Dark Souls has ruined the RPG for me...

[Casual Shinji]

Bed of Chaos is symptomatic of how Dark Souls creates difficulty, as opposed to being a problem in and of itself. The game was designed in part around borderline forced failure and learning via repetition. Because they kind of cleverly wove this into the game's melancholy oppressiveness, it tends to get a pass, but it can be a supremely aggravating mechanic when it's on full display. Like, say, the first appearance of the Capra Demon, or the fucking Bed of Chaos.

Dark Souls is very much about wanting to constantly trick you, but the problem with Bed of Chaos is that the whole fight hinges on luck. The Capra Demon if you happen to play with a tank build can be easily beat on the first go, or even totally circumvent him if you have the Master Key.

Bed of Chaos you have to beat, and no matter what build you have or how much experience you have, he will knock you down the pit. There's no escaping it. And then you have to fucking jump onto a lower section you never would've thought to look, because his gaint tree arms are flailing at you. After which you got bombarded by fire attacks. Even From Software knew how fucking broken this Boss Fight was so the put in quickpoints.

 

[JagermanXcell]

You're saying Dark Souls is not an RPG? Wha... I... on what planet?!

I and many others had plenty of role-playing experiences in Dark Souls. The time I played as a faith build who helped other worlders with miracles to heal them and to punish the guilty attacking the host via joining Gwyndolin and the Darkmoons. The time I played a strength build who lusted for power, so he went and sided with Kaathe, joined the Dickwraiths and got himself enough humanity to tackle Gwyn and become a Dark Lord. The time I played a Chaos Ninja who utilized chaos weapons and chaos pyro only to become obsessed with fire eventually ending up linking the flames because of it. And the time I played a mage who found stoicism unsavory, so he went on his undead mission with phantoms who shared his love for intelligence over melee.

And a psychopath who managed to link the fire, naked, with a balder shield and a fire club, who don't need no souls (slvl 1).

If you don't like Dark Souls thats fine. But don't say its not an action RPG, because it kind of is.

A lot of that type stuff you're talking about, you can do in many games. In a shooter, you can play patient, reserved sniper and then next playthrough be a lunatic shotgunner; that doesn't turn that shooter into an RPG. inFamous isn't an RPG either and it has even more choices, but the focus is on the sandbox gameplay, not role-playing.

You seem to forget about the online component that exist in the game that furthers your options to more things then just dungeon crawling, something unique to the Souls series as an action RPG. The covenants let you chose your path as a protector of the forest, hunter of the guilty, humanity hungry darkwraith, or servant for the gravelord. Each covenant lets you reap a vast array of goodies for performing the role required. Your actions online also push towards that of a traditional RPG, for example: not every Darkwraith (player) play the same, some like to bow during an invasions, some like to just go for the kill, some enjoy the thrill of odds stacked against their favor, taking on a host and 2 phantoms head on, or perhaps they practice using weapons seen as low-tier to show off when invading, that or they prefer to use dark magic to get the quick and easy kill.

Underneath Dark Souls stats, leveling, and skill is a wider emphasis on player choice then just linking the fire. Thats the way I see it as an Action Role Playing Game.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Dark Souls focuses on dungeon crawling; therefore, it's a dungeon crawler, not an RPG.

You are a pedant plain and simple. I bet you get super worked up over whether things like Dear Esther and Heavy Rain qualify as games. What matters is whether you enjoy them or find them meaningful, not which category they fall into.

You may be right or you may be wrong. But I'm going to keep on calling Dark Souls my favorite RPG and you can't stop me. So bleh!

Nope, Dear Esther and Heavy Rain are games.

I'm the one trying to keep things simple. How are the following rules not simple?

1) Whatever you do most in game is what genre it falls into.

2) RPGs need to focus on role-playing to be an RPG just like a shooter must focus on shooting or a platformer must focus on platforming.

Dark Souls focuses on dungeon crawling thus it's a dungeon crawler. It's really that simple of a concept. I don't get caught up in all these rules like other people, I'm a huge proponent of the K.I.S.S. method. Most people have all these rules for an RPG like there must be stats, leveling, classes, loot, and other elements. Some people say an RPG needs to have no player skill involved where whether your character succeeds or fails is entirely dependent on numbers via a literal or digital dice roll. I don't require any of those kind of rules because all those elements aren't the essence of what RPG is, it's the role-playing and that's it.

Enjoy Dark Souls however much you want but really calling it your favorite RPG is kinda problematic because Dark Souls doesn't even have good RPG mechanics, you should really demand more from a mechanics standpoint. For example, fire magic not being stat dependent is a huge issue (can you imagine how broken a magic user in DnD would be if they weren't dependent on a stat for their magic?). A stat (Resistance) being useless shows how poorly the stats were thought out. Then you can even bypass raising Dex/Str for weapon damage purposes by putting an element on a weapon. Items like the Wolf ring that let builds do things they shouldn't be able to do. The horribly broken inventory system that lets you carry every fucking thing you find in the game. Like Dark Souls for the atmosphere, level design, and combat if you want, but it's a rather poor RPG starting at its very foundation.

You seem to forget about the online component that exist in the game that furthers your options to more things then just dungeon crawling, something unique to the Souls series as an action RPG. The covenants let you chose your path as a protector of the forest, hunter of the guilty, humanity hungry darkwraith, or servant for the gravelord. Each covenant lets you reap a vast array of goodies for performing the role required. Your actions online also push towards that of a traditional RPG, for example: not every Darkwraith (player) play the same, some like to bow during an invasions, some like to just go for the kill, some enjoy the thrill of odds stacked against their favor, taking on a host and 2 phantoms head on, or perhaps they practice using weapons seen as low-tier to show off when invading, that or they prefer to use dark magic to get the quick and easy kill.

Underneath Dark Souls stats, leveling, and skill is a wider emphasis on player choice then just linking the fire. Thats the way I see it as an Action Role Playing Game.

