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[Kadayi]

I recently stumbled across this little gem from one of the image threads: -

It something that as seasoned gamers we can all laugh about in a knowing manner, but at the same time it does seem to be the case that it is a commonality of a lot of RPGs that, that special item you fought hard to acquire becomes redundant in no time and is fit only to either hand off to a companion (if you're playing a party) or sell off to a merchant to free up your inventory.

Ironically in fantasy literature you rarely have your heroes engaging in a treadmill of perpetual equipment upgrading, because in large part that's not their focus versus righting a wrong, overcoming a tyranny or fulfilling their destiny, etc. Sure some weapon or item might play a key role, but I'm hard-pressed to think of a time reading about some moody half-elf hero weighing up which magical bastard sword to keep: -

'This one kills giant spiders and makes me irresistible to the opposite sex, but this one here (hefts blade) gives my enemies chronic speech impediments and crippling syphilis....which one to choose...friend Necromancer what are your thoughts? '

'S-ire I d-efinitely f-eel t-t-the f-ormer w-ill b-e m-ore u-se t-o y-ou i-n t-t-the d-i-i-ff-i-i-cult d-ays a-head'

Of course, the reason we've ended down this rabbit hole of item churn is largely due to most cRPGs taking their lead in terms of design from level focussed P&P RPGs, with the most notable being the granddaddy of them all Dungeons & Dragons.

With any new medium it's natural for it to take one's pointers from what's come before because with any new venture there are no maps for these territories, so it makes sense to utilise old models as an initial framework to build off of because it takes time for those early media pioneers to collectively develop and evolve their own distinct language. The TV of today with cable and digital and the ability to binge is far removed from its early days of radio plays with headshots in between adverts for dish soap.

What I think it noteworthy though, is that the levels/loot model drawn from D&D was only really one (albeit insanely popular) model of what an RPG could be. Games such as Traveller (a moderately successful P&P RPG) for instance was more focused on developing a background to your character beforehand and in doing so determining their proficiencies which you'd leverage to your best advantage through role-play, with much less emphasis on gains and a complete absence of levels (a bullet to the brainpan kills everyone, whether they're a fresh-faced rube or a 20 year war veteran ). The focus would be more on rescuing the Prince from the evil Psionic Cultists using your wiles and returning him to his grateful people and much less on whether they drop '+3 laser katanas'

Now I don't hold that Traveller > D&D, just simply pointing out it was a different model of RPG. Certainly, from a design perspective, it's entirely understandable that the system focussed more on levels and loot is a much easier thing to realise in terms of cRPG design especially in the early days of the medium when there were significant tradeoffs to be made with regard to hardware limitations both in terms of distribution, storage and processing power. However, the statistical aspect of P&P RPGs was always there as a means to provide a framework for resolution for what was ostensively a game constructed out of narration and interaction by the players, with the metal figures and maps on the dining table being a collective stand in approximation of the events taking place in the player's imaginations rather than the totality of the experience itself.

So how does any of this tie into cRPGs exactly? Well, firstly I think the case is that cRPGs are still, for the most part, caught in this idea of the game space (much like the metal figures on the dining table) being a model of the experience, rather than the actual experience itself fuelled by direct game-play, immersion and interactivity (which are to my mind the real strengths of games as a medium). Although I think it's probably impossible at this juncture to remove interface entirely when it comes to RPGs (less so actioners such as Doom or survival horror), I think the more developers are able to bake into the game world elements that are commonly handled as statistical interface abstracts the better, and to be fair a few games (though not RPGs) have tried this to a greater or lesser degree. Farcry 2 notably with weapon quality being tied to its appearance for instance, and Dead space with the UI itself being embedded in the game itself.

The second issue is I feel there is an opportunity space to break away from levels and loot as a given and carve a new path. The acquisition model with its emphasis on churn seems to me to always be at the cost of immersion both from a gameplay and narrative perspective (as eluded to in the cartoon). It generates endless dissonance because with every level gain the optics on your opponents has to change to accommodate the upgrade to the extent that before long every other asshole you encounter on your quest to save Princess Beatrix is apparently wielding Valerian steel + 3 swords of ankle-biting. Levels render what was once magical, mundane through repetition and endless redundancy. This is also a huge problem where you've narrative carry through between titles because of the necessity to often reset and fine 'reasons' to explain it away this sudden loss of powers. There's only so much character amnesia one can take before ennui sets in.

Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike traditional cRPGs, in fact right now I'm playing Baldurs Gate again (Enhanced edition this time) and have a long list of isometrics titles I plan to play through this year (most of which I backed on Kickstarter). I've more an eye on where I feel cRPGs could go by placing less emphasis on the familiar tropes of the old P&P model (and loot & levels in particular) versus instead leveraging the inherent strengths of video games as a medium when it comes to world-building, immersion and interactivity by developing their own unique language as a means to generate richer and more engaging narrative experiences going forward.

