RPGs can become much more “radical” but hardcore players are “resistant to change”, says Obsidian

[Snark567]

You can. You can "play a role" even without a game if you want to; even an empty box of matches will do just fine if you're up to it. But the roleplaying'd happen in a far lesser depth in an RPG since you'd lack a lot of the progressive communication between you and the game, which is what the "numbers in the menu" do. They are the "G" in the "RPG" - or more precisely, the keys to the the "G". Houseruling in PnP notwithstanding.

You are missing the point, you can play a role in any game but not all games support all roles, you can still have a game support all kinds of roles but instead of progressing trough entering numbers in a menu, you progress by adapting to the world and situation around you, you get better at using a certain type of sword not because you put numbers in a menu but because you trough trial and error have found out the best way to use that weapon.

You can proceed to play a knight but with actual relevent gameplay backing it up, you can be a charismatic douche but without the need to add numbers to a menu. If you can't play the role of a rogue without the game limiting your ability to learn other ways of combat or talking for instance, then you can't role play. For some reason as soon as you say an RPG can have good gameplay behind it there are people who say it's not an RPG anymore.

The guy above said I described an action game because I dared to remove numbers, so many RPG's have action in them yet you don't consider them as action games as long as the combat sucks, that kind of logic makes no sense. You can have good gameplay, while still being an RPG, but as I said, RPG does not mean a Role Playing Game anymore, it means a game in which you can see exactly how much damage each weapon does and how much damage armor can take and you have to put numbers in specific skills to make the gameplay slightly less terrible.

A bit short on time so I'll just leave this guy here:

 

[Crni Vuk]

Perks and skills and numbers aren't needed anymore,

Says who? You? Todd Howard? Sawyer? I am curious why there are still kick starter projects and even gaming studios releasing such 'outdated' games in this day and age, like X-Com, Pillars of Eternity and more if it's all just engine limitation.

I guess bicycles aren't needed anymore either, since we have motorcycles, right? It's just (...)you don't need human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, that is a system that was designed due to limitations, back in the day when you couldn't use a two-[1][2] or three-wheeled[3][4] motor vehicles and you had limited control using your leg drive to cycle the mechanics for the transportation or proficiency in a certain skill and you left the rest to your imagination.

Let us make everything real time and first person from now on. Angry Birds, Sim City, Command & Conquer, Pac Man and it should all look and play like Skyrim ... it will be awesome! It will sell milions of games! And we should only eat Mc Donalds Burgers if we are it.

Stop confusing preference with genres. Just stop.

Game of Thrones is one of the most succesfull Books out there, does that mean Science Fiction as a genre is a thing of the past? Real time first/third person combat, is simply very popular right now. That's all there is to it. That doesn't mean that 'numbers' like stats and perks are outdated, it just means it's not something that appeals to the 'masses' of gamers like Skyrim does. But no one ever said that it has to! A lot of people still enjoy those mechanics a lot.

 

[Snark567]

Says who? You? Todd Howard? Sawyer? I am curious why there are still kick starter projects and even gaming studios releasing such 'outdated' games in this day and age, like X-Com, Pillars of Eternity and more if it's all just engine limitation.

I guess bicycles aren't needed anymore either, since we have motorcycles, right? It's just (...)you don't need human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, that is a system that was designed due to limitations, back in the day when you couldn't use a two-[1][2] or three-wheeled[3][4] motor vehicles and you had limited control using your leg drive to cycle the mechanics for the transportation or proficiency in a certain skill and you left the rest to your imagination.

Let us make everything real time and first person from now on. Angry Birds, Sim City, Command & Conquer, Pac Man and it should all look and play like Skyrim ... it will be awesome! It will sell milions of games! And we should only eat Mc Donalds Burgers if we are it.

Stop confusing preference with genres. Just stop.

Game of Thrones is one of the most succesfull Books out there, does that mean Science Fiction as a genre is a thing of the past? Real time first/third person combat, is simply very popular right now. That's all there is to it. That doesn't mean that 'numbers' like stats and perks are outdated, it just means it's not something that appeals to the 'masses' of gamers like Skyrim does. But no one ever said that it has to! A lot of people still enjoy those mechanics a lot.

