YES YES YES YES YES!!!! Everything you just said was yes and epic win!Anonymouse said:
Seriously, get this man a trophy.
In Place of Innovation or Innovation in Place of? : A Review of RPG Game Mistakes
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Seriously, get this man a trophy.
OP, your problem is VERY simple and easy to solve:
You dislike JRPGs (Japanese RPGs). All of the annoyances you listed are common in JRPGs and less common in western RPGs.
As a solution to your problems I'd advise you to stop playing JRPGs, it should go a long way in helping you avoid those problems.
You dislike JRPGs (Japanese RPGs). All of the annoyances you listed are common in JRPGs and less common in western RPGs.
As a solution to your problems I'd advise you to stop playing JRPGs, it should go a long way in helping you avoid those problems.
The only problem being that I like JRPG's, and dislike most Western RPG's (with a few exceptions). I'm just sick of the genre as a whole doing the same crud over and over again.Jandau said:
I suppose in reflection that I was exploiting the issues of almost every JRPG, but WRPG's also hold these issues as well in some situations. Especially #1, 4 and 5, although #2 and #3 can be considered JRPG issues for the most part.
Shades of gray I guess. But most of what you listed IS mostly found in JRPGs.CZTM said:
#5 is just poor game design and can be found in pretty much any genre if one goes to look.
#4 is mostly a JRPG thing with long exposition sequences that are broken up by occasional gameplay. Sure, you can find it in western RPGs, but at least there you're more likely to get dialogue options and occasionally even influence the game in some way.
#3 is again a JRPG thing. I can't think of a single western RPG that made me grind out levels. However, I can still remember FF9 and having to drag that obese Blue Mage freak around and feed her monsters just so she wouldn't suck so badly in the sequence where you're foced to fight a boss with her as your only (and mandatory) companion...
To this I'd like to add a total lack of interactivity when leveling up in JRPGs. You just get notified which of your arbitrary numbers increased and that's pretty much it. After the skills and feats system of 3rd ed DnD it feels kinda lacking. Hell, even WoW gave me my one talent point every level...
#2 is again a common problem with games in general, but JRPGs take it to another level most of the time. At least western RPGs usually have dialogue interaction that helps shape the game and perhaps even some dialogue skills where your character and his development comes into play.
#1 is a general thing and I can't argue with you there.
DISCLAIMER: I love JRPGs, as is evident by my recent thread about JRPGs so please don't hit me
Jandau said:
Here I must disagree. While it's even worse in JRPGs, almost all western rpgs are just as bad when it comes to this.
Sure, it's not random encounters, it's more the design of the game. Whatever you do, whereever you go, there's going to be thousands of enemies in your way, that you have to beat up along the way. While Bioware are by far the worst offendors in this cathegory, mostly since they make their games so compeltely linear, it's there in almost all games. There's always going to stand tens of thousands of enemies waiting for you to try to go past them to your objective. Often these enemies are going to be really weak, and just a minor annoyance, and they're going to be there when you try to go back too.
It's not the same type of grinding as in JRPGs but it's grinding nevertheless. Incorporeating grinding into the main storyline isn't the answer. Killing tons of weak enemies for the sole reason of getting enough experience to move on ISN'T good game design. It's just easy to do, and it makes the game longer. And more boring, but longer. And a long game is something to brag about.
There are exceptions, of course. Morrowind did a good job of LOWERING the amount of enemies you had to grind past, since you didn't need to kill them for xp. They were however still everywhere.
Bloodlines and Deus Ex did even better jobs, since there was usually no gain in killing enemies and bypassing them completely was often pretty satisfactory. These games also skipped the tons upon tons upon tons of random enemies attacking you for no reason when you were only walking. Of course, their solution wouldn't work for most rpgs but it shows that it's possible.
As other's have said though, spamming, cutscenes, keeping the story department and the game department in different buildings, with a moat and several armed battalions in between and awful angsty characters are most often found in JRPGs instead of the western RPGs, even if Bioware is very good at the unskippable annoying cutscenes and Bethesda is very good at awful characters. In many western rpgs you will be able to avoid it. Unless you play Bioware games, those people seem to try to create horrible games.
So, to summarize:
#5 - Poor interactivity: lack of balance hurts choice variety.
#4 - Low interactivity: Excessive cut scenes reduce the player's opportunity to play.
#3 - Poor pacing: Being forced to play something you bored of because of overly stingy advancement.
#2 - Poor presentation: Story not meshing properly with the gameplay.
#1 - Poor characterization: Inability to sympathize with the protagonists with the story.
All valid points. Staggering how many things a good game maker has to keep in mind. Little wonder so many games can't get it quite right.
#5 - Poor interactivity: lack of balance hurts choice variety.
#4 - Low interactivity: Excessive cut scenes reduce the player's opportunity to play.
#3 - Poor pacing: Being forced to play something you bored of because of overly stingy advancement.
#2 - Poor presentation: Story not meshing properly with the gameplay.