Anyway interested to hear peoples thoughts on the matter. I don't claim to be the worlds leading authority on cRPGs (far from it) I'm more an aficionado of games as an evolving medium so it's probably the case that you've played games I might not even have heard of, so take more the spirit of what I'm saying as a direction rather than focussing on the exact details per se. This post is TL: DR enough already so I've generalized as a point of brevity where applicable, versus getting into the weeds and turning this from a forum post into a treatise.

 

[Makariel]

Ah, levels, especially equipment levels, my favourite bugbear in games of any sort

I think it was Warren Spector round about the time the original Deus Ex came out who said that computer RPG wouln't need all those levels and numbers, but suspiciously little has changed since then. If anything it has gotten worse, with games like the Division, where you can shoot someone right in front of you in the head multiple times and little to nothing happens, if the enemy has a high enough level and the number generator in the background thinks the damage bonus is not high enough. Or that really annoying boss fight in Alpha Protocol, where you can repeatedly shoot that coked up Russian in the head and he just shrugs it off because he has enough hitpoints.

As much as I loved my time with Witcher 3, the constant need to upgrade from one epic sword to the next even more epic sword took a lot away from the loot I received. It was just about looking for the larger DPS number and discarding the old sword so that it doesn't take up too much inventory space. One of the worst offenders was IMO Oblivion, where I made the mistake of levelling up my character too fast and was suddenly attacked by "bandits" with weapons worth 100 times more than what my character had on her. Why would they try to rob me? I should be robbing them!

In Pen & Paper RPG there are plenty of examples that work great without levels, but still have satisfying upgrade options. They don't necessarily give you bigger damage numbers, but e.g. more options, in combat as well as outside of it. And while you get more powerful over time, there are no enemies you can simply ignore because their lower level would mean they wouldn't be able to touch you. If you take e.g. the Shadowrun P&P, you can have a magical elf with the power of an ancient dragon, but a brand new character in hiding with a sniper rifle can still kill you. Or just a few average soldiers with an assault rifles.

But it seems games "need" some in-built grinding stone, something where you can waste hours over hours, punching virtually the same enemies over and over, with bigger and bigger numbers popping out of their heads when hit. It's almost 18 years since Deus Ex came out, and yet most RPG still follow the same formula as if that never happened. Explore an area, get to some talky bit, get to some fighty bit, loot, rinse and repeat, with little variation in between.

 

[strange headache]

I'm not a big fan of the level grind either, but maybe the dissonance between story, immersion and item/player stats is something that's inherently tied to game mechanics. I wonder if it would even be possible, to create a more organic approach to player progression because, ultimately, it has to be determined by a certain rule-set. Even more so, players like to loot and progress, they want to see their "numbers grow", which may also be the reason why roleplay-like progression has crept into most other games nowadays, even shooters and platformers.

You have hugely popular games like Diablo, where the story merely serves as a pretext for stat progression and item grind. You repeat the same level over and over again while the gameplay doesn't change much at all. The monsters just make more damage and have more HP. As Makariel said, for most games progression simply means bigger numbers while the way how you interact with the game stays largely the same. In Witcher, it's not so bad, since you unlock new skills and there is hardly any grind at all. You progress by merely playing the story.

Maybe gameplay mechanics often come into the way of immersive story-telling. Bioshock Infinite springs to mind where the story didn't jive at all with how you interacted with the world... you still had to run and gun in order to progress through the story. The other extreme would be purely narrative games, where mechanics don't matter a whole lot. Unfortunately these games often devolve into "walking-simulators" to the point where you're better off simply reading a book.

I'm sure it's not an unsolvable problem, but the gaming industry is in desperate need of a new generation of visionaries, people like Warren Spector, Will Wright or even Peter Molyneux. But most big budget developers prefer to play it safe...

 

[Kadayi]

I think it was Warren Spector round about the time the original Deus Ex came out who said that computer RPG wouldn't need all those levels and numbers, but suspiciously little has changed since then. If anything it has gotten worse, with games like the Division, where you can shoot someone right in front of you in the head multiple times and little to nothing happens, if the enemy has a high enough level and the number generator in the background thinks the damage bonus is not high enough. Or that really annoying boss fight in Alpha Protocol, where you can repeatedly shoot that coked up Russian in the head and he just shrugs it off because he has enough hitpoints.

Yeah, the dissonance between what you see versus what you get is definitely an issue that bugs a lot of games. The standout for me as far as RPGs went was probably in Mass Effect One, where despite Shepard bring an elite soldier and all, apparently, you couldn't hit a barn door at ten paces even though it was right there in front of you. Credit where credit is due, Bioware did address this in later titles and the differential in the weapons was more in damage etc, whilst aim was more down to you as the player. never played the division but I recall watching the gameplay footage and being surprised that a title that was ostensively going for this gritty realistic look and storyline seemed to take a hard right into bullet sponge territory. Obviously, I don't think anyone was thinking it was going to be Arma levels of realism, but it definitely seemed at odds with the appearance.

