of why JRPGs are so good at delivering dialogue that nobody skips is, that the dialogue is presented in huge letters on the screen to allow them to be seen on the low-resolution TVs of past days. This forced writers to compress information into very few lines and use other means to give information. The most famous one being the "flashback":

A lot of old JRPGs did that. Instead of the generic villager telling you that he wants to seek revenge for his killed sister, you actually see a cinematic (with a color filter or something indicating that it's a flashback) of soldiers breaking into her home and murdering her.

I just don't understand why modern RPGs totally neglect this way of presenting narrative. And you don't even need fancy 3D cinematics to do something like that. Old console games always had such cinematics in isometric perspective and it totally worked.

If 20 year old games can do that, I don't see why PoE can't.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[JFSOCC]

I don't have experience playing JRPGs but I agree wholeheartedly with the core point. Yes, I like reading, but games have so much more options to deliver narrative than text. Why limit yourself?

[Faerunner]

On "wall of text," I was thinking the same thing. Please keep the information short and sweet.

 

Have any of you played NWN1? It was my first cRPG, but looking back on it, I don't know how I ever knew what was going on. Every single conversation seemed to be wall of block text after wall of block text that you had to click "continue" on seven or eight times before it finally rolled to an end, just to send you on the simplest quests. And main quest givers, like Lady Aribeth? OMG, they went on forever! (Methinks Aribeth was in love with the sound of her own voice.)

 

Please keep the text short and sweet. I don't mind a paragraph or two at some point in the conversation (like in BG1, which I'm playing now), or even paragraphs of text between player comments if it's really funny (like the subquest of the "apprentice" that accidentally turned himself into a chicken and had ask for help from the wizard he stole from, or when the protagonist blows up at Portalbenderwinden), but generally, if the conversation can't be summed up in one paragraph, it's too long.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Faerunner

[PrimeJunta]

The problem with NWN1's writing was not quantity.

[Ineth]

You have your two-handed weapon, 1h weapon & shield and dual wielding 1h weapons options. Which ones ill you go for? In most CRPG's you'd go for the last two. Why?

 

Because the designers seem to forget that TWO magical items equals TWICE the magical enchantments, hence why such combos are almost always vastly superior to a 2h weapon.

 

Not sure what games you're alluding to, but in BG2 I found the two-handed weapon style (with a sword or halberd) to be the most powerful combo for front-line fighters, all things considered. Closely followed by dual-wielding 1h weapons which was also very powerful.

 

Imo it was the sword-and-shield combo that was almost always inferior to the other two for front-line fighters (although in some situations, like when fighting Mind Flayers, it could make sense to temporarily switch to it).

[eLeF]

Id like to avoid fighting stupid rats in a basement for 15 minutes because my character cant hit ****.

[Infinitron]

 

Why do I say this? Because we knew nothing of PoE even as it was funded other than the promise of a familiar gameplay model. 

 

This is simply untrue. Many things were revealed about the basic design principles of PoE during the KS campaign, including the fact that it was going to have a "generic high fantasy" setting with dwarves and elves.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Infinitron

[Sarex]

I don't get why some people are so against Tolkien races. I mean what ever race the story or game has, it's ultimately just the flavor of the setting, the story won't be diminished by it, nor will the plot be. In the end it's not what you have, but how you use it.