#1 - Poor characterization: Inability to sympathize with the protagonists with the story.
All valid points. Staggering how many things a good game maker has to keep in mind. Little wonder so many games can't get it quite right.
i quit final fantasy with ff 8. junctioning magicka was retarded. i guess i played about half of ff9, but got tired of my $*%&#*% tail.
A real problem with RPGs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5FTJxfV3pc&feature=related
Until the problem of voice acting, or in this case: retardation, is addressed I will be loath to buy anything coming out of final fantasy.
Also, your number 5. you can spam FIGHT all day long in FF1 with your warrior and its not game breaking
finally, ive done precious little grinding in any rpg since final fantasy 1. in most cases, the game seems designed to allow you to play thru it without grinding as long as you dont run from encounters. Sure, you can grind for some extra item, but in final fantasy when was the last time you NEEDED anything you bought from a store? Just pop an elixer and you'll get thru that bossfight just fine.
A real problem with RPGs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5FTJxfV3pc&feature=related
Until the problem of voice acting, or in this case: retardation, is addressed I will be loath to buy anything coming out of final fantasy.
Also, your number 5. you can spam FIGHT all day long in FF1 with your warrior and its not game breaking
finally, ive done precious little grinding in any rpg since final fantasy 1. in most cases, the game seems designed to allow you to play thru it without grinding as long as you dont run from encounters. Sure, you can grind for some extra item, but in final fantasy when was the last time you NEEDED anything you bought from a store? Just pop an elixer and you'll get thru that bossfight just fine.
You seem to have a bone to pick with Bioware, and that I am sad to hear since they are one of the few companies with an actually good track record...Silver said:
I'm not quite sure what you mean by annoying unskippable cutscenes... As for the hordes of weak enemies, Bioware games sometimes tend to be a bit on the easy side, but that's about it. I haven't felt the "get on with it already!" instinct much in Bioware games.
The #3 issue isn't so much about having to actually fight your way through a quest or the main storyline, but rather forcing the player to ABANDON his quest or main storyline and go grind somewhere just for the sake of it. Bioware NEVER did that.
Grinding is when a game forces you to do repeatedly do something that isn't fun to you in hopes of being rewarded with fun later on. If you consider the entire combat system of a game to be a grind, then it's likely that you just don't like the game...
You mention Bloodlines and its lack of hordes of enemies. There are SEVERAL parts of that game that just felt forced for no apparent reason. The underground garage (waves of gangsters with no purpose), entire Tzimisce section (waves of mutants with no purpose), a good part of that oriental complex near the end (again, tons of enemies thrown at you to slow you down). Also, the game is guilty of MANY unskippable (and possibly annoying) cutscenes. Heck, the game STARTS with one. It's still a good game, but not a shining example you make it out to be...
I could go on, but I'm starting to realize that you and me apparently have somewhat differing tastes when it comes to RPG games (as is apparent in your categorical insulting of one of the best western RPG designers), so I guess this is just one of those "Agree to disagree" things
That's kind of why I liked Wild Arms.
5: There was an equivalent of FFX's summons, but you had to build up your Tension bar through regular attacks or other methods before you could use it. In actuality, if you used it as often as possible, you'd do it once every 3 or 4 turns. Plus, you couldn't carry Tension between battles, so you couldn't start with one.
4: OK, Wild Arms had a bit of a problem here, I think. It's been a while since I last played it.
3: You can get past EVERY story-important boss WITHOUT level-grinding. If you want to take on some of the optional bosses, you'll probably need to grind a bit.
2: Not quite sure about this one.
1: Each of the player's 3 characters was important to the story, with backstory that tied them to the events occuring during the story.
5: There was an equivalent of FFX's summons, but you had to build up your Tension bar through regular attacks or other methods before you could use it. In actuality, if you used it as often as possible, you'd do it once every 3 or 4 turns. Plus, you couldn't carry Tension between battles, so you couldn't start with one.
4: OK, Wild Arms had a bit of a problem here, I think. It's been a while since I last played it.
3: You can get past EVERY story-important boss WITHOUT level-grinding. If you want to take on some of the optional bosses, you'll probably need to grind a bit.
2: Not quite sure about this one.
1: Each of the player's 3 characters was important to the story, with backstory that tied them to the events occuring during the story.
Jandau, I may have been a bit harsh.
I know that Bloodlines has unskippable cutscenes, those are the main reason I haven't played it through more than twice (with years in between). And I know there are a lot of places where there's tons of enemies just flooding in from every direction. The thing is, in most cases you don't have to kill them. You don't gain anything by doing so. Play as a Nosferatu or Malk and put on obfuscate and walk right by and you're not missing a thing, sneak past them, or climb above them or whatever and you don't have to worry. Throw on celerity and run straight through and they won't know what hit them.