You don't need a perk in which you get less radiation from water or a perk where you hit harder with axes, that's useless, when you remove such perks in an RPG you have to replace them with something else, instead of getting a perk that makes you do more damage, you naturally trough gameplay learn better tactics, weak spots and how to more efficiently use your weapon.

Perks and stats are from the days of Fallout 1 and 2, where you had limited control of your character and limited animations, sounds and so on, so the numbers helped convey what whas happening. You don't need those numbers anymore, you can have that information be conveyed through animations, sounds/dialogue, decals, sprites and so on. You can have that information be conveyed trough actual gameplay, you would still need to "level up" but not trough increasing numbers.

Skyrim is not a good comparison, the game I'm talking about doesn't exist, that's why Sawyer doesn't use a reference, in Skyrim you never had to learn new tactics when using your sword, you never had to practice anything, all you did was hit things over and over and over again until you got enough points to add numbers in a menu so you can hit harder.

I'm not saying all RPG's should be like the game I'm talking about, but if a game like that does come to life it won't mean that it's any less of an RPG just because it doesn't have bland gameplay.

I do not expect you to understand what Sawyer is talking about or what I'm talking about because you know only RPG's that use traditional systems, it clearly shows with how defensive you are as soon as someone talks about the removal of such things because you instantly think about incompetent studios like Bethesda. I believe Sawyer is smart enough to make such a game work and I hope he has the freedom to make it.

Edit: Also the way you used genres as an example doesn't make sense, it's more like if people only consider your work to be "Fantasy" if it has Elves, if it doesn't have Elves (cuz that's what dem people know) it's not "Fantasy". Or of it doesn't have a specific type of space ship then it's not Science fiction. Same with RPG's, if it doesn't have numbers and bland combat it's not an RPG.

 

[Black Angel]

RPG means "Role Playing Game" you can play a role without having to enter numbers in a menu, however since most people are close minded they see the name "RPG" and think of Stats and min/maxing numbers.

This is exactly the close minded thinking that you're talking about. If we want to talk about 'RPGs', we need to look back at the very beginning where the genre take its roots. Long story short, RPGs as a genre started from Pen&Paper RPGs, most well known are Dungeons&Dragons rulesets and setting. As PC itself, and to an extent PC gaming, becoming a thing, there are developers who start trying to import P&P RPG mechanics and emulate it with PC, and thus born cRPGs. In no way this means the emulation are a product of technical limitation or whatever buzzwords you included in your post above. Without stats and skills and various other elements that make up what RPGs are in the first place, you either get an action game, a CYOA, or a LARP-ing simulator.

Perks and skills and numbers aren't needed anymore, however you would need to replace them with proper gameplay rather than just removing them without filling the void. What would be better, a game where each lock has a different quirk and you get better trough trial end error while you learn how each type of lock operates or a game in which all the locks are the same, super easy to lockpick but the game doesn't allow you to even try lockpicking some of them until you enter a couple of numbers in a menu?

You're saying this as if perks and skills and numbers aren't part of proper gameplay mechanics, whatever you meant with 'gameplay' anyway. And that lockpicking analogue; sounds like you just want some stupid minigames where the outcome is dictated mostly by your skill as a player. Here's a thing: what separates most RPGs from other type of games, especially action games, is that the outcome of moment-to-moment gameplay are dictated hugely, or even solely, by the skills of the characters you created (in the case of your analogue, Dexterity or Perception, and Lockpicking skill), NOT by the skills of the player who made it (your eyesight, sleight of hand as you move the mouse/console or your fingers ever ready to push a button at moment notice).

Entering numbers in a menu is not complex gameplay, it's a relic from the past that can be replaced with something actually engaging. You can still PLAY the ROLE of a guy who can't lockpick his way out of a cardboard box and ignore the locks, just like you can do it with traditional RPG's but you don't have to do it trough entering numbers in a menu. And if you do decide to play a guy who can lockpick, instead of leveling trough menus you can actually progress the same way the character would, trough figuring out each lock via gameplay.

What's this "entering numbers in a menu" you keep mentioning? Sounds like more buzzwords. We must have played very different type of RPGs if what you get is anything like you said. Also, ignoring the locks =/= can't lockpicking the lock. Seriously, mate, what you're really looking for is a LARPing simulator in form of action games. Because if we're to have, like you said, a gameplay mechanic of lockpicking where we, as a player, have to figure out the lock by ourselves instead of letting our characters do the job (like any proper RPG should), then the game would just be called 'Lockpicking Simulator' instead of an RPG. And if you try to apply the whole 'figure it yourself' mechanic to everything else, then it would be called 'Everything Simulator', not an RPG.