As much as I loved my time with Witcher 3, the constant need to upgrade from one epic sword to the next even more epic sword took a lot away from the loot I received. It was just about looking for the larger DPS number and discarding the old sword so that it doesn't take up too much inventory space. One of the worst offenders was IMO Oblivion, where I made the mistake of levelling up my character too fast and was suddenly attacked by "bandits" with weapons worth 100 times more than what my character had on her. Why would they try to rob me? I should be robbing them!

Much love for The Witcher 3, but I do have issues with aspects of it (which I'll bring up in later threads as it's a good example of wider subjects that people are familiar with) but the Hanzo quest in particular really stood out to me as a prime example of narrative dissonance, especially given it was a fairly involved questline. I diligently worked through it at the recommended level, only to be rewarded with a sword that was sub-par compared to the ones I already had. Call me Shirley but seems to me to be a broken quest? How that didn't get picked up in QA is kind of crazy, and more importantly just blithely accepted as par for the course. For games as a medium to truly go to the next level, there needs to be a greater degree of fidelity between narrative and experience, versus this disconnect.

In Pen & Paper RPG there are plenty of examples that work great without levels, but still have satisfying upgrade options. They don't necessarily give you bigger damage numbers, but e.g. more options, in combat as well as outside of it. And while you get more powerful over time, there are no enemies you can simply ignore because their lower level would mean they wouldn't be able to touch you. If you take e.g. the Shadowrun P&P, you can have a magical elf with the power of an ancient dragon, but a brand new character in hiding with a sniper rifle can still kill you. Or just a few average soldiers with an assault rifle.

Yeah, with Traveller equipment was your upgrade path for the most part. Something that was baked in rather than being internalised to your character as with ever increasing hitpoint and I'm all for that on the whole because it leaves you vulnerable which means combat is an option but maybe not always a favourable choice e (unless you have the upper hand) versus something else. A lot of games do feature options (stealth, conversation etc) and I'm all in favour of that, but combat and it's demands does tend to take centre stage a lot of the time.

But it seems games "need" some in-built grinding stone, something where you can waste hours over hours, punching virtually the same enemies over and over, with bigger and bigger numbers popping out of their heads when hit. It's almost 18 years since Deus Ex came out, and yet most RPG still follow the same formula as if that never happened. Explore an area, get to some talky bit, get to some fighty bit, loot, rinse and repeat, with little variation in between.

Oh, it's definitely a challenge in terms of thinking how it can be addressed, and I certainly don't have answers in that regard. I would agree that Deus Ex is a good model to build off though.

 

[shark sandwich]

I think a lot of people play RPGs purely for the feeling of getting progressively more powerful. They need these little dopamine hits from gaining levels, getting new equipment, etc.

Just look how many people were pissed that you didn’t gain XP for the first couple chapters in FF XIII.

There are plenty of games where equipment/stat upgrades are fewer and more meaningful. But because of that, we don’t consider them to be RPGs. Just about every game nowadays has some kind of stat/gear progression.

 

[Kadayi]

I'm not a big fan of the level grind either, but maybe the dissonance between story, immersion and item/player stats is something that's inherently tied to game mechanics. I wonder if it would even be possible, to create a more organic approach to player progression because, ultimately, it has to be determined by a certain rule-set. Even more so, players like to loot and progress, they want to see their "numbers grow", which may also be the reason why roleplay-like progression has crept into most other games nowadays, even shooters and platformers.

You have hugely popular games like Diablo, where the story merely serves as a pretext for stat progression and item grind. You repeat the same level over and over again while the gameplay doesn't change much at all. The monsters just make more damage and have more HP. As Makariel said, for most games progression simply means bigger numbers while the way how you interact with the game stays largely the same. In Witcher, it's not so bad, since you unlock new skills and there is hardly any grind at all. You progress by merely playing the story.

Yeah definitely think it's a manifold challenge, but I think it's one that needs to be taken up in order to elevate narrative and ground the experience more in the gamespace and less in the interface as the latter detracts from immersion. It's not necessarily a fit for everything such as games like Diablo, but with story-driven RPGs where you want players attention invested in the immediate I think trying to bake as much as possible into the in game experience rather than as statistical abstracts beyond is a goal worth aiming for.

Maybe gameplay mechanics often come into the way of immersive story-telling. Bioshock Infinite springs to mind where the story didn't jive at all with how you interacted with the world... you still had to run and gun in order to progress through the story. The other extreme would be purely narrative games, where mechanics don't matter a whole lot. Unfortunately these games often devolve into "walking-simulators" to the point where you're better off simply reading a book.

I must admit I bounced off of Bioshock Infinite and I never got that far in the original either in large part because the environments just felt like combat arenas with set dressing rather than living, breathing places. That most elements you could interact with seemed to cater solely to your needs (ammunition, health or upgrades) didn't help matters either. I dare say it's something I should revisit down the road, but it just didn't gel with me at the time. I applaud the intent, just not the execution.

I'm sure it's not an unsolvable problem, but the gaming industry is in desperate need of a new generation of visionaries, people like Warren Spector, Will Wright or even Peter Molyneux.

I think they're out there.