That's cool and all if you get into that stuff, but that's not the core of the game. GTA Online isn't an RPG and it allows for those types of things as well. The role-playing in Mass Effect is unavoidable and it's what you spend the most time doing in the game, it's the core of the game.

 

[JagermanXcell]

Dark Souls focuses on dungeon crawling; therefore, it's a dungeon crawler, not an RPG.

You are a pedant plain and simple. I bet you get super worked up over whether things like Dear Esther and Heavy Rain qualify as games. What matters is whether you enjoy them or find them meaningful, not which category they fall into.

You may be right or you may be wrong. But I'm going to keep on calling Dark Souls my favorite RPG and you can't stop me. So bleh!

Nope, Dear Esther and Heavy Rain are games.

I'm the one trying to keep things simple. How are the following rules not simple?

1) Whatever you do most in game is what genre it falls into.

2) RPGs need to focus on role-playing to be an RPG just like a shooter must focus on shooting or a platformer must focus on platforming.

Dark Souls focuses on dungeon crawling thus it's a dungeon crawler. It's really that simple of a concept. I don't get caught up in all these rules like other people, I'm a huge proponent of the K.I.S.S. method. Most people have all these rules for an RPG like there must be stats, leveling, classes, loot, and other elements. Some people say an RPG needs to have no player skill involved where whether your character succeeds or fails is entirely dependent on numbers via a literal or digital dice roll. I don't require any of those kind of rules because all those elements aren't the essence of what RPG is, it's the role-playing and that's it.

Enjoy Dark Souls however much you want but really calling it your favorite RPG is kinda problematic because Dark Souls doesn't even have good RPG mechanics, you should really demand more from a mechanics standpoint. For example, fire magic not being stat dependent is a huge issue (can you imagine how broken a magic user in DnD would be if they weren't dependent on a stat for their magic?). A stat (Resistance) being useless shows how poorly the stats were thought out. Then you can even bypass raising Dex/Str for weapon damage purposes by putting an element on a weapon. Items like the Wolf ring that let builds do things they shouldn't be able to do. The horribly broken inventory system that lets you carry every fucking thing you find in the game. Like Dark Souls for the atmosphere, level design, and combat if you want, but it's a rather poor RPG starting at its very foundation.

So you admit its an RPG, just a poor one. Ok you're entitled to that. You may even be happy to know From Software has taken into consideration all of what you said (fire to have stat dependence, resistance being viable, quality more suitable over elemental [elemental was patched less then a year after Dark Souls' release anyways], armor/mobility relying on stats instead of rings, and something of an item burden is back now with its own stat [mention of trap disabling in said stat] is back from what I have seen when I played round 1 of Dark Souls 2 beta). That and covenants have a larger role in the game now, possibly to shift the story into many different outcomes.
Dark Souls 1 was a rushed and unfinished game, but even with all that unbalance you mentioned people still found ways to counter them ultimately enjoying it for what it was. And now From gets to make it 100x better.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

So you admit its an RPG, just a poor one. Ok you're entitled to that. You may even be happy to know From Software has taken into consideration all of what you said (fire to have stat dependence, resistance being viable, quality more suitable over elemental [elemental was patched less then a year after Dark Souls' release anyways], armor/mobility relying on stats instead of rings, and something of an item burden is back now with its own stat [mention of trap disabling in said stat] is back from what I have seen when I played round 1 of Dark Souls 2 beta). That and covenants have a larger role in the game now, possibly to shift the story into many different outcomes.
Dark Souls 1 was a rushed and unfinished game, but even with all that unbalance you mentioned people still found ways to counter them ultimately enjoying it for what it was. And now From gets to make it 100x better.

It's not an RPG, it has RPG elements though. The person I was replying to says it's an RPG and if they wanna call it that, then I'll will simply breakdown how it's a bad RPG. If you wanna call Dark Souls a dungeon crawler or action-adventure (something like that), then it's a better game on that basis than if you say it's an RPG as it's not much of an RPG plus it's RPG elements are very poorly implemented as well. I broke down how so many of the mechanics are just objectively bad, and exist in the game's very foundation.

It's not like Dark Souls was From Software's 1st try. All the problems I listed concerning Dark Souls RPG mechanics just shouldn't exist. It's stuff that should be fixed during the planning phase and before the game actually starts being developed. From Software will have to fix much more than I listed for me to even care about Dark Souls 2. I heard about how awesome Demon's Souls was (which I never got around to trying), then Dark Souls comes out and it's praised again so I got it for $15 due to a Black Friday sale and the game is so disappointing. I expected a good combat system, a hard game, and awesome boss battles; I got none of those. The combat system is very simplistic and the controls need work, the game isn't hard, and the boss battles are so easy (MOST of them, not all) and not even well-designed either. The game hides it's simplicity so well that people think the game is so deep and hardcore, it's beyond ridiculous at this point (Dark Souls fanboys come off as PC master race elitists). Dark Souls is similar to Resonance of Fate to a degree; RoF comes off as very complicated at the start because it throws everything at you but once you realize how the battle system works, you see that there's literally only 2 strategies you ever need to employ but RoF is just more fun. Dark Souls is exactly like that; once you expose and figure out its mechanics, it implodes on itself. Lastly, Dark Souls falls into that pit that no RPG should fall into where you are leveling up nothing but numbers, you level up your stats so your damage, health, stamina, etc. goes up, you level up your weapon so damage goes up, you level up your shield so you can absorb more damage, etc. You don't get any new abilities or skills (outside of spells really) so the actual melee combat never changes from your first enemy to your last enemy. I realize damage you do goes up in every RPG as you level and the reason you can't beat a level 10 monster as a level 1 character is just because of numbers; however, good RPGs hide this by giving you new abilities and new moves that make you feel like you are beating that level 10 monster at level 10 because of your new gained abilities instead of just due to your stats going up.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

And, DnD has a whole range of ability scores, skills, and feats that do not pertain to combat unlike Dark Souls. If DnD was just dungeon crawling, it wouldn't be an RPG.