Also it's not just about combat, the way you interact with characters will be more complex, rather than just winning a conversation because you added a few numbers in a specific stat.
You can do that while still staying in character.

Adding points into stats and skills isn't just about winning a conversation or winning a combat encounter. In any proper RPGs, as you put points into specific set of stats and skills, you're either neglecting the other stats and skills; or even outright deducting points from them to accommodate the build of your own choice. Another defining characteristics of any proper RPG is that the characters you made not only have strengths in form of the stats and skills you chose for the characters to specialized in; they also have weaknesses in form of the stats and skills you neglected and deducted points from. How can you achieve this specific configuration by taking away stats and skills, and giving us this 'figure it yourself' gameplay?

The problem isn't the idea, it's the fact that people can't visualize change, for such a thing to work Sawyer would be better off creating the game rather than just talking about it since no one will understand him. It would be better if he dropped the "RPG" name from his game as well, not because it's not a Role Playing Game but because people have their own twisted ideas on what an RPG is, the whole term is butchered.

The problem is that Sawyer is seeing problems where there are none; he tried to fix what's not broken; and when he got called out, he blame the niche audience he previously targeted with his previous game. What's so hard to understand about people liking a thing and disliking when the thing they like is being taken away?

And yes, it would be better if he dropped the 'RPG' tag from his game. In fact, he should drop all the pretense that he's developing RPGs, when in fact he wanted to develop the games that make all the big bucks like the ones made by Bethesda and Bioware.

And no, it's not that people have their own twisted ideas on what an RPG is, nor the whole term is butchered. Look again at Risewild's post above. RPGs are separated into many, many subgenres.

You are missing the point, you can play a role in any game but not all games support all roles, you can still have a game support all kinds of roles but instead of progressing trough entering numbers in a menu, you progress by adapting to the world and situation around you, you get better at using a certain type of sword not because you put numbers in a menu but because you trough trial and error have found out the best way to use that weapon.

Sounds like Dark Souls, which is an Action-RPG. Go play that instead of telling people to suck up to Sawyer's view on current state of RPG.

You can proceed to play a knight but with actual relevent gameplay backing it up, you can be a charismatic douche but without the need to add numbers to a menu. If you can't play the role of a rogue without the game limiting your ability to learn other ways of combat or talking for instance, then you can't role play. For some reason as soon as you say an RPG can have good gameplay behind it there are people who say it's not an RPG anymore.

Again, you're implying stat tweaking and skill adjustment as not a relevant gameplay. It's as relevant as it gets, if only you knew the roots of the genre. Stats and skills are definitely the way to limit your ability to learn combat or talking when you make a rogue character archetype, so taking them away would leave you exactly with no way to limit those abilities (combat/talking) from being learnt by a rogue character.

The guy above said I described an action game because I dared to remove numbers, so many RPG's have action in them yet you don't consider them as action games as long as the combat sucks, that kind of logic makes no sense. You can have good gameplay, while still being an RPG, but as I said, RPG does not mean a Role Playing Game anymore, it means a game in which you can see exactly how much damage each weapon does and how much damage armor can take and you have to put numbers in specific skills to make the gameplay slightly less terrible.

And now you're saying as if an Action game can't be a hybrid with RPGs or vice versa. Again, refer to Risewild's post above, and I even mentioned Dark Souls as being an Action-RPG. However, you also need to consider that, sometimes, based on developers design philosophy, the games they've made would lean more toward one genre or another. The prominent example in this regard is New Vegas vs. Fallout 4. Both are definitely Action-RPGs, because both have RPG elements but many gameplay mechanics also rely on player's skills like Action games does. The difference, due to both are developed by two completely different developers, is that New Vegas leaned more toward being an RPG, while Fallout 4 leaned more toward being an Action games because it relies more and more on player's skills to be played and at the same time only having superficial RPG elements.

Also, if you really think something like that bolded part, you must've played really shitty RPGs then.