 

[Kadayi]

I think a lot of people play RPGs purely for the feeling of getting progressively more powerful. They need these little dopamine hits from gaining levels, getting new equipment, etc.

Just look how many people were pissed that you didn’t gain XP for the first couple chapters in FF XIII.

There are plenty of games where equipment/stat upgrades are fewer and more meaningful. But because of that, we don’t consider them to be RPGs. Just about every game nowadays has some kind of stat/gear progression.

I don't disagree, but I kind of think that in large part that's because the expectation has been set up that way (RPGs = stats). Whats required is for developers to take the time to teach players to rethink those expectations. It's a re-orientation process. Think about the beginning area of Dark Souls or say Portal and how both of those games excel at acclimating you to their systems. Once you get it, you then are able to buy into their way of thinking.

Agreed also about RPG elements being a large part of games as a whole. Deus Ex is a great example. There's not a massive amount of choice and consequence, but it is in there, and you definitely have options in terms of approach, but I wouldn't say liken it to Mass Effect, Fallout or Baldurs Gate on the balance of things. However, I do like that it tries to keep you in the game space as much as it can.

 

[Makariel]

I wonder if it would even be possible, to create a more organic approach to player progression because, ultimately, it has to be determined by a certain rule-set.

One way would be that a starting character is competent in one specialized area, and can reach mastery over the course of the game or turn into a generalist. Also, decouple competence from the overall character level. Let's assume your RPG has stats and skills from 1 to 10, let starting characters get up to lets say 7 from the start and have exponentialy increasing cost for high skills/stats. So a fresh character can be competent and hold their own from the very start, and there is still plenty of opportunity to grow.

Even more so, players like to loot and progress, they want to see their "numbers grow", which may also be the reason why roleplay-like progression has crept into most other games nowadays, even shooters and platformers.

Thats because every game has growing numbers now, very few games dare to do anything different. When I played Super Mario Bros. the other day I didn't think "gosh, this would be so much more engaging with level-based loot and progression systems"

You have hugely popular games like Diablo, where the story merely serves as a pretext for stat progression and item grind. You repeat the same level over and over again while the gameplay doesn't change much at all. The monsters just make more damage and have more HP.

I played Diablo 2 for way too long, and I recognise this gameplay loop very well. But that's really just keeping my monkey brain occupied, the game did not engage me on a deeper level. And that was in the 90ies, I would think with decades of progress we can come up with something better than that *looks at candy crush* or maybe not.

Bioshock Infinite springs to mind where the story didn't jive at all with how you interacted with the world... you still had to run and gun in order to progress through the story. The other extreme would be purely narrative games, where mechanics don't matter a whole lot.

It's just much simpler to program something where you have a gun and chip away the hitpoints of an enemy, rather than getting dialogue choices that can solve a problem. Mass Effect strikes me as one game where it should be possible to negotiate and talk yourself out of 99% of problems, especially after you saved the Universe twice. But somehow still every punk with a bad haircut thinks they are the one to stop Shepard, unlike the millions of punks that came before.

Regarding walking simulators, I find them rather boring. If I want to experience a narrative where I have little agency over, I rather read a book

I think a lot of people play RPGs purely for the feeling of getting progressively more powerful. They need these little dopamine hits from gaining levels, getting new equipment, etc.

I'm going back to Pen & Paper RPG here, where much has changed over the years and the "role playing" of the "role playing game" got more into the foreground. Every modern RPG rulebook I'm aware of makes clear that rules are not the most important part of the game and should be ignored by the game master if the situation asks for it. While this is not as easily done for a computer program, it is still odd that RPG on PC and consoles have not progressed significantly from the very first ones. Rather the opposite, some of the early Ultima games had more freedom than some newer cRPG.

RPGs are a bit strange in terms of progression in general, they are the hardest at the start when you don't know how to play. But once you as player gain competence, your character got much stronger as well, often making the last part of a game rather trivial. The difficulty curve of most RPG is rather flat after the initial spike. Most "end game content" has absolutely zero risk for the player characters involved, after a certain stage they are just demigods looking for pinatas to smash.

I don't disagree, but I kind of think that in large part that's because the expectation has been set up that way (RPGs = stats). Whats required is for developers to take the time to teach players to rethink those expectations. It's a re-orientation process.

Agreed, RPG are now more about Repetitive Padded Grinding and less about Role Playing Games.

Dark Souls is also a good example of how you can make a level based system work, by acknowedging that the players also progress and get more competent at the game. That's how you can finish the game on character level 1 if you completed it a few times. As mentioned above, in most RPG they become trivial after some point when the avatar gets insanely powerful equipped with an epic god-smasher-hammer on fire +10.

 

[shpankey]

I completely agree with you OP, but in terms of actually implementing some kind of system that would work in the world of videogames, how would it work? I mean, there's a very practical issue at hand of having a player stay alive while not removing one of the most addicting/fun aspects of the game. If I died every time I got shot and had to reset, it's even further removing me from the whole experience.

