Achilles heel of almost all RPG gameplay

[Magnetic2]

So I am an avid player of RPGs, I have even touched base with a few obscure rpgs over time. and one game play issue that keeps popping up for me over and over the issue of physical attackers out classing magic users. It seems that almost all rpg or quasi-rpg games have a slant towards physical fighters.

To me it is just common sense to prefer making a character that does max damage for free rather then one that has to wear defensive compromising mage gear that gives a + to casting abilities and a - to everything else, then have to wait till the end game for a unique powerful spell in order to do what a fighter will do every turn. No need for status spells or waiting to cast, just hack and hack and the enemy will be dead before the battle even gets to a mid point. Normally I find by most end games, I have all these items and equipment which all get super-ceded by my +massive damage weapon a single fighter is wielding, in both western and eastern RPGs.

The point I am getting to is that all strategy goes out the window once you realize you can just maximize your physical damage capabilities and pound on the enemies or one shot them out the gate, breaking the game play.

The exceptions I will note are the Shine Megami Series, has boss fights and regualr enemies that are immune or heavily protected from physical damage, and the Death Slaad in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the underdark.

 

[Space Spoons]

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.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

I don't think I agree with you. By using elements and defensive spells cleverly, you can overcome anything any RPG can throw at you, bar perhaps a bullshit final boss with full magic resistance.
I've been replaying FFX recently (mostly so I can yell at Tidus for being a twat, very theraputic) and my lineup is basically Lulu, Rikku and Yuna/Auron for all the battles. Lulu can more or less kill anything in one spell, magic resistant or not.
Then take FFXI which I've been known to dabble in, Red Mages can basically anything in the game if they're prepared enough... not that I'm biased or anything being a max level Red Mage.

 

[Akihiko]

Some RPG's require strategy, but i know where you're getting at, alot of them are really easy if you're high enough level, for that reason I usually keep myself under leveled, to make bosses a bit of a challenge(Also the fact grinding bores me to hell comes into it too...).

As you say, MegaTen games usually require strategy, I know for a fact, in Lucifers Call(Nocturne for you Americans), Persona 3 and Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 required thinking before attacking, unless you wanted to lose your attack... D:

Personally i also prefer having a balanced party aswell, having entirely melee gets rather boring, and kills what little challenge there is in some games.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

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.

 

[Digitalpotato]

Some do require RPGs, even though sometimes it gets negated in complete ways:

-In Tactics Ogre: LEt us Cling Together I power-leveled my characters so they power-housed through the stages hitting for 75-100% of the enemies. Sure I still had some skills that'd knock them out in one hit but they hurt me as well.

-In Final Fantasy Tactics, you got characters like Meliadoul and Orlandu who could hit for about 800 damage with abilities that had no casting time.

-In Fire Emblem, only a few characters can even so much as HURT the final boss. >.< Thankfully you have that Athos lifeline since there's no way in hell you're gonna kill that thing otherwise. (Even at 20/20 Lyndis doesn't do enough damage unless you're willing to heal her for 20 turns and hope you get lucky the dragon never goes for anyone else and your healbots don't get sleeped)

 

[Ronmarru]

Having nothing but fighters means you have to rely on items an uncomfortable amount. And about having to wait until near the end to have a powerful mage, I remember on FFIX(hey, I liked it) I put auto-reflect on all my team and had Vivi cast on them. It might not be that deep but I call it strategy.
Vivi is still one of my favorite FF characters, second only to Auron and Vincent, who tie.

 

[Flour]

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.

 

[Akihiko]

I think RPG's are getting a bit better with grinding lately, they're slowly getting to the point where all the grinding you do is built into the game as you go through dungeons/story and doesn't require you to stay round in just one area continually looking for random battles to level up a bit.

The MegaTen RPG series still requires you to do alot of grinding, Tartarus in Persona 3 was an absolute nightmare(Whoever thought making you go through 250 floors which contain the same graphics just in different colours with different coloured mobs was a good idea should be shot, period), that said, I managed to persevere with it due to the fact you could break it up a bit alongside the social links and full moon missions and the story was awesome.

In conclusion, as long as theres some 'reward'(Interesting plot, or unlockables) to get from doing grinding, and as long as it's spread out, I don't mind it so much.

Oh and the definition of MMORPG's is grinding, it wouldn't be a mmorpg if it didn't contain grinding.. xD

 

[Syvari]

Legend of Dragoon was a non-grind RPG, and probably one of the best RPG's of all time, right up there with FFVII and...crap.. i can't think of any right now.. but it was one of the best of all time and.. WAIT! I thought of a few more: Legend of Mana, and umm... nope no more right now. I'm a nerd for RPG's, both Medieval and Space varieties but most of them are blatant cheap ripoffs of some of the following: Final Fantasy, Starcraft (even though it's an RTS), Aliens movie, WoW, Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, and any other of the "good stuff" that you think of when you think "RPG". I think we need a few more Original RPG's, and some that are not complete ripoffs and actually have good storylines.
I mean, didn't that use to be one fo the best parts about an RPG, the story? The story in Legend of Dragoon was MUCH better than any book I have ever read, but now, it's just "Should the young hero's village get burned before he meets the strange girl, or after?" and "When should the technology city show up?" I know that some of the cliches happen in Legend of Dragoon, but it was the one that STARTED these things, so it's okay. Sheesh, why can't RPG's come up with their own crap anymore, the last good one I saw was FFX, and that was pushing it (maybe I'm missing some, but thats the last good one I'VE seen...)
/sigh Guess I'll go back to WoW and Starcraft (holy sh** at Blizzard by the way, what with DiabloIII, Starcraft2 [FINALLY!!1!], and the new WoW expansion, they are going to be raking in the cash. So companies, see what happens when you get a reputation of making good games, SEE?! You get a devoted fanbase and lots of money, liek how Nintendo used to be. I just realized that this is just one forum post and that my fingers now hurt, so i'll stop now. XD)

 

[Amnestic]

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

 

[OuroborosChoked]

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.