I dunno man that's kind of a stupid thing to say since the first "D" in D&D is "Dungeons". And I should know, I play it 2 times a week.

Also, in D&D there could be a campaign that contains lots of combat that is involved in dungeon crawls. Not every D&D campaign focuses on progressing story deeply and role play. There is such a style of playing D&D know as "hack and slash" which focuses on combat within labyrinthine environment with enemies with the intent to A) complete a quest or B) get loot.

You'd have to be an idiot to think that D&D today is played in only one way. There are many campaigns played that are heavy combat mixed with story created on the fly with a thin back drop world. Or just using the D&D Universe because its conveniently there. You don't have to follow a set character arc or set up deep back stories for the players to play. It could be a group of mercenaries each from out of the area of whatever tavern they all happen to be in when they see a posting on the wall. "Looking for a number of experienced adventurers to do blank for lots of money". There's your reason to have your party and nothing else really needs to be explained. You make a story as shit goes along.

And its fun. And that's exactly the kind of RPG Dark Souls is. You just don't have a clue what an RPG is. You full on admitted in the Kingdom of Amalur thread that you haven't played a large amount of RPGs. You're also looking to a podcast with the 2 guys who probably the worst definition of what an RPG is and also can be called clueless due to one of them giving 5/5 to Dragon Age 2, one of the worst RPGs made in recent history.

Frankly, you're ignorant on what an RPG is.


By the interpretation of what an RPG in your mind is, Legend of Grimrock is not an RPG. Problem is you'd be a complete idiot to deny that it is.

Again, let me explain.

Legend of Grimrock is a game where you play as a party of 4 random adventurers of any of a various amounts of and combinations of races, classes, and genders who could be named whatever the hell you want, and that level up in a fashion similar to D&D 3.5 edition.

You play as all four party members at once in what is effectively a massive dungeon crawl. The story behind this is that you play as 4 prisoners thrown into a prison at the top of a mountain and are told that if the want to be free, they could make their way to the bottom of the mountain through the dungeon to the bottom. The dungeon is filled with monsters and loot to collect on the way. The story is whatever happens to the player on the way. There are minimal interactions with NPCs.

Legend of Grimrock is also a successor to Dungeon Master, AD&D Eye of the Beholder, and Ultima Underworld. All with the same kind of set up spanning back to the 1980s.

All called RPGs.

In fact, the latter 3 games are pioneer to Western RPGs. And to call those games not RPGs would effectively disqualify you from being taken seriously within the discourse of knowing what an RPG is.

Dark Souls fits into the same basic tenants as the games I've presented as evidence. Your evidence to your definition of an RPG is moot due to those in the podcasts being straight up wrong on their definition of an RPG.

You either need to accept that Dark Souls is an RPG or you need to come up with an argument with a bunch of the first RPGs, one make licensed by Wizards of the Coast themselves and the other being in the Ultima franchise, are not RPGs.

If you're going to take the latter option it will ensure that you are laughed off of this website entirely.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

And, DnD has a whole range of ability scores, skills, and feats that do not pertain to combat unlike Dark Souls. If DnD was just dungeon crawling, it wouldn't be an RPG.

I dunno man that's kind of a stupid thing to say since the first "D" in D&D is "Dungeons". And I should know, I play it 2 times a week.

Also, in D&D there could be a campaign that contains lots of combat that is involved in dungeon crawls. Not every D&D campaign focuses on progressing story deeply and role play. There is such a style of playing D&D know as "hack and slash" which focuses on combat within labyrinthine environment with enemies with the intent to A) complete a quest or B) get loot.

You'd have to be an idiot to think that D&D today is played in only one way. There are many campaigns played that are heavy combat mixed with story created on the fly with a thin back drop world. Or just using the D&D Universe because its conveniently there. You don't have to follow a set character arc or set up deep back stories for the players to play. It could be a group of mercenaries each from out of the area of whatever tavern they all happen to be in when they see a posting on the wall. "Looking for a number of experienced adventurers to do blank for lots of money". There's your reason to have your party and nothing else really needs to be explained. You make a story as shit goes along.

And its fun. And that's exactly the kind of RPG Dark Souls is. You just don't have a clue what an RPG is. You full on admitted in the Kingdom of Amalur thread that you haven't played a large amount of RPGs. You're also looking to a podcast with the 2 guys who probably the worst definition of what an RPG is and also can be called clueless due to one of them giving 5/5 to Dragon Age 2, one of the worst RPGs made in recent history.

Frankly, you're ignorant on what an RPG is.


By the interpretation of what an RPG in your mind is, Legend of Grimrock is not an RPG. Problem is you'd be a complete idiot to deny that it is.

Again, let me explain.

Legend of Grimrock is a game where you play as a party of 4 random adventurers of any of a various amounts of and combinations of races, classes, and genders who could be named whatever the hell you want, and that level up in a fashion similar to D&D 3.5 edition.

You play as all four party members at once in what is effectively a massive dungeon crawl. The story behind this is that you play as 4 prisoners thrown into a prison at the top of a mountain and are told that if the want to be free, they could make their way to the bottom of the mountain through the dungeon to the bottom. The dungeon is filled with monsters and loot to collect on the way. The story is whatever happens to the player on the way. There are minimal interactions with NPCs.

Legend of Grimrock is also a successor to Dungeon Master, AD&D Eye of the Beholder, and Ultima Underworld. All with the same kind of set up spanning back to the 1980s.

All called RPGs.

In fact, the latter 3 games are pioneer to Western RPGs. And to call those games not RPGs would effectively disqualify you from being taken seriously within the discourse of knowing what an RPG is.

Dark Souls fits into the same basic tenants as the games I've presented as evidence. Your evidence to your definition of an RPG is moot due to those in the podcasts being straight up wrong on their definition of an RPG.

