Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Guiltyofbeingtrite]

In short - you want to play an action adventure, not an RPG.

I'd be happy playing either, but I was talking more specifically about RPGs.

what you described isn't an RPG though. RPGs are about strategically using character skills, not the player's skills. I personally like a mix.

 

[Ilosar]

Borderlands provided a good balance to me. Raw damage was governed by gun type and character skill, while accuracy was up to thé player, unlike in TES or the newer Fallouts where its all mixed up. Clearly separating both aspects worked in the game's favor I think.

Also, because Beth style games don't rely on skills as much as others doesn't mean they are not RPGs. You still do damage based on the skill of the weapon you are using. You still get more powerful by leveling up. There are perks for further customization. The fact that the system can be abused also doesen't mean anything also, all RPGs systems in existence are abusable.

Again, I am not saying Skyrim Will be teh bust gaem evar!!!, but dismissing it as an ''hiking simulator'' is just being hostile for the sake of it. Perceived lack of choice and consequence (we have to see the game to confirm it) does not an action-adventure game make.

 

[Tank Girl]

what you described isn't an RPG though. RPGs are about strategically using character skills, not the player's skills.

For you, perhaps. For me RPGs are about the setting, the lore, the story progression, character growth and consequence of actions, the journey through the game universe, and above all else, immersion.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Thats understandable.

Though now.

Where was character development in Oblivion ? literally a level 1 character could finish the game with little to no trouble. And there was no difference in playing a mage compared to a knight using a sword. For the game world the player was always doing the same regardless what "class" he had.

Where was story progression in the game ? There is a demonic invasion. Yet even with all gates open the world could not care less about it ... hah there are even quests where mercenaries complain to you they "have nothing to do" and one quest is to find them a job where they collect "stuff" for some old lady. It would have been nice if the game had here a few opportunities like to find a way where they could protect the city from the gates or something similar - depending on how far you are in the quest line.

And where have there been consequences to your actions in Oblivion ? Or any Bethesda game for that matter ? You take a sword. And you hack your way trough the dungeons and quests. Thats it. There is not much more to it. I can not name ANY quest at all on the top of my head that had a REAL choice or CONSEQUENCE to your choice. It literally is always following the "quest arrow" to its destiny. And killing the "bad" guy on its end. There are a few nice quests in Oblivion. But 95% of the things you can do there is soulless content.


People forget where Bethesda games have their roots. And that is as Roque games. Not "traditional" RPGs. Roque games

Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game first developed by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman around 1980. It was a favorite on college Unix systems in the early to mid-1980s,[1] in part due to the procedural generation of game content.[2] Rogue popularized dungeon crawling as a video game trope, leading others to develop a class of derivatives known collectively as "roguelikes".[3] For example, it directly inspired Hack,[4][5] which in turn led to NetHack.[6] Roguelikes have since influenced commercial games outside the genre, such as Diablo.[7]

As such kind of game Dagerfall and other Beth games have been somewhat successful. There are many people knowing the old games which say that the new Beth games offer here even "less" compared to their old games.

 

[Alphadrop]

Uh Arena and Daggerfall aren't roguelikes. For one thing it's no start again once you die from the beginning and you don't spend all your time in dungeons.

 

[Tank Girl]

There seems to be a misunderstanding. I'm not arguing that Oblivion is any of those things. I am not talking about any game in particular.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Uh Arena and Daggerfall aren't roguelikes. For one thing it's no start again once you die from the beginning and you don't spend all your time in dungeons.

But you will agree that they are closer to a "dungeon crawl" then lets say Fallout 1 no ?

 

[PainlessDocM]

People forget where Bethesda games have their roots. And that is as Roque games. Not "traditional" RPGs. Roque games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike#Gameplay

 

[Crni Vuk]

as said. Their games have been closer to Roque games then lets say Fallout 1.

 

[PainlessDocM]

There is nothing roguelike about Arena (or Fallout for that matter)

 

[x'il]

what you described isn't an RPG though. RPGs are about strategically using character skills, not the player's skills.

For you, perhaps. For me RPGs are about the setting, the lore, the story progression, character growth and consequence of actions, the journey through the game universe, and above all else, immersion.

Setting, lore and story progression have nothing specifically 'rpg' to it, so those can't be a measure to determine whether a game is an rpg or not. Choices and consequences are not Beth's 'forte' at all. By character growth i assume you mean character progression, which, in oblivion, was next to pointless. Immersion is a resulting state dependent on various factors none of which are necessarily exclusive to rpg's and can as well be dependent on personal tastes. By journey through the game universe, i suppose you mean sandbox exploration, which is all nice and dandy until you realize (if you ever do, so many people don't) that this one 'saving grace' alone just makes it a pretty hiking simulator (or at best an action adventure).

 

[Hassknecht]

There is nothing roguelike about Arena (or Fallout for that matter)

What Crni wants to say is that (at least) Daggerfall is closer to the Roguelikes than Fallout is. I never played Arena, so I can't say anything about it.
Daggerfall is definitely Roguelike in some points.
It lacks certain defining characteristics like permadeath and turn based gameplay, but you can't deny that the majority of Daggerfall's gameplay is crawling through randomly generated dungeons.
Of course it is no Roguelike, but it's not that there is nothing roguelike about it.

On the matter of player skill dependency in RPGs:
If the player skill limits the kind of character that you're playing, it kinda kills the idea of playing a role, doesn't it?
You'd always play as yourself, more or less, which is not the point of an RPG. Not that there is anything wrong with playing as yourself, but a true roleplaying game allows you to play as any character you like, no matter how your reflexes and aiming skills with the mouse are.

 

[Tank Girl]

Setting, lore and story progression have nothing specifically 'rpg' to it, so those can't be a measure to determine whether a game is an rpg or not.

