Achilles heel of almost all RPG gameplay

[Batadon]

Some RPGs do better at balance than others. SaGa Frontier II was IMO the epitome of balance. Characters could make combo attacks out of Weapon AND Magic techniques, the game used weapon points and magic points - Weapon techs would do more damage, but there was no way to increase a character's weapon point rate. Magic techs were more versatile but didn't always do as much damage, but they were far easier to use repeatedly because equipping certain magic items increased the amount of MP you got back each turn...

Some games, like Magical Starsign, pretty much encouraged solely the use of magic, with there being no weapons at all (just a physical punch/kick for each character).

I really liked Chrono Cross's Element system, where you used physical attacks to build up MP for your real damage-dealers...

 

[poleboy]

It's kind of hard to respond to this without knowing what games you are talking about - I think they approach the caster class quite differently.
I honestly can't relate to WhiteTigerShiro's story of the underpowered Oblivion mage. Around level 10, my Oblivion pure mage with no armor was an invincible god. In the rare cases that he ran out of mana, all I had to do was cast invisibility and wait a few seconds for my mana to recharge. As long as you remember to upgrade your spells, a mage character becomes invincible much faster than a fighter character in that game - I'm still struggling with my lv. 10 fighter even though he can heal himself.

Anyway, I find that mages in most RPG's tend to do around the same amount of damage as fighter characters, but JRPG's in particular use a simple elemental weakness system, where you have to cast the right spells to maximize damage. If you do this, mage characters have a higher damage output. The tradeoff, usually, is that they suffer in the defensive department.

 

[DeadlyFred]

Fighter/Tank sorts tend to be the easiest to play because they are one-trick ponies with a fuckton of armor/health... but they're also still one-trick ponies. You have pretty much one option available when attempting to overcome and obstacle: stab it, repeatedly. More thought has to go into playing as a magic user, and you generally have to consider a much broader set of tools as well, not just the attack key.

Mages are and will probably forever be the quintessential "glass cannon", that's just how they are. Its the price you pay for having so many fancy tricks up your sleeve.

Personally, I prefer firearms and napalm to magic missiles and thunderbolts.

 

[Novajam]

The way I get around this problem is just to make a balanced (like, really balanced) character.
A few points in ranged, a few more in melee, some in armour and some in magic (or equivalent). Putting all your faith in one attribute isn't a good idea unless you really know what you're doing, or the game is so easy that it's all you need.

 

[Digitalpotato]

Fighter/Tank sorts tend to be the easiest to play because they are one-trick ponies with a fuckton of armor/health... but they're also still one-trick ponies. You have pretty much one option available when attempting to overcome and obstacle: stab it, repeatedly. More thought has to go into playing as a magic user, and you generally have to consider a much broader set of tools as well, not just the attack key.

I have to agree with that. Even in Guild Wars when I did play mostly melee classes it was because they had quite a few tricks up their sleeves and combos to pull off. (Like say my Assassin Combo or my Dervish alternating between a few attacks and throwing a few enchantments up to deal some additional damage and aid the other few attacks)

Though in WoW I really felt bored playing some of the warriors and rogues. Especially when I tried getting a few Rogue mods back in early 2006 or so before they cracked down on mods. Seriously some of those Rogue Mods were border-line bots as it is, I remember one "Recommended" mod by my guild allowed you to set up a combo so that when you executed it you just had to hit the "2" key.

At least in the Tales of games you could do stuff like attack and recover TP and combine your skills with others...sure that's pretty entertaining, though not if my stupid mages find one spell they really love and use that even when I tell them NOT to use it. While Thunder Arrow did indeed give a lot of hits I had to shut it off since I was in an area with a lot of lightning elementals only to realize that I had forgotten to turn it back on about three or four hours later when they were now WEAK to lightning and I was wondering why she never used it and defaulted to the Flame Wall and Rolling Stone spells.

And let's not forget Will...

"Let's try this...FLAME BLADE!"
*Absorbs it*
"Hmm that didn't work, let's try this! FLAME BLADE!*
*absorbs it*
...oh just use freaking Freeze Lancer or Spread.

 

[Baby Tea]

I'm not sure if I agree with the fighter > mage stance. Take Oblivion as an example: I played a high-elf mage and nothing touched me...ever. I'd have so many potions and spells that I never wore armor or used a weapon once. I slaughtered the game.
Some games make the bias, sure. But I'd say that WRPGs don't have that bias as much as JRPGs.

 

[Vash108]

I just feel a lack of variety lately and I don't think I can handle another JRPG. Bring back the good old Arcanum or other Steam/Cyber punk games. I love fantasy games I really do but I want to see something new, and something other then turn based combat and random encounters.

I know there are exceptions to this but, they are few and far between.

 

[Sennz0r]

I think the Achilles heel of RPGs is the grinding. RPGs are practically defined by grind. Show me one non-grind RPG... and I'll show you an adventure game.

Most wRPGs can be completed without level grinding, jRPGs are often focused on the level grind.(doesn't matter if that grind is for character levels or to learn how to use a [magic] skill but you'll never be the recommended level just following the story)
If you're talking about MMORPGs, those are supposed to be nothing but grind.

I suppose you're right... I don't think I ever had to grind in Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, or Oblivion... unless you really wanted to build a particular skill.