I especially agree in games like "The Division" it's completely absurd looking because you are talking about shooting hundreds of bullets at someone and even in the head, so it's just jarring to say the least. But how would one do it in that game specifically while keeping those extremely addicting/fun aspects without completely breaking it? If you did, you would just have Rainbow Siege or Ghost Recon, which are great, but there is fun to be had with this system as well.

 

[Kadayi]

I completely agree with you OP, but in terms of actually implementing some kind of system that would work in the world of videogames, how would it work? I mean, there's a very practical issue at hand of having a player stay alive while not removing one of the most addicting/fun aspects of the game. If I died every time I got shot and had to reset, it's even further removing me from the whole experience.

I especially agree in games like "The Division" it's completely absurd looking because you are talking about shooting hundreds of bullets at someone and even in the head, so it's just jarring to say the least. But how would one do it in that game specifically while keeping those extremely addicting/fun aspects without completely breaking it? If you did, you would just have Rainbow Siege or Ghost Recon, which are great, but there is fun to be had with this system as well.

Well, in large part I think it calls for better more robust writing and world building with more opportunity to navigate a situation and overcome an obstacle with combat being an option versus the focus, and tactical play being of more importance in that regard over an abstract like hit points. Looking at the recent footage of Kingdom come deliverance, that seems to be a step in the right direction: -

 

[Makariel]

I completely agree with you OP, but in terms of actually implementing some kind of system that would work in the world of videogames, how would it work? I mean, there's a very practical issue at hand of having a player stay alive while not removing one of the most addicting/fun aspects of the game. If I died every time I got shot and had to reset, it's even further removing me from the whole experience.

I think there are a number of things that can be done to keep players alive in combat situations. One could be that e.g. body armor takes the hit and needs fixing/replacement, instead of the character losing hitpoints. In this case a player could still circumvent said armor at NPCs by aiming carefully at weak spots (not necessarily always the head, but that one is quite obvious). Or have a state in which the player is down but not out, and can recover by performing a certain feat (has been done in a few games already).

Outside of combat, there should just be more options to talk/trade/negotiate with NPC to get anything done. Fallout 1 & 2 were good examples for this actually. I don't think Fallout lost any appeal just because you could talk yourself out of trouble. I also remember a number of classical adventure games where out-talking someone, working with distraction and subterfuge was a road to success. In modern games distraction only seems to work if it was carefully scripted into the plot.

 

[shpankey]

I really like all of those ideas. Armor especially so, as that's something that actually makes sense to me and is realistic. A better story with story options is also very practical and I love that idea as well. Circumvention like you both said, but that can get kind of boring if done too much. But I would add on top of that, story wise, perhaps adding something like the ability to talk NPC's into partnering up w/ you for particularly difficult quests. That's what I would do in real life if facing a huge monster or difficult odds. It would be kind of neat to offer that as a dialog option to various NPC's to gather a large fighting force. You could also spin off side quests this way "I will fight for you if you do this" etc. In this way, after your quest is done, it would logically disband after completion of the quest and you may need to [try to] do it again in another town. In this, pouring points into a persuasion/charm attribute would be something special and practical.

What about group fighting techniques? ig: shield wall. If I could enlist a force of 10 warriors, have some kind of way to group into one large fighting unit where you can have parry/thrust while interlocking shields.

One other thing, if anyone remembers Myth: The Fallen Lords, I always liked how your team members would become more skilled on their own and obtain ranks of "Captain" etc, and things like their ability to swing faster, run faster, etc increased over battles. I'm not sure I like the idea of micro-managing this myself like in Diablo so much, as these are sentient beings so it would stand to reason they would do these things on their own and get their own upgrades of equipment. Whenever I lost a Captain or experienced warrior (that had a name too) I always REALLY felt it, almost emotionally. Sometimes I would sacrifice others to keep them alive. lol

This is a very interesting discussion! (although I realize I've dumbed it down a bit, lol).

p.s. Demon Souls hit on some of this stuff too, if you think about it. I know even at a high level, I have died on the first world before by fighting really stupidly or just getting out of sync somehow despite having insane stats and equipment.

 

[Kadayi]

I really like all of those ideas. Armor especially so, as that's something that actually makes sense to me and is realistic. A better story with story options is also very practical and I love that idea as well. Circumvention like you both said, but that can get kind of boring if done too much. But I would add on top of that, story wise, perhaps adding something like the ability to talk NPC's into partnering up w/ you for particularly difficult quests. That's what I would do in real life if facing a huge monster or difficult odds. It would be kind of neat to offer that as a dialog option to various NPC's to gather a large fighting force. You could also spin off side quests this way "I will fight for you if you do this" etc. In this way, after your quest is done, it would logically disband after completion of the quest and you may need to [try to] do it again in another town. In this, pouring points into a persuasion/charm attribute would be something special and practical.

It's a little late so I can't address everything that's been said fully (maybe tomorrow assuming I'm not brain-dead from work) but I really did the idea of ad-hoc co-operation and maybe then spinning that into reciprocation down the line.