You either need to accept that Dark Souls is an RPG or you need to come up with an argument with a bunch of the first RPGs, one make licensed by Wizards of the Coast themselves and the other being in the Ultima franchise, are not RPGs.

If you're going to take the latter option it will ensure that you are laughed off of this website entirely.

Thank you! I was beginning to think people had lost their minds.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You'd have to be an idiot to think that D&D today is played in only one way.

And, that's exactly my whole point. In Dark Souls, you basically use a character with a shield and a Dex weapon or a character with a shield and a Str weapon. Mages aren't even a viable playstyle. I'm aware of different specific builds that are usually tailored to an item (or set of items) but for those playing through for their 1st time, you really can't be a mage and you don't have access to those items that "make" those slightly different builds. Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls.

I dunno man that's kind of a stupid thing to say since the first "D" in D&D is "Dungeons". And I should know, I play it 2 times a week.

Also, in D&D there could be a campaign that contains lots of combat that is involved in dungeon crawls. Not every D&D campaign focuses on progressing story deeply and role play. There is such a style of playing D&D know as "hack and slash" which focuses on combat within labyrinthine environment with enemies with the intent to A) complete a quest or B) get loot.

You'd have to be an idiot to think that D&D today is played in only one way. There are many campaigns played that are heavy combat mixed with story created on the fly with a thin back drop world. Or just using the D&D Universe because its conveniently there. You don't have to follow a set character arc or set up deep back stories for the players to play. It could be a group of mercenaries each from out of the area of whatever tavern they all happen to be in when they see a posting on the wall. "Looking for a number of experienced adventurers to do blank for lots of money". There's your reason to have your party and nothing else really needs to be explained. You make a story as shit goes along.

And its fun. And that's exactly the kind of RPG Dark Souls is. You just don't have a clue what an RPG is. You full on admitted in the Kingdom of Amalur thread that you haven't played a large amount of RPGs. You're also looking to a podcast with the 2 guys who probably the worst definition of what an RPG is and also can be called clueless due to one of them giving 5/5 to Dragon Age 2, one of the worst RPGs made in recent history.

Frankly, you're ignorant on what an RPG is.


By the interpretation of what an RPG in your mind is, Legend of Grimrock is not an RPG. Problem is you'd be a complete idiot to deny that it is.

Again, let me explain.

Legend of Grimrock is a game where you play as a party of 4 random adventurers of any of a various amounts of and combinations of races, classes, and genders who could be named whatever the hell you want, and that level up in a fashion similar to D&D 3.5 edition.

You play as all four party members at once in what is effectively a massive dungeon crawl. The story behind this is that you play as 4 prisoners thrown into a prison at the top of a mountain and are told that if the want to be free, they could make their way to the bottom of the mountain through the dungeon to the bottom. The dungeon is filled with monsters and loot to collect on the way. The story is whatever happens to the player on the way. There are minimal interactions with NPCs.

Legend of Grimrock is also a successor to Dungeon Master, AD&D Eye of the Beholder, and Ultima Underworld. All with the same kind of set up spanning back to the 1980s.

All called RPGs.

In fact, the latter 3 games are pioneer to Western RPGs. And to call those games not RPGs would effectively disqualify you from being taken seriously within the discourse of knowing what an RPG is.

Dark Souls fits into the same basic tenants as the games I've presented as evidence. Your evidence to your definition of an RPG is moot due to those in the podcasts being straight up wrong on their definition of an RPG.

You either need to accept that Dark Souls is an RPG or you need to come up with an argument with a bunch of the first RPGs, one make licensed by Wizards of the Coast themselves and the other being in the Ultima franchise, are not RPGs.

If you're going to take the latter option it will ensure that you are laughed off of this website entirely.

And you know what the other "D" in DnD stands for, it's "Dragons" which you can TALK to and not even have to fight. Yeah, you can have a DnD campaign combat focused, you can have a campaign with barely any combat, that's the whole point of it being an RPG. Even with a campaign that is combat focused, your non-combat skills still come into play.

Tito is a professional game journalist and you're what again? How is he objectively wrong in giving Dragon Age 2 a 5/5 when a review of anything is purely SUBJECTIVE? You saying DA2 is the worst RPG ever and someone saying DA2 is the best RPG ever are both equally right.

If you listened to the podcast, you hear how video game RPGs started. Because of gaming being in its infancy (it's still a young) as a medium and because of the very weak hardware at the time, it was hard to put actual role-playing into a game thus the early video game RPGs focused on the combat aspect of a game like DnD. Due to that issue, video game RPGs have been misclassified ever since the beginning, they were most similar to DnD (which is an RPG) and were called RPGs because of that. Gamers have grown up thinking an RPG is all about levels, classes, experience, loot, fighting, etc. That's not what an RPG is about, it's about the role-playing and player agency. By most gamers' definitions of an RPG, God of War would be an RPG if you added in levels (which are kinda there already), stats (make Kratos stronger (Str), quicker (Dex), better with magic (Int/Wis)), and loot. That wouldn't really change the game a whole lot, it would still be very much the same game, yet then it magically becomes an RPG for some reason.

Video games are also classified by gameplay, which makes sense for the most part, but their is no actual gameplay tied to the RPG so that right there is another issue as you don't even need combat as you can easily have a role-playing experience as a character that doesn't fight anything. Even video game RPGs as we know them share almost no actual gameplay similarities as something like Dark Souls is as different from Mass Effect as Mario is from COD. You have RPGs like Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, XCOM, Resonance of Fate, the Tales series, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Fallout, Valkyria Chronicles, Legend of Grimrock, and many many more that share basically no similarities in gameplay whatsoever. If you hand someone a game and just tell them it's an RPG and nothing else, they will have no fucking clue what to expect. That's how fucked up the classification of video game RPGs are. If I hand someone a game and say it's a shooter, they know to expect 1st-person or 3rd-person shooting for example. If I had someone a platformer, they know the gameplay is platforming. The video game RPG classification is almost meaningless at this point.