Perks and stats are from the days of Fallout 1 and 2, where you had limited control of your character and limited animations, sounds and so on, so the numbers helped convey what whas happening. You don't need those numbers anymore, you can have that information be conveyed through animations, sounds/dialogue, decals, sprites and so on. You can have that information be conveyed trough actual gameplay, you would still need to "level up" but not trough increasing numbers.

Oh, wow. So many buzzwords! Let's see... 'limited control of your character', 'limited animations', 'limited sounds', and so on.... Hmmm..... I vaguely remembering being able to do a list of things just by right-clicking an object on the screen.... something like and even more. The animations included those death scenes and kickass attack moves like , and since this is a top-down isometric game the devs has all the excuses to not animate more activities unnecessarily so the budget can go to other aspects of the development.... and the sounds of NPCs and animals as they're getting hit in the eye or being split in two or turned into a goo.............. Wow, so limited!

Jokes aside, tell me games that have half of character controls I mentioned above, or having something better than those kickass animations, or even sounds as satisfying as the sounds of NPCs dying or at least musics as atmospheric as Mark Morgan's ambiental masterpieces.

And seriously, all those 'you don't need numbers anymore because it can be conveyed through blablabla' has been achieved by Dark Souls already.

Skyrim is not a good comparison, the game I'm talking about doesn't exist, that's why Sawyer doesn't use a reference, in Skyrim you never had to learn new tactics when using your sword, you never had to practice anything, all you did was hit things over and over and over again until you got enough points to add numbers in a menu so you can hit harder.

Wrong, because Sawyer used Bethesda's games as a reference on "examples of a developer taking role-playing games in a different direction."

And how would you learn new tactics when using your sword and practice anything in your hypothetical 'figure it yourself' game?

I'm not saying all RPG's should be like the game I'm talking about, but if a game like that does come to life it won't mean that it's any less of an RPG just because it doesn't have bland gameplay.

Implying RPGs have bland gameplay.

Also, define 'gameplay'.

I do not expect you to understand what Sawyer is talking about or what I'm talking about because you know only RPG's that use traditional systems, it clearly shows with how defensive you are as soon as someone talks about the removal of such things because you instantly think about incompetent studios like Bethesda. I believe Sawyer is smart enough to make such a game work and I hope he has the freedom to make it.

If you've been in touch with the industry in the last 20 years, or even have any knowledge how RPGs came to be in the first place, then YOU should actually understand what the fuck Sawyer's actually talking about, instead of wallowing in your disdain of 'traditional' RPG mechanics and daydreaming about playing Everything Simulator.

Edit: All that's wrong with what you're trying to say here, Snark567, is that you aren't being realistic. From where would you get all the budget to achieve this 'figure it yourself' RPG? Not to mention numbers are inherent part of the code and the programs, which is exactly how you make games in the first place. The numbers will always be there, whether you like it or not. In fact, showing it would actually help the gameplay, and taking away the numbers would only confuse any players with above average IQ, which should be your target audience IF you actually want to make an RPG that truly evolve the genre.

 

[Crni Vuk]

You don't need a perk in which you get less radiation from water or a perk where you hit harder with axes, that's useless, when you remove such perks in an RPG you have to replace them with something else, instead of getting a perk that makes you do more damage, you naturally trough gameplay learn better tactics, weak spots and how to more efficiently use your weapon.

Perks and stats are from the days of Fallout 1 and 2, where you had limited control of your character and limited animations, sounds and so on, so the numbers helped convey what whas happening. You don't need those numbers anymore, you can have that information be conveyed through animations, sounds/dialogue, decals, sprites and so on. You can have that information be conveyed trough actual gameplay, you would still need to "level up" but not trough increasing numbers.

Skyrim is not a good comparison, the game I'm talking about doesn't exist, that's why Sawyer doesn't use a reference, in Skyrim you never had to learn new tactics when using your sword, you never had to practice anything, all you did was hit things over and over and over again until you got enough points to add numbers in a menu so you can hit harder.

I'm not saying all RPG's should be like the game I'm talking about, but if a game like that does come to life it won't mean that it's any less of an RPG just because it doesn't have bland gameplay.

I do not expect you to understand what Sawyer is talking about or what I'm talking about because you know only RPG's that use traditional systems, it clearly shows with how defensive you are as soon as someone talks about the removal of such things because you instantly think about incompetent studios like Bethesda. I believe Sawyer is smart enough to make such a game work and I hope he has the freedom to make it.