 

[GotrekNoFelix]

I figured you guys might be interested in this The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition mod.
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2521
Does some neat things including the total removal of levels and leveled content from the game, everything's open from the start, makes the game generally harder in several aspects with the removal of I-Frames for dodges, making potions and oils etc not replenish from a single common resource but rather items that you have to continue to manually re-craft as you need them a sort of hacked together reintroduction of the fighting styles system from Witcher 1, lots of other little details as well and very customisable.
Well worth a play around with.

As to the topic I think that what most RPG's, even those in high fantasy settings, could benefit from is a heavy dose of reality and a broader diversity of generic content and a thinning of unique and fantasy content (Is there really a need for 50 kinds of magic super metals?). That sounds a bit backwards but let me explain.
A sword is a sword, we know a sword is a sword because we have them in the real world and we know they're quite good at being swords because for some time now there have been swords. Why then do I so often find that my sword discomforts my opponent with all the might and authority of a sodden twig? The first step forward should be in making weapons lethal. Combat should ideally be a frightening and brutal unless you're skilled and prepared not because of gammy controls or because of how tedious it is to sit there trading blows all day but because taking a knock to your unprotected head from a heavy stick will in most situations leave you quite thoroughly fucked to say nothing of being gored by a mammoth.
With that in consideration then where does it leave our legendary frosty blade forged by the greatest smiths of mortal kin, imbued with the strength of killing things a fifth faster than otherwise? Ideally well out of the picture. With combat more lethal and skill-based across the board you shouldn't need to rely on an enchantment to make your weapon that much more effective at what it should already be pretty bloody effective at, Instead enchantments ought to genuinely effect how you approach the game even in just minor ways. Perhaps an angry sword that shakes with pure unbridled rage allowing it to easily saw through armour though its inability to stop screaming with that same rage causes you to be easily detected should you unsheath it. Perhaps an actual frosty blade forged by the greatest smiths of mortal kin which freezes opponents solid on contact but melts in direct sunlight making it all but useless when not at night or in shadow. Perhaps something so simple as a magically light sword meaning a faster and less tiring swing. Make enchanted weapons and artifacts rare but truly exciting. Don't make Keening a fucking paperweight. Bethesda. I am still mad.

Obviously this leaves open that skill advancement isn't going to be so useful going by the way skill advancement works in most games. The best way around this I reckon is locking certain mechanics like parrying or effective dodging behind a certain skill threshold and then once a threshold is reached for a particular ability further skill advancements in addition to unlocking new abilities make those already unlocked easier to use and more reliable as the characters skill improves. Effectively how magic skill progression already works in most games.

It was probably already apparent but these would obviously be suggestions best suited for western ARPG's in particular.
As to narrative? Fuck knows I'm not a writer lol.

 

[Makariel]

I really like all of those ideas. Armor especially so, as that's something that actually makes sense to me and is realistic.

I was dreaming up most of the armor-approach when I was thinking how I would translate Warhammer 40K into a first person shooter. And the way power armor is depicted in that universe it made much more sense to me than the strange health bar and divine rage system they went with in Space Marine. For 40K specifically there would have also been utility for different types of bolter ammo, with the standard ammo working well against weak enemies but glancing off heavily armored. The armor piercing kraken having an easy time piercing through armor plates, but being very inefficient against poorly armored enemies, since they would literally just go through with high chance of not actually doing significant damage to bones, internal organs, etc.

Circumvention like you both said, but that can get kind of boring if done too much.

Again, there are ways around it. If you sweet-talk someone from faction A into helping you, that might piss off faction B and prevent you circumventing anything there. So it would be a way to give the player options who they want to pick a fight with (unless they want to kill everyone anyway).

What about group fighting techniques? ig: shield wall. If I could enlist a force of 10 warriors, have some kind of way to group into one large fighting unit where you can have parry/thrust while interlocking shields.

I would suggest something along the lines of Mount & Blade maybe, but real time combat always limits the options you might have with giving orders to groups. I can only imagine the interface nightmare that would need sorting out if you want to give orders much beyond "stay here", "go there" and "attack". And I'm not even starting about AI that should act sensible with potentially few dozen friends and enemies on screen.

p.s. Demon Souls hit on some of this stuff too, if you think about it. I know even at a high level, I have died on the first world before by fighting really stupidly or just getting out of sync somehow despite having insane stats and equipment.

Demon's Souls had a number of really good approaches, only think I wish they would have handled better was armor and how it affects medieval-style combat. Looking at it "realistic" I think plate armor would be a bit problematic when fighting a dragon (being boiled alive), but it should make one an almost unstoppable killing machine against most unarmored humanoid enemies. I also liked how different damage types were handled, that cutting through thich armor was pointless, and piercing damage more successful.

 

[Shifty]

Great thread idea and opening argument. Bravo.

I've been of the opinion that arbitrary leveling systems are garbage since somewhen around Bloodborne. I had a great experience with that game and the character building system didn't bother me at the time, but every game with WRPG-style stat progression that I've played since has instilled an ever-greater sense of fatigue for it as a framework.
I remember going into the Absolver beta excited at the (incorrect) notion that the progression was exclusively learning new moves. I finished the tutorial, was greeted with a level up notification followed by a stat allocation screen, and promptly uninstalled the game. Punch Souls was not what I signed up for.