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

I know I will receive heat for this, but Assassins Creed: Black flag has a very nice: Open World, Fast melee combat, and pirate ship combat that might forfil your Dark souls needs. I only say that cause this game forfills my blood thirsty needs until DS2... Try out AC4:Black Flag. It is really cool. At least until DS2

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

Wow, just Wow. You and CrackerJack did a great job explaining this stuff we call RPG.
http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/clapping/audience.gif

 

[Ishal]

And, that's exactly my whole point. In Dark Souls, you basically use a character with a shield and a Dex weapon or a character with a shield and a Str weapon. Mages aren't even a viable playstyle. I'm aware of different specific builds that are usually tailored to an item (or set of items) but for those playing through for their 1st time, you really can't be a mage and you don't have access to those items that "make" those slightly different builds. Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls.

Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls eh? Yup. You have no idea about what you're talking about when it comes to Dark Souls and RPGs.

And you know what the other "D" in DnD stands for, it's "Dragons" which you can TALK to and not even have to fight. Yeah, you can have a DnD campaign combat focused, you can have a campaign with barely any combat, that's the whole point of it being an RPG. Even with a campaign that is combat focused, your non-combat skills still come into play.

This point is thrown away by the fact that you mentioning that Dragons can be spoken to doesn't deter my point. You could be in a campaign where you hunt dragons and thus have no reason to talk to them. Dragons in D&D are supposed to be a rare encounter due to their power, and simply talking to a dragon could lead to a fight. I get that you want to push the role play aspect of D&D but mentioning that you can talk to Dragons is moot. As for non combat skills, you must not play D&D frequently. And you're point about non combat skills is also moot due to the fact that even in high combat campaigns as well as Dark Souls there are uses of non combat stats. Also most non combat skills give synergy bonuses to combat skills or have alternate combat uses.

Just because there are non combat stats doesn't mean that they get used a large amount in high combat campaigns

Tito is a professional game journalist and you're what again?

Many professional game journalists are anything but professional. And just because Tito is a professional game journalist doesn't mean he know more about games than everyone else. In recent year its been effectively proven that game journalists for websites in general cannot be trusted. Look at Kotaku. Their articles are written by "professional games journalists". They've also admitted to flat out making stuff up.

You also must not know how video game reviews work on a professional level. Reviewers are expected to play a lot of games and write reviews on them. There are so many games released at a high rate these days that many reviewers simply play half an hour to an hour of the game and write an opinion on the entire game, then give it a score. An example of this is the review done by Justin Clouse on this website for Total War Rome 2. And just about every other major online gaming publication. This site gave Rome 2 4/5. Most other websites gave it anywhere from 8/10 to 9/10.

Here's the problem.

This proves they didn't play the game for an extended period of time as the game is filled with glitches and straight up AI failure. Creative Assembly admitted to effectively ticking boxes in order to get a high metacritic score and major gaming publications handed out near perfect scores due to non of them investing the time into playing the game long enough to encounter any glitches. And there are tons. Look up Angry Joe's review.

My point is, you can't trust the reviews of major publications these days. They are in essence flawed to the core.

How is he objectively wrong in giving Dragon Age 2 a 5/5 when a review of anything is purely SUBJECTIVE? You saying DA2 is the worst RPG ever and someone saying DA2 is the best RPG ever are both equally right.

False.

The "reviews are subjective and therefore cannot be judged" argument is a lazy argument that stems from you not having the points to back up why you think DA2 is good. Probably because you've never played the game, so you refuse to accept that Greg Tito's opinion is flawed since his definition of an RPG is the only thing you have to go on in this debate.

He's objectively wrong about DA2 because in his review he only went on about what he liked about the game but neglected to talk about the many flaws that ruined it.

It's a bad review.

He didn't talk almost every single quest led the player to a cave that was copy pasted throughout the game. He didn't talk about how there were less choices of races in DA2 compared to DA1. He didn't talk about the dialogue trees turning from options that carried different consequence and were morally unclear to the standard lazy Bioware "good option, neutral option, bad option." The only flaw he brought up was that the framerate slows down when there are a lot of enemies on screen. As a review it's poor because it neglects to give out both good aspects of the game along with bad aspects of the game. Reviews can be bad if they are too subjective and if the reviewer has clearly not played a significant length of the game, as shown with the DA2 review and the God Hand review over at IGN. I could name more examples of piss poor reviews but I think I made my point.

If you listened to the podcast, you hear how video game RPGs started. Because of gaming being in its infancy (it's still a young) as a medium and because of the very weak hardware at the time, it was hard to put actual role-playing into a game thus the early video game RPGs focused on the combat aspect of a game like DnD. Due to that issue, video game RPGs have been misclassified ever since the beginning, they were most similar to DnD (which is an RPG) and were called RPGs because of that.

This is a bullshit statement and you're continual reference to the podcast (which has been called a bad source by multiple people in this thread) only reflects your ignorance of the RPG genre. You don't seem to have an argument of your own so you go off of someone else's words verbatim. I'm not even debating you anymore, I'm debating those in the podcast and you just seem to be a mouthpiece for them.

Let me tell you why that statement is bullshit.

Its not as hard to have roleplaying in a game as you make it out to be. You've also given no examples yourself of it being hard to do. To "play a role" all it tales if for a player to act as a character in a fictional setting. That's it. In that essence both early RPGs of both the tabletop and electronic variety have been classified just fine. Even back when hardware was weak.

Both have a player that assumes a role.

Both are forms of interactive story telling whether it be a structured grand adventure or a story that is created by the players as they go along. The narrative can be told by an external force that controls the game world (Game Master/Game Developers) or created by the player using the lore of the game world as the paper to write their character's story so to speak.
Both use a lot of the same terminology.
Both have the player's character grow through experience that in turn raises their statistical attributes.
Combat is how you progress in both versions of RPG and in both there are many variations on how much combat is involved.