Nor does stats or strategic use of skills. They are not exclusive features to RPGs. GTA:SA has stats. City building sims rely heavily on stats. Football management simulators are entirely about stats. Platform games have pretty much always involved strategic use of skills, and that is much more pronounced now with games that have their puzzles based entirely on overcoming obstacles using the correct skill selection.

Strategic use of skills or stat based play can not be used to determine RPG status. This argument is entirely about personal preference and where we arbitrarily draw the line between genres.

Choices and consequences are not Beth's 'forte' at all. By character growth i assume you mean character progression, which, in oblivion, was next to pointless.

That may be so, or it may not. Again, I am not talking specifically about any particular game or producer. You might have me confused with someone else.

Immersion is a resulting state dependent on various factors none of which are necessarily exclusive to rpg's and can as well be dependent on personal tastes.

None of the things I listed are exclusive to RPGs. It is the alchemy of them together that makes it a good RPG - according to my personal tastes.

By journey through the game universe, i suppose you mean sandbox exploration, which is all nice and dandy until you realize (if you ever do, so many people don't) that this one 'saving grace' alone just makes it a pretty hiking simulator (or at best an action adventure).

If sandbox exploration was indeed the only saving grace of a particular game, and if you thought that wasn't fun, you'd have a point. I don't know of any game that could be described that way, though. I certainly have not played a pretty hiking simulator yet. I'd know if I had.

 

[Tank Girl]

On the matter of player skill dependency in RPGs:
If the player skill limits the kind of character that you're playing, it kinda kills the idea of playing a role, doesn't it?
You'd always play as yourself, more or less, which is not the point of an RPG. Not that there is anything wrong with playing as yourself, but a true roleplaying game allows you to play as any character you like, no matter how your reflexes and aiming skills with the mouse are.

Having the option to employ your own reflexes and skills is compatible with the freedom to play as any character you like. They are not mutually exclusive. I don't see the contradiction.

 

[aenemic]

I don't think these things have to be mutually exclusive either. in the end, a game should be about personal skills, that's what makes it a game right? even if it's limited to your choice of character and skills in an rpg, there's a certain level of skill in choosing these. or at least there should be, in my opinion.

yes, you play a role and you should have the freedom to play any type of roll. but if you were to remove as much player skill as possible, you would be left with a barely interactive movie where you only get to choose who plays the lead part - but whoever you choose it wouldn't make much of a difference, because every type of character would have an equal chance of success (namely 100%, because we wouldn't want to let player skill come in the way of that, would we?).

and if we go back to the basic concept of "playing a role", an actor is always limited by their acting skills, right?

to me, games should always be about personal skills at the core. a game with no challenge is simply not fun, and fun is the sole purpose of games. but be it quick reflexes and eye-to-hand coordination, or a tactical mind doesn't doesn't matter. they decide the difference in what type of game it is.

 

[Brother None]

I don't care about defining RPGs so I'm not necessarily supporting Hassknecht's point, but I don't get your point either aenemic. No one is talking about taking away "as much player skill" as possible, just from looking for the balance between tactical and tweak gameplay. A balance that is completely lost in modern mainstream RPGs.

Oh boy, another define RPGs discussion. Those are always so fruitful.

And don't double post, Tank Girl. Also, your definition of being about "setting, the lore, the story progression, character growth and consequence of actions, the journey through the game universe, and above all else, immersion" is so vague as to be nearly pointless, and can describe numerous games that are clearly not RPGs, like, I dunno, Assassin's Creed.

 

[aenemic]

well, that IS exactly my point. people seem to think these two things are mutually exclusive and that player skill takes away from the rpg-elements. I'm just trying to say that this is not true, and that the perfect rpg lies somewhere in-between.

and I too am sick of tired of this constant bickering about what an rpg actually is or isn't. if you read my previous post in this thread you'll see my take on this.

for me, the problem isn't the lack of "true rpg's" or dumbing down of rpg's. it's the lack of good games in the rpg genre and dumbing down of games in general. games calling themselves rpg's but relying mostly on player skill and having very little rpg-elements is more of a side-note in my opinion.

I happen to think Bethesda has a pretty good concept for their rpg's. what I think they lack is challenge, story and general polish (animations, AI, voice acting etc).

 

[Crni Vuk]

On the matter of player skill dependency in RPGs:
If the player skill limits the kind of character that you're playing, it kinda kills the idea of playing a role, doesn't it?
You'd always play as yourself, more or less, which is not the point of an RPG. Not that there is anything wrong with playing as yourself, but a true roleplaying game allows you to play as any character you like, no matter how your reflexes and aiming skills with the mouse are.

Or they at leats give you a chance to play a different role which has an effect on the game. Like in Planescape where you always play the "namelesone" but you only "guide" him trough his journey rather then pretending to "be" the nameless one while in Doom you can always imagine your self as the uber-mensch-demon-killing-marine on mars. The game it self though isn't changed by that decision in anyway. You will always be the marine with the machine gun or plasma rifle. While in Planescape you have situations and it is up to the namelesone to decide which path to chose. The Witcher works the same way where the game allows you to guide Gerald of Rivia in his adventure.

 

[Starseeker]

I just saw a tv commercial for it. I am not sure if it's money well spent, since it didn't look very impressive nor does it look better than some havoc titles.

 

[Tank Girl]

And don't double post, Tank Girl.

What are you talking about?

Also, your definition of being about "setting, the lore, the story progression, character growth and consequence of actions, the journey through the game universe, and above all else, immersion" is so vague as to be nearly pointless, and can describe numerous games that are clearly not RPGs, like, I dunno, Assassin's Creed.

I've already elaborated on that since I made that post. I'm not gonna repeat myself.