It feels like RPGs lean on leveling systems as a form of 'soft balancing', eschewing a finely-tuned game feel in favour of allowing the player fudge their way through providing that they've converted enough of their time into arbitrary numerical buffs. An ARPG can have the sickest, most satisfying combat ever (hello NieR Automata) but the fact that the player and enemies are unlikely to be on equal footing due to level differentials means that you'll only spend a small portion of your time with gameplay that feels good. The rest of the time is spent either wailing on enemies for ages waiting for them to die, crushing them instantly, or somewhere in the vague space between. None of those actually feel very fun.

The Souls games manage to skirt around this to a degree by lowering the resolution of the problem space. It's a lot more meaningful when equipping the super heavy armour gives you one or two extra hits worth of life, rather than it giving you another 20.

I remember FFXIII-3: Lightning Returns having a glaring example of the soft balancing issue- the combat in that game is awesome, but it's ultimately still all about the numbers: some of the larger enemies can be staggered and set up for a launcher followed by sick air combos, which is hype as shit when you first discover it and very satisfying to pull off. Fast-forward to the latter third of the game, and you'll never see the launch command again because you've outleveled said enemies and they die before you have the chance to max out the stagger meter and trigger the launcher. It seems crazy to me that one of the game's cooler mechanics gets smothered like that in the endgame, that's exactly the opposite of what should be happening!

At this point, my game design sensibilities are leaning super hard toward fixed-parameter combat like Devil May Cry 3 or Ninja Gaiden Black (my personal god-tier of action combat), where everything is predermined and finely balanced by the developers, and progression is achieved by granting the player new movesets and utilities to raise the skill ceiling as the game progresses. Having a predefined set of numbers and properties allows for more personality in a combat system- powerful enemies will always feel as powerful as they were designed to be, and trash mobs will always be fodder. Everything is predictable, which allows the player to learn the game and actually become mechanically better at it instead of pouring time into grinding for levels and gradually forgetting how to do anything except mash the attack button.

In terms of solving the problem for RPGs, I'd scrap leveling entirely and lean into the idea of unique gear. If I find a piece of gear, I want it to be the only instance of it in the game. I want said gear to have unique mechanics tied to it that allow me to build my character's moveset and define the way they interact with the world. If that means less gear overall then so be it- I'd take one sword with a cool design and fleshed out concept over fifty dull variants of 'longsword' any day. High jump boots, a cape that grants an invisible dash, a future-seeing charm that telegraphs enemy attacks ahead of time. There's a ton of untapped potential in the idea of 'cool legendary item with unique properties' but it's so often squandered in favour of '+5% Fire Damage'.

Thinking about it, Ocarina of Time is probably the closest to what I have in my head here. Not so much the traditional Zelda aspects like solving puzzles with certain gear, but just the sheer variety and uniqueness of its arsenal. Apply that to a traditional RPG structure and I think the result would be pretty good.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Ironically, Witcher 3 actually ties to address this because a lot of quest rewards are Relic items, which scale to your level. I think it's never been common knowledge (based on the popularity of Youtube videos that point it out), but that's one way to try bridge the sort of gap between the story context importance of a quest reward and the gameplay context importance -- that no matter your level, the reward you get from it scales to it.

That said, it doesn't fix it per se because it still leaves room for narrative being 'gamed.' Now there's incentive not to do quests, and save quests with relic rewards until you're done leveling. And you can actually be doing yourself a disservice by getting certain rewards too soon.

Personally, I've always liked utility based loot. Games like Tactics Ogre where many of the best items in the game are acquired early on because the stats tied to 'level progress' are not very important but instead the unique utility of different weapons: the odd +stat one helmet happens to have; the odd high speed a low level bow has. Even games with a lot of loot progression could have glimpses of this, like [early] Diablo 2, where people used lower level uniques with unique stats (faster run; relatively unique slow speed) or World of Warcraft beta (when Warriors would use Cross Daggers for the speed rather than the damage). The Tactics Ogre item design (and especially the remaster) because it had such utility-based item design, but still allowed for heavy endgame loot progression because you could craft (through a lot of difficulty) very small +1 or +2 sort of bonuses. It's almost like the D&D model where, ultimately, every still has the exact same 1-6 damage Scimitar, no matter lv1 or noob or epic ranger lol, and it would be relatively unique or utility-based upgrades that make each different magic item different.

It's a lot harder to do, and certainly requires a lot more balance and item design -- it's a lot easier, safer to just make every weapon scale from levels 1 to 99 and have instant progression. But I like the utility approach myself, and it gives the quest designers to give every quest -- regardless of level -- more capacity to make the reward unique and practical in some way.

 

[cormack12]

Great OP!

Loot based games are odd in how they work. I think there are a few issues with loot and they are wide ranging, so I'll just go through my personal issues. I'm coming at this from a slightly different angle than levelling, but just how power and items are handled generally.