Basically if if has the tenants of a tabletop RPG, a video game is also an RPG.

Gamers have grown up thinking an RPG is all about levels, classes, experience, loot, fighting, etc. That's not what an RPG is about, it's about the role-playing and player agency. By most gamers' definitions of an RPG, God of War would be an RPG if you added in levels (which are kinda there already), stats (make Kratos stronger (Str), quicker (Dex), better with magic (Int/Wis)), and loot. That wouldn't really change the game a whole lot, it would still be very much the same game, yet then it magically becomes an RPG for some reason.

Nope, it is you that misunderstands what player agency means. Player Agency is the ability of the player's choices to effect the game world. Thus God of War is eliminated from being called an RPG because you do not have the ability to change anything through your actions. You have no choice but to go through that game and slaughter nearly everything in site. In Fallout games for example, saying something to someone or killing someone has an effect on the game world and changes how the world reacts to you. Like how blowing up Megaton in Fallout 3 has you loved by the residents of Tenpenny Towers but hated by pretty much everyone else. Or how joining the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim has random gaurds tell you that that are also part of the cult. "Hail Sithis!" The ability to change the game world significantly by playing the game is player agency.

God of War has no agency at all. That is the defining factor of an RPG.

Video games are also classified by gameplay, which makes sense for the most part, but their is no actual gameplay tied to the RPG so that right there is another issue as you don't even need combat as you can easily have a role-playing experience as a character that doesn't fight anything. Even video game RPGs as we know them share almost no actual gameplay similarities as something like Dark Souls is as different from Mass Effect as Mario is from COD.

Firstly, you just admitted to Dark Souls being an RPG so this argument has no reason to continue.

Secondly, your flawed argument could be made for tabletops as well. From D&D to Hero System to GURPS to Pathfinder to Palladium, the mechanics vary vastly. All of those are RPGs though. A lot of the gaming examples you posted don't even have RPG tenants.

COD has no player agency. Nor Does Mario.

You have RPGs like Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, XCOM, Resonance of Fate, the Tales series, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Fallout, Valkyria Chronicles, Legend of Grimrock, and many many more that share basically no similarities in gameplay whatsoever.
If you hand someone a game and just tell them it's an RPG and nothing else, they will have no fucking clue what to expect. That's how fucked up the classification of video game RPGs are. If I hand someone a game and say it's a shooter, they know to expect 1st-person or 3rd-person shooting for example. If I had someone a platformer, they know the gameplay is platforming. The video game RPG classification is almost meaningless at this point.

Nope, you are just to ignorant to know what an RPG is and refuse to take the many examples given to you in this thread as RPGs.

RPGs involved all of the following:
A high amount of player agency.
Character growth in a statistical fashion.
A game world with a large amount of lore as a backdrop.
An interactive story.
To use nearly of the terminology that is used in tabletop RPGs.
To have combat be more of a tactical experience rather than a reflex based one.

Action RPGs involve all of the about but also test the player's physical ability.
Combat is usually both tactical and fast paced.
Dark Souls is an ARPG.

Now please, let's end this nonsensical debate. Because besides a podcast that has been repeatedly called a horrible source, you've got nothing to combat my points with.

Beautiful, and accurate. The entire point of RPG's of today is to take aspects of D&D (decided by the game devs and writers) and to streamline it in whatever fashion they like. Which means it might not fit someone's made up definition of what an RPG is, who would have thought? Dark Souls took the combat part and decided to weave lore into the story via weapon descriptions and interesting npc characters, which very much makes it an RPG. And funny thing, it seems like most internet sites agree with us. How cool is that? The different weapons provide different move sets, in my opinion a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of RPG's nowadays.

 

[nomzy]

I don't know if anyone has suggested it, but give Fable: The Lost Chapters a try.
The combat is kind of (if IIRC) similar but with more traditional RPG elements (abilities etc) and much less reliance on skill.

 

[Ritualist]

I don't know if anyone has suggested it, but give Fable: The Lost Chapters a try.
The combat is kind of (if IIRC) similar but with more traditional RPG elements (abilities etc) and much less reliance on skill.

Somebody get this man/woman/it that should not be a beer.

The first Fable did it right. You could specialize, or you could do everything. If you did everything, encounters were going to take a long time, for a long time, until your were properly leveled.
If you specialized, you had to learn how to handle enemies.
Fuck Minions. Those bastards can suck my Solus Greatsword+rage+multi hit.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls eh? Yup. You have no idea about what you're talking about when it comes to Dark Souls and RPGs.

And you have no idea about what you're talking about with regards to Bayonetta.

This point is thrown away by the fact that you mentioning that Dragons can be spoken to doesn't deter my point. You could be in a campaign where you hunt dragons and thus have no reason to talk to them. Dragons in D&D are supposed to be a rare encounter due to their power, and simply talking to a dragon could lead to a fight. I get that you want to push the role play aspect of D&D but mentioning that you can talk to Dragons is moot. As for non combat skills, you must not play D&D frequently. And you're point about non combat skills is also moot due to the fact that even in high combat campaigns as well as Dark Souls there are uses of non combat stats. Also most non combat skills give synergy bonuses to combat skills or have alternate combat uses.

Just because there are non combat stats doesn't mean that they get used a large amount in high combat campaigns

DnD is an RPG because of the role-playing, just because you can forgo the role-playing doesn't mean anything. You can play the Metal Gear Solid games without any stealth whatsoever, but they are still stealth games.

Playing DnD as a pure combat game makes characters and classes unbalanced. A spell caster that uses the Wisdom stat for casting will be better because they get to use a stat that goes into their saves (which are extremely important) as their main stat whereas a sorcerer uses charisma as their main stat making their saves not as good and their charisma skills rather useless. A Dex based melee fighter (as you can use Dex for attack bonus and damage) will probably be better than a Strength-based fighter as well since strength isn't used for any saves plus Dex skills have more use in combat than strength skills.