Try that in a Bioware game and you're dead, since all the bosses will be much higher level than you. I realise what the third issue meant, but to me it's the same thing. Trying to get on with the main quest in Neverwinter nights and having to wade through hundreds of enemies every time to gather every little clue. Compare KotoR that just brags everywhere about being so non-linear and still making almost every map a straight line, with maybe a detour or two that you're still forced to check out, and enemies constantly attacking you all the time, enemies that you HAVE to kill if you want even the slighest hope of making it through the boss fights. What does it matter if you're forced to grind your way through 100 enemies in random encounters or if you have to grind your way through 1000 enemies in a straight line with your goal at the end? The grinding problem is still there. You have to kill the enemies, and you get a ridiculously low amount of exp for each one.
If you didn't want the game to get on with it in Neverwinter nights or KotoR after killing hundreds of enemies senselessly, just there to slow you down, you are a much more patient person than me. For me, for a game to be interesting, it has to be more than just killing the same enemy with different skins 200 times when the fighting just conists of press this button 10 times and wait. Maybe my standards are too high though.
And your last point, yes, I agree that Bioware is one of the best western RPG desigerns, that doesn't make their design any less awful though. Their games are horrible, especially on a second playthrough. The bloody Aurora and Odyssey engines are sickeningly bad, the hit boxes, pathfinding and movement in them feels like something that should belong in a game from the early 90's. The first Doom had better movement control, and that's saying something.
Until they fix their bloody engines, have their puzzles make sense in the story and not just being random very well-known puzzles thrown in for no reason (KotoR with the Tower of Hanoi in the tomb for example), and make the grinding either interesting (pressing flurry of blows or fireball twenty times in a row just isn't interesting in any sense of the word, especially not after the first 200 times), or skippable, their games are going to be bad. Sure, they have pretty nice stories, they make pretty good-looking enviroments, they make sort-of interesting characters. But that's just not enough with all the glaring faults they put in, and the ridiculous mandatory roadbumps with mini-games, extra enemies, unskippable (very ugly) cutscenes, or just really big empty areas you have to traverse.
I know that Bloodlines has unskippable cutscenes, those are the main reason I haven't played it through more than twice (with years in between). And I know there are a lot of places where there's tons of enemies just flooding in from every direction. The thing is, in most cases you don't have to kill them. You don't gain anything by doing so. Play as a Nosferatu or Malk and put on obfuscate and walk right by and you're not missing a thing, sneak past them, or climb above them or whatever and you don't have to worry. Throw on celerity and run straight through and they won't know what hit them.
Try that in a Bioware game and you're dead, since all the bosses will be much higher level than you. I realise what the third issue meant, but to me it's the same thing. Trying to get on with the main quest in Neverwinter nights and having to wade through hundreds of enemies every time to gather every little clue. Compare KotoR that just brags everywhere about being so non-linear and still making almost every map a straight line, with maybe a detour or two that you're still forced to check out, and enemies constantly attacking you all the time, enemies that you HAVE to kill if you want even the slighest hope of making it through the boss fights. What does it matter if you're forced to grind your way through 100 enemies in random encounters or if you have to grind your way through 1000 enemies in a straight line with your goal at the end? The grinding problem is still there. You have to kill the enemies, and you get a ridiculously low amount of exp for each one.
If you didn't want the game to get on with it in Neverwinter nights or KotoR after killing hundreds of enemies senselessly, just there to slow you down, you are a much more patient person than me. For me, for a game to be interesting, it has to be more than just killing the same enemy with different skins 200 times when the fighting just conists of press this button 10 times and wait. Maybe my standards are too high though.
And your last point, yes, I agree that Bioware is one of the best western RPG desigerns, that doesn't make their design any less awful though. Their games are horrible, especially on a second playthrough. The bloody Aurora and Odyssey engines are sickeningly bad, the hit boxes, pathfinding and movement in them feels like something that should belong in a game from the early 90's. The first Doom had better movement control, and that's saying something.
Until they fix their bloody engines, have their puzzles make sense in the story and not just being random very well-known puzzles thrown in for no reason (KotoR with the Tower of Hanoi in the tomb for example), and make the grinding either interesting (pressing flurry of blows or fireball twenty times in a row just isn't interesting in any sense of the word, especially not after the first 200 times), or skippable, their games are going to be bad. Sure, they have pretty nice stories, they make pretty good-looking enviroments, they make sort-of interesting characters. But that's just not enough with all the glaring faults they put in, and the ridiculous mandatory roadbumps with mini-games, extra enemies, unskippable (very ugly) cutscenes, or just really big empty areas you have to traverse.
This is a very good point. In Bloodlines you get experience for accomplishing something important rather than from each enemy you kill, so sneaking past your basic enemies is just as good as killing them, and so is finding an alternate route, or talking your way out of it. In many other RPGs if you don't kill them there's less or no XP, so even if you can sneak or talk or find some other alternative you're usually best off just killing them for XP.Silver said:
I wouldn't call Bioware awful, though, but that's an insightful comment about Bloodlines.