Common/materials: At some stage you're going to be outlevelled on all common materials. For example, iron daggers. So I have to collect say 20 of them to break them down into ingots or whatever. That's just awful, why can't I just get the raw materials automatically? It's clear I won't be equipping +36 iron daggers when my MH and OH are +118? Low level generic loot is garbage and even more so when you have no auto-loot system and have stacks of the same crap in your inventory.

Chasing the dragon: Loot based games tend to have a 'best drop', per class, per item. Armour, weapon, legs etc. and they might have RNG +% added at each drop. Everyone is running round with the same weapons all looking identical. Even large scale games have some end piece 'sets' that everyone will grind for. I want my character to be unique or at least have unique elements.

Continuity: This isn't too bad, but I like to know what drops off each enemy or in each region. Basically where to find what I need. You know rather than have every herb just randomly popping up. Certain flowers grow in the foothills of mountains. Certain reeds can be found near lakes etc.

Minimum power: The main problems RPG's have is that the game needs to be completable within a threshold. For those who don't want to seek the best treasure, spend the time grinding/crafting or do side quests. And therein lies the problem. Andy why the sense of progression turns into a grind to overlevel past challenge. This is where I think the Division is a good example of splintering content levels. Dark zone v PvE. Main quest line power/strength should be independent of the additional content. Any unlocked abilities are part of the main game loop.

Cosmetics: Again, I want my character to look how I want, with the augments I want. I want to be able to apply any sort of enchantment (not necessarily with +%). Like I might just want a weapon that glows red - not because it has a fire enchantment. If that means I need to go kill 25 fireflies to harvest their blood sacs or whatever, then fine.

Crafting systems: I really liked how KIngdom of Amalur handled this. Instead of just crafting a weapon for example, you crafted each element like bow limbs, or a hilt which gave various bonuses. You also got to name the weapon. It felt more personal. It's why I prefer Bloodborne to Dark Souls. I don't like the levelling at all in that game. Resources are finite and it's not clear which weapons are worth upgrading at first. Bloodborne was much more limited in its weapons and I preferred that it became part of my characters identity. I loved the cane, fitted me perfectly. I liked I could concentrate on upgrading it because I knew it would follow me on my journey. i'd rather have a weapon that was entirely customisable and upgradeable than wait for a sword that looks good and has good stats to drop.

Ideally I'd take it a step further with the above. If you're class is a dwarf for example, you won't be able to forge bows to rival the power and beauty of an elf crafter. And vice versa. So your abilities will cap out and if you want abetter bow than you are capable of crafting, then you need to buy one off an elf crafter. And then racial's can add the +% - for example a dwarf and elf archer with the same elf bow will deal the same base damage but the elf will have a +% racial on damage.

This is all speaking high level. The reality is this must be amongst the most complex game system to develop and program and until we have a real big leap then this is the best compromise. They're my main personal problems with the current implementation.

 

[Kadayi]

Good to see positives responses and people coming at the conundrum of 'the how' and their bugbears from a variety of different RPG perspectives. I fully admit I'm more of a story RPG person versus action RPG, despite Dark Souls being my GoTG, though that's in large part due to the sublime nature of the games level design more than anything else (can't wait for the re-release). Working week and all coupled with the office being chronically understaffed means I probably won't be able to formulate or respond to a lot of what's been written until the weekend. However, a lot of food for thought.

 

[shpankey]

I would suggest something along the lines of Mount & Blade maybe, but real time combat always limits the options you might have with giving orders to groups. I can only imagine the interface nightmare that would need sorting out if you want to give orders much beyond "stay here", "go there" and "attack". And I'm not even starting about AI that should act sensible with potentially few dozen friends and enemies on screen.

I was kind of thinking in terms of having control of the group. So if you gave a command like "shield wall", they would all combine into an interlocking formation that would be at your control as if it were a single thing. You move it around with the left stick and change the rotation with the right, A for block, B for thrust, X for slice, etc.

But formations are good too. The Myth series expressed this the best I've seen yet. It was critical to get into proper formations before a battle and use subsets for flanking maneuvers. Even a small fighting force that was well balanced (archers, warriors, ghols [fast fighting force] and wights/dwarfs [explosive units], if organized well into formation could absolutely lay waste to great armies that weren't organized. The tactical aspects of this game were incredible and heavily influenced outcomes, along with the self-leveling aspects of the individuals I spoke of before (captain's, etc).

To your point about giving the commands. You could form them up into a formation, but once an enemy came nearby or attacked, they would move into action on their own in Myth, which worked very well. This is just single player below so it doesn't show any of these points well at all, you have to see multiplayer combat between armies to really see what I mean, but just for reference...
[eg: though you'll have to ff quite a bit ]

This would all be heavily influenced by your choice of perspective as well, first person, 3rd person iso, or what have you, as far as the implementation.

p.s. sorry for going off on a tangent to the topic. I'm absolutely fascinated w/ the current discussion going on so please forgive me and carry on.