Edit: Also the way you used genres as an example doesn't make sense, it's more like if people only consider your work to be "Fantasy" if it has Elves, if it doesn't have Elves (cuz that's what dem people know) it's not "Fantasy". Or of it doesn't have a specific type of space ship then it's not Science fiction. Same with RPG's, if it doesn't have numbers and bland combat it's not an RPG.

Stop to confuse (your) PREFERENCE,

noun [ C or U ] uk /ˈpref.ər.əns/ us /ˈpref.ər.əns/
The fact that you like something or someone more than another thing or person:​

with GENRE,

noun [ C ] uk /ˈʒɑ̃ː.rə/ /ˈʒɒn.rə/ us /ˈʒɑːn.rə/ formal
A style, especially in the arts, that involves a particular set of characteristics:​

There is no 'technical' limitation that prevents game developers in their choice of genre, not today, and not 20 years ago. You had games like Fallout 1/2, Diablo 1/2, or Baldurs Gate existing next to open world/sandbox games with a first person perspective like Morrowind and Daggerfall. And on top of it, there are still games developed even today, with MODERN GRAPHICS using stats and top down/isometric view points - see X-Com or this visualy promising Kickstarter project:



AGAIN!: The problem, is NOT a limitation in engine or technology!

Why do some game developers still create games with stats and skills and numbers, if it's a LIMITATION from (old) technology? There are countless of CHEAP 3D engines to chose from today, and Obsidian COMPLETELY MODIFIED THE UNITY ENGINE to deliver a game that looks similar to the old Infinity games. What you say makes no sense.

You're whole narrative can be sumed up with one sentence perfectly. "Why don't you like the things I like?"

 

[Snark567]

To the ever so polite
Mr Black Angel

Jesus that's a long reply.

1. Limitations do play a factor, even if a lot of RPG's were made because people just implemented a lot of what they knew and loved, that doesn't mean limitations weren't a factor. The removal of numbers is something that games of the past would have struggled with, games like Fallout 1 and 2 would struggle to convey information without those numbers. The reason numbers exist in the first place IS due to limitations, in tabletop games you couldn't actually take control of your character and actually fight the monster or do the thing, that's why people used dice rolls and dem numbers.

2. Perks and Skills are "gameplay" but it's boring gameplay. What's better? Playing a rogue in a game where you have to adapt to the environment, learn which objects provide better cover, like "hey if I hind behind that barrel there I'll be harder to spot than if I hid behind that bench, and being on this side of the street where there's ambient noise means it will be easier for me to hide, especially if it's dark, and if I wear these kinds of boots I make less noise, especially if I walk on specific surfaces at a specific speed. If I use this weapon it will be easier to kill quickly because of the shape of the weapon and I'm also skilled at doing that button combination" and so on.
OR a game where you just add 20 points into sneaking and bam you sneak better and your weapon has more numbers than your enemy's.It's bland. Both are gameplay but one makes you a part of the world, and helps you use the world to your advantage, the other is "add some numbers here and you do this better I guess". That's why a lot of RPG gameplay sucks, it's lazy.
As soon as you make a game with real time combat in which you have to move the character around and shoot/hit in real time the whole "Skills of the character" thing starts to fall apart because now the PLAYER is guiding the character by using his/her reflexes but the gameplay sucks because it's not responsive.

A ROLE playing game can be about the player assuming a role and staying in that role, it doesn't mean the player can't use his or her skills to progress, again you only know RPG's with classic mechanics.


3. "What's this "entering numbers in a menu" you keep mentioning? Sounds like more buzzwords."
I guess you don't know what a menu is. Ok I guess User Interface, nah it's buzz wordzzzzzzz.
I'm not sure what your rant about Lockpicking is, having a deep mechanic doesn't mean suddenly the whole game will be taken over by that mechanic and it's gonna turn into a "Lockpicking simulator".

"And if you try to apply the whole 'figure it yourself' mechanic to everything else, then it would be called 'Everything Simulator', not an RPG." Aren't RPG's simulations though? Just very bad simulations in which you barely do the thing your character is supposed to be all about. Yeah you're a hunter but you don't really have in depth mechanics for the shooting and the animals, it's just add points here and you're done.