Many professional game journalists are anything but professional. And just because Tito is a professional game journalist doesn't mean he know more about games than everyone else. In recent year its been effectively proven that game journalists for websites in general cannot be trusted. Look at Kotaku. Their articles are written by "professional games journalists". They've also admitted to flat out making stuff up.

You're logic is so flawed it's not even funny. So because Fox News exists every news journalist is not "professional"?

The "reviews are subjective and therefore cannot be judged" argument is a lazy argument that stems from you not having the points to back up why you think DA2 is good. Probably because you've never played the game, so you refuse to accept that Greg Tito's opinion is flawed since his definition of an RPG is the only thing you have to go on in this debate.

He's objectively wrong about DA2 because in his review he only went on about what he liked about the game but neglected to talk about the many flaws that ruined it.

It's a bad review.

He didn't talk almost every single quest led the player to a cave that was copy pasted throughout the game. He didn't talk about how there were less choices of races in DA2 compared to DA1. He didn't talk about the dialogue trees turning from options that carried different consequence and were morally unclear to the standard lazy Bioware "good option, neutral option, bad option." The only flaw he brought up was that the framerate slows down when there are a lot of enemies on screen. As a review it's poor because it neglects to give out both good aspects of the game along with bad aspects of the game. Reviews can be bad if they are too subjective and if the reviewer has clearly not played a significant length of the game, as shown with the DA2 review and the God Hand review over at IGN. I could name more examples of piss poor reviews but I think I made my point.

You literally said in your previous post that Tito's opinion that Dragon Age 2 is 5/5 worthy is wrong. You didn't say the review is bad. You implied that Dragon Age 2 is objectively one of the worst RPGs of recent history, which is just dead wrong (not because you are wrong but because that's a 100% pure opinion).

Spoiler: Your post

You're also looking to a podcast with the 2 guys who probably the worst definition of what an RPG is and also can be called clueless due to one of them giving 5/5 to Dragon Age 2, one of the worst RPGs made in recent history.

You say nothing about the review being bad. It may be missing some important details like you say. I thought only being able to play as a human was common knowledge as I didn't even play either game and even I know that. Even if you are right that the review itself was poor overall, that doesn't change the fact that his opinion of the game being 5/5 good is wrong because that's purely subjective, and your opinion of the game being one of the worst RPGs in recent history is also purely subjective as well. I had one friend that really liked DA2, one friend that thought it was alright, and a couple others that didn't like it enough to even play through the game. None of their opinions are objectively wrong.

How much someone likes and rates a game is purely subjective regardless of the quality of the review itself.

This is a bullshit statement and you're continual reference to the podcast (which has been called a bad source by multiple people in this thread) only reflects your ignorance of the RPG genre. You don't seem to have an argument of your own so you go off of someone else's words verbatim. I'm not even debating you anymore, I'm debating those in the podcast and you just seem to be a mouthpiece for them.

Let me tell you why that statement is bullshit.

Its not as hard to have roleplaying in a game as you make it out to be. You've also given no examples yourself of it being hard to do. To "play a role" all it tales if for a player to act as a character in a fictional setting. That's it. In that essence both early RPGs of both the tabletop and electronic variety have been classified just fine. Even back when hardware was weak.

Both have a player that assumes a role.

Both are forms of interactive story telling whether it be a structured grand adventure or a story that is created by the players as they go along. The narrative can be told by an external force that controls the game world (Game Master/Game Developers) or created by the player using the lore of the game world as the paper to write their character's story so to speak.
Both use a lot of the same terminology.
Both have the player's character grow through experience that in turn raises their statistical attributes.
Combat is how you progress in both versions of RPG and in both there are many variations on how much combat is involved.

Basically if if has the tenants of a tabletop RPG, a video game is also an RPG.

Do these multiple people that say the podcast is a bad source have any credentials?

I only use the podcast to show that there are others (in game journalism) that feel exactly as I do about what an RPG is. It's not like the podcast changed my position on RPGs as that's how I always felt. I'm not parroting their words, I just think they explained themselves better than I would've and used examples and such that I probably wouldn't have came up with.

It's hard to put role-playing into a game because of all the script writing it takes to allow a player to give a unique personality to a video game character along with allowing the player to make a bunch of decisions over the course of the game. A pen and paper game like DnD doesn't need all that writing as the players and DM say all the dialog and the DM crafts the story; DnD just has to come up with a system of rules then for stuff like Bluff and Diplomacy. Doing straight combat is easier as you can tell because almost every fucking game (RPG or not) has you killing hundreds of enemies, the video game medium does killing things very very well.

What is with you with combat? RPGs don't need combat. You only think RPGs need combat because of DnD. You can have an RPG where you role-play as characters that don't fight a damn thing. You make an RPG that happens to be a platformer for example.

My whole reasoning of video game RPGs being misclassified from the beginning isn't just me stealing opinions from the podcast. With the same logic, most people think RPGs shouldn't allow for player skill to be involved because of pen and paper RPGs like DnD. The pen and paper medium doesn't allow for player skill and that's why pen and paper RPGs don't allow for play skill, not because RPGs themselves don't allow for player skill. RPGs existed before pen and paper RPGs and they involved player skill so people saying player skill shouldn't come into play in an RPG are dead wrong.

Nope, it is you that misunderstands what player agency means. Player Agency is the ability of the player's choices to effect the game world. Thus God of War is eliminated from being called an RPG because you do not have the ability to change anything through your actions. You have no choice but to go through that game and slaughter nearly everything in site. In Fallout games for example, saying something to someone or killing someone has an effect on the game world and changes how the world reacts to you. Like how blowing up Megaton in Fallout 3 has you loved by the residents of Tenpenny Towers but hated by pretty much everyone else. Or how joining the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim has random gaurds tell you that that are also part of the cult. "Hail Sithis!" The ability to change the game world significantly by playing the game is player agency.