 

[Eilanis]

Admittedly, I like a bit of a grind, game and genre depending. Jedi Academy was a bit of a grind in parts, but allowable since towards the end, when your opponents could pull some of the same force tricks.

Also, there are ways to get past the grind. FFX did this by making the save game spheres fully heal you. You don't have to make enough money to buy 100s of potions to get more spheres, meaning you're hitting the problem at both ends. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars would award your characters experience, even if they weren't being used (which is why I used Mario/Princess/Geno as much as possible and still hit Lv30 about the same time as Mallow and Bowser). World of Warcraft (bear with me) has begun to do this as well. For those not in on the game, the amount of experience it takes to level from 1-60 was decreased, while the amount of experience that quests gave increased. This gives players a much greater sense of accomplishment when doing their quest grinds. In addition, bringing in a friend will allow you to summon each other once per hour, and increases all experience gained by three times when leveling together, with a spiffy new mount to be the metaphorical cherry on top. Rest experience also helps, making it so that you can level "alternate" characters while not always making your "main" character's progression suffer from lack of play.

 

[mooncalf]

I played ol' Darkstone recently and with one spell could spam anything to death in moments, my amazon backup falling behind in levels with nothing to do... So not all magic users in RPGs suffer the failure of some game developers (and every game is it's own debate) to create a magic user class that doesn't consist of hiding behind a tank... S'all relative, I should complain that I didn't need any of the other spells, but if some were good and some were wank, how would I know first time through?

 

[PersianLlama]

So I am an avid player of RPGs, I have even touched base with a few obscure rpgs over time. and one game play issue that keeps popping up for me over and over the issue of physical attackers out classing magic users. It seems that almost all rpg or quasi-rpg games have a slant towards physical fighters.

To me it is just common sense to prefer making a character that does max damage for free rather then one that has to wear defensive compromising mage gear that gives a + to casting abilities and a - to everything else, then have to wait till the end game for a unique powerful spell in order to do what a fighter will do every turn. No need for status spells or waiting to cast, just hack and hack and the enemy will be dead before the battle even gets to a mid point. Normally I find by most end games, I have all these items and equipment which all get super-ceded by my +massive damage weapon a single fighter is wielding, in both western and eastern RPGs.

The point I am getting to is that all strategy goes out the window once you realize you can just maximize your physical damage capabilities and pound on the enemies or one shot them out the gate, breaking the game play.

The exceptions I will note are the Shine Megami Series, has boss fights and regualr enemies that are immune or heavily protected from physical damage, and the Death Slaad in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the underdark.

That's when challenges come in. (Ex: All White Mage group in FF1, filled with fun.)

 

[Flour]

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.

Oblivion would be the easiest example, you can complete that game at level 2, and that 'strict' level requirement is only because that's the lowest possible level to start a Daedric shrine quest.

 

[Alex_P]

The source of the fault is pretty obvious: way too many video-game RPGs just blindly rip off D&D instead of doing their own thing or even looking at D&D and intelligently adapting it to a new medium.

It takes much longer to resolve a single "encounter" in D&D than it does to play it in Final Fantasy or Neverwinter Nights or Oblivion or whatever. In a tabletop game of D&D, a handful of encounters per adventure (or at least per period of activity) is pretty standard (in 3rd Edition they outright said that four was the magic number, for example). In a video-game RPG, it's usually more like fifty. If you design a class that runs out of juice and one that doesn't, you'll see all sorts of weirdness when you vary the number of fights between recharge periods. That means that you can't just take D&D's class structure and copy-paste it into a game where you're constantly fighting guys.

I think the whole design is pretty much ass, to be honest.

-- Alex

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Let's not get too side-tracked on the grinding topic, that's an entire topic all its own.

As for the Fighter vs Caster argument, I noticed this long ago with the Elderscrolls games. Most recently, in Oblivion, I remember watching my friend play through a dungeon. He played as a "Fighter" type character, and anytime he'd come upon an enemy the fight lasted maybe two seconds. The enemy could do nothing against him. Then when I would play the game, always as a Mage-type of course, I'd get to the same dungeon, but I always spent much longer fighting the enemies. Much much longer. Even with the best spells I could afford to buy, the enemy's health would barely sliver off with every cast, and I'd have to chug mana potion after mana potion to keep a good supply of mana going.

Where my friend just had to run into the fray with his blade swinging like a lawn mower held in front of him, I had to run around and dodge, stunning enemies, hitting them with fireballs, re-stunning them, sometimes having to go invisible... a whole charade of abilities because I quickly found that just throwing Fireballs didn't do enough damage to kill fast enough, and simply backpedaling only worked until a wall stopped me.

At the same time though, I can feel the developer's pain. It's hard to make a Mage character powerful without seeming over-powered. After-all, at least the fighter character has to get-in close with his enemy before being able to slice him to ribbons. If a Mage could end the fight just as quickly, they'd be seen as extremely over-powered because they didn't have to risk getting in range. So it's a fine line they walk, ever so slightly to one side and the Mage is way too powerful compared to other classes, even a sliver in the other direction and suddenly the Mage is too weak to defend himself.

One of my friends defined the Mage in Oblivion as being a sort of "hard mode" since they require a lot more tweaking to play the game effectively. I guess it's as good of a justification as any, but if I wanted the game to be harder than when playing as a fighter type character, that's why the game has a difficulty slider.