4."Adding points into stats and skills isn't just about winning a conversation or winning a combat encounter. In any proper RPGs, as you put points into specific set of stats and skills, you're either neglecting the other stats and skills; or even outright deducting points from them to accommodate the build of your own choice."

Of course it isn't, it was an example. Also yes the "outright deducting of points" won't have to change, but except "points" you focus on a couple of things you want your character to be about and you play that so you can become better at it. It's the same function but without the "gamey" element, which isn't quite right since you actually get more gameplay out if it rather than just adding "points".
And no I don't mean "Oh it's like skyrim, you just do whatever and get better at it", I mean proper deep mechanics, simulating character growth by you growing as a player, the mechanics would be deep enough and the encounter complex enough as to where you would need to commit to getting better at it. Again it's probably not a game you'd like but it doesn't make it less of an RPG, and no it doesn't have to be about combat.

Also I don't see the problem of a character being able to learn new things, in real life people don't stay static, I didn't know how to use the GECK to import models and place them around the world, or edit the weather, I didn't know how to use a chainsaw but with effort I learned. If you want to play the ROLE of a static character you can totally stay in that role all you want, no one is stopping you.

"How can you achieve this specific configuration by taking away stats and skills, and giving us this 'figure it yourself' gameplay?"
I don't know man, maybe you stay in character in a role playing game and play without touching things you don't want your character to get good at, like in standard RPG's.

5."The problem is that Sawyer is seeing problems where there are none; he tried to fix what's not broken; and when he got called out, he blame the niche audience he previously targeted with his previous game. What's so hard to understand about people liking a thing and disliking when the thing they like is being taken away?"

The problem is, there is no problem and you guys are just making a mountain out of a mole hill. Sawyer isn't seeing "problems" he's seeing different ways of doing things, no one is going to remove your games, there will still be plenty of studios that are too lazy to try and diviate from the formula, there will still be companies that want to recreate nostalgia. You don't like it, someone else does, which means there is an audience, Sawyer is just too blind to see that it's not the RPG crowd because to them RPG means a very specific thing. Sawyer can easily just remove the RPG from the description and the game will still be an RPG, just without you guys complaining. The whole RPG genre at this point is so pigeon holed that the only way for his game to have true freedom is to abandon the label.
"when in fact he wanted to develop the games that make all the big bucks like the ones made by Bethesda and Bioware." and that's making a mountain out of a mole hill. Point stands, if it's a game without numbers and stats and perks you guys won't consider it an RPG, can't get more pigeon holed than that, well you can but whatever.

6."Sounds like Dark Souls, which is an Action-RPG. Go play that instead of telling people to suck up to Sawyer's view on current state of RPG."
What a dish face. I cam smell the hostility trough my monitor.

Dark Souls is an ACTION RPG, it focuses on ACTION. A game can have GOOD COMBAT, without focusing on it, does u comprehand? Also a game can have GOOD mechanics outside of COMBAT without being a combat focused rpg. Jesus it's like you have DS and Skyrim implanted in your brain.

Plus I looked up Action-RPG, all it says is that is has real time combat instead of turn based combat, so by that definition NV is an Action RPG, which you seem to hate for some reason, Morrowind is an action RPG. And all those relics of the past mechanics do is make the real time combat clunky.

7."Again, you're implying stat tweaking and skill adjustment as not a relevant gameplay. It's as relevant as it gets, if only you knew the roots of the genre."

Whatever man, as I said no one will steal your games away from you just because a guy wants to actually try something new and isn't living in the past. Things shouldn't stay the same, they should evolve, the current system is flawed but there will always be people who like it, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with going in a different direction.

"Stats and skills are definitely the way to limit your ability to learn combat or talking when you make a rogue character archetype, so taking them away would leave you exactly with no way to limit those abilities (combat/talking) from being learnt by a rogue character"

Again, if you're commited to playing a static character you won't start learning new things, that's why it's called role playing, you play a role. Also life doesn't work like this, people don't stay the same forever, yeah yeah "But this is a game", alright. Keep seeing that, people say it to dismiss things they don't like but when it's something they like they say "it makes perfect sense and is more realistic". Such is human nature.

8.Nothing new to add here, yet again rushing to explain how as soon as a developer touches a new idea