God of War has no agency at all. That is the defining factor of an RPG.

Final Fantasy has no agency at all either.

So God of War where you have no choice but to slaughter nearly everything in site is nothing like Dark Souls where you have no choice but to slaughter nearly everything in site?

I wasn't comparing God of War to Fallout 3 but to "RPGs" like Dark Souls and Final Fantasy. Even though I don't like Bethesda's games, they at least do make RPGs.

Video games are also classified by gameplay, which makes sense for the most part, but their is no actual gameplay tied to the RPG so that right there is another issue as you don't even need combat as you can easily have a role-playing experience as a character that doesn't fight anything. Even video game RPGs as we know them share almost no actual gameplay similarities as something like Dark Souls is as different from Mass Effect as Mario is from COD.

Firstly, you just admitted to Dark Souls being an RPG so this argument has no reason to continue.

Secondly, your flawed argument could be made for tabletops as well. From D&D to Hero System to GURPS to Pathfinder to Palladium, the mechanics vary vastly. All of those are RPGs though. A lot of the gaming examples you posted don't even have RPG tenants.

COD has no player agency. Nor Does Mario.

I admitted to Dark Souls being classified as an RPG by most people (it doesn't make it right), the majority of the "RPGs" I listed aren't RPGs.

My whole point is that RPGs aren't about mechanics but the role-playing (that's the common element among DnD, Pathfinder, Rifts, Mutants and Masterminds, etc.). I fucking literally just said that RPGs aren't tied to any specific kind of gameplay. Therefore, video game RPGs have been classified wrong because they have been classified by gameplay and mechanics, which isn't what makes an RPG an RPG.

I said that Dark Souls plays as different from Mass Effect as Mario plays from COD, that was my point, not that COD or Mario have player agency. You seem to have a hard time understanding things.

Nope, you are just to ignorant to know what an RPG is and refuse to take the many examples given to you in this thread as RPGs.

RPGs involved all of the following:
A high amount of player agency.
Character growth in a statistical fashion.
A game world with a large amount of lore as a backdrop.
An interactive story.
To use nearly of the terminology that is used in tabletop RPGs.
To have combat be more of a tactical experience rather than a reflex based one.

Action RPGs involve all of the about but also test the player's physical ability.
Combat is usually both tactical and fast paced.
Dark Souls is an ARPG.

Now please, let's end this nonsensical debate. Because besides a podcast that has been repeatedly called a horrible source, you've got nothing to combat my points with.

So we agree that you need a HIGH amount of player agency, that rules out Dark Souls as an RPG then. You don't need character growth in a statistical fashion, are you saying DnD ceases being an RPG at max level? You don't need combat either. I still don't get why you think RPGs need combat.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

And, that's exactly my whole point. In Dark Souls, you basically use a character with a shield and a Dex weapon or a character with a shield and a Str weapon. Mages aren't even a viable playstyle. I'm aware of different specific builds that are usually tailored to an item (or set of items) but for those playing through for their 1st time, you really can't be a mage and you don't have access to those items that "make" those slightly different builds.

2 hander playstyle is also viable, or faith scaling weapons, or int scaling weapons.
Also I have a problem with you saying mages aren't a viable playstyle, what do you mean by that? They are easier than melee characters to play, at least in the first playthrough.

 

[Rutabaga_swe]

Lol, yeah int or faith builds aren't viable. Why are you talking when you so obviously don't know what you are talking about?

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I have to reinforce what a lot of other people have said and recommend the Monster Hunter series, its remarkably close to Dark Souls in terms of the combat style and the complexity of the equipment and inventory items.

Apart from that nothing else really comes close to Dark Souls for me, but a lot of people praise The Witcher series as well as Dragon's Dogma so maybe give those a shot. I'd recommend giving Skyrim another chance but to be honest you either love or hate the game so it might not be your thing.

Why not try making gimmicky/challenging characters in Dark Souls? Its a lot of fun doing a run with an SL1 character or a character that only uses fist weapons for example. Or you could design a character towards PVP and try out that scene. Of course, with 422 hours you've probably tried all this stuff already.

One of my favourite RPGs is Dungeons of Dredmor, its a roguelike so its vastly different to Dark Souls in terms of gameplay, but there's quite a lot of depth to the game and it can be a lot of fun.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

For me, i'd say its ruined hack n slashes for me more than RPG's. the fact you neeed to tactical with your stamina, you cant rush crowds etc.

as for story telling/RPG's, i did like that it didnt give much away, hinted at background stories to the world and let you use your imagination to fill in the gaps. i would like it if games did this more often.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

And, that's exactly my whole point. In Dark Souls, you basically use a character with a shield and a Dex weapon or a character with a shield and a Str weapon. Mages aren't even a viable playstyle.

That is pretty wrong, dude. Sorcery is considered overpowered by the majority of players. My first character was a sorcerer, so I should know. The other ~12 or so were each built differently from eachother, so your oversimplification is overly simplifying things. I can get into details if you want, but just trust me on this one so I don't get myself started.

Also, why are we arguing over what's an RPG and what isn't? The term is meaningless these days. It doesn't even make any sense: is it a role-playing game because you can play roles, or because there's only one role to play?

Whether Dark Souls is an RPG or not is inconsequential. It can't be argued that it does, however, adopt a lot of the common RPG elements, mechanics, contrivances and tropes (NPCs, levelling up, upgrading, character customization, dungeon crawling) and it leaves many options as far as role-playing is concerned (lots of different ways to develop and equip your character, no set personality, not even a tone of voice).

Man, you just entered into the frey and didn't even know it. That's how the discussion got started and that's why it continues. Some one passing by sees that a bunch of people are debating RPGs and they will listen for a bit. But, then they don't agree with many of the points and they don't agree with the discussion itself. So...what do they do? They reply with their own ideas and blah blah blah. here we are now.


Welcome to the discussion.