Well yeah you could sail through the main story pretty easy... just make sure you avoid a lot of the higher level dungeons.
Personally I found that I wanted to be some kind of god before I went further into the storyline, so after I reached level 30 -which took me a while and a lot of optional questing (no grind though, except if I really wanted to advance in a particular skill, but even then it didn't feel like grind)- I was so powerful that I could finish off Vivec quite easily and from that moment on I kinda sailed through the storyline without any big issues.
Don't know how Morrowind did it but it was apparently so expansive that you could be doing something contributing to a story and quests and not just be killing skeletons in a ruin or killing X amount of creatures and bringing Y amount resources to person Z.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The way I see it, strategy only goes out the window if you're willing to put all your eggs in one basket. Sure, you can max out that one really tough fighter monk and kill any monster in a single blow... But what happens when he dies?

I prefer a more balanced party, myself.

I never found that a problem with the original pokémon games. I'd max out my starter pokémon and only use him. Any others I'd catch were simply for completion of the pokedex or to have as backup so I could revive my main guy if he ever died. Worked absolutely fine

You took my strategy .

 

[mark_n_b]

I think the Achilles heel of RPGs is the grinding. RPGs are practically defined by grind. Show me one non-grind RPG... and I'll show you an adventure game.

This is what I expected when i saw the title of the thread, and I aqgree with that.

The OP makes sense too. This goes all the way back to original D&D pen and paper RPG. The game is about killing stuff, and most of the classes are fluff, Int, Cha, Wis... these stats mean nothing.

My most recent example was when I deigned to play mass Effect as a class other than a soldier. And the game automatically became a piece of crap. I can't take fifty shots without being able to equip heavy armor so every time the game takes over and cinematically throws me into a cluster-fuck in the middle of eighty enemies (which it does a lot) I die and have to replay the thing like seventy times to get through it.

Developers are not the shite they think they are, especially RPG devs, who simply don't know how to balance a RPG for a rogue or a wizard.

I give kudos to Bioshock though for giving a game that played well whether you wanted to focus on melee, magic, or firearms.

 

[Vash108]

Another thing about RPG's I hate is, the linearity to them sometimes. It is an RPG, I know you can't make infinite outcomes or paths but a nice variety would be great Not just wheeling around the main character to plot point after plot point. I think Yahtzee said it best that there needs to be something more then just Golden Child Savior and Black-Tooth Baby-eater.

 

[DeadlyFred]

My most recent example was when I deigned to play mass Effect as a class other than a soldier. And the game automatically became a piece of crap. I can't take fifty shots without being able to equip heavy armor so every time the game takes over and cinematically throws me into a cluster-fuck in the middle of eighty enemies (which it does a lot) I die and have to replay the thing like seventy times to get through it.

This is a flaw in game design, not class design. If a game is designed with a bias towards by-the-numbers killing sprees then of course it is going to be biased towards a by-the-numbers killing character. This is probably more of an issue than anything, really. If a game is not designed to let you take advantage of certain styles of play, it rather makes it difficult to do so no matter how well-conceived said styles may be.

 

[Digitalpotato]

I'm not sure if I agree with the fighter > mage stance. Take Oblivion as an example: I played a high-elf mage and nothing touched me...ever. I'd have so many potions and spells that I never wore armor or used a weapon once. I slaughtered the game.
Some games make the bias, sure. But I'd say that WRPGs don't have that bias as much as JRPGs.

What I'm surprised no one seems to have pointed out yet is that quite a bit of wRPGs seem to focus more on the individual character. (Ie elder scolls) Sure there are games like ultima that were more about parties, but in general you can see that the allies were mostly there to help your dude kick ass. (I remember one Ultima game on Mars where you had a party with you most of the game and by the time you reached the end it was just her there doing all the stuff like facing the final boss.)

You can even see that in Knights of the Old republic since you wind up having to do quite a bit of stuff by yourself. Heck in Sith Lords you can see that little trend. My Jedi Weapons Master or Sith Lord pretty much could solo most of the game, and you could kill an entire room in one shot with Force Storm. (Even as a Jedi weapons master Force Storm one-shots most enemies on Onderon when you get zerged)


Whereas look at J-RPGs and what's this....? Party members? And they follow me to the final battle without being incapacitated by a plot barrier? Sure they're not without their solo battles (Dragon Quest/warrior if you remember was entirely one-on-one) and usually they aren't as common. Unless it's say an action RPG like Tales of where you can make up for being extremely low-leveled by being good at the game (or exploiting a glitch or running around and spamming techniques for infinite combos), or where the party members are merely just there for crowd control or healing *cough*Kingdom hearts*cough*. Or Zelda or Brave Fencer: Musashi if you consider them RPGs. (Some people don't consider Zelda an RPG)

Although what I do notice is that when you don't have cookie-cutter roles like the scantily clad woman is a fast-fighter while the man who covers up as much of his body as possible is a mage, you can usually build them up to be super-powerful and blur the lines even more. Like in Final Fantasy X I eliminated any need for Lulu, Wakka, or Kimarhi thanks to the Sphere Grid and in VIII the only reason I built characters up period was because I liked their limit breaks. (even if Selphie's "The End" never works when you want it too)

 

[T1DDELZ]

With RPGs the problem is... ''The Grind''

 

[Digitalpotato]

Killing things seems to be pretty much in every game...that's not sports, sim, racing, or "Casual".

 

[Magnetic2]

Killing things seems to be pretty much in every game...that's not sports, sim, racing, or "Casual".

Did you read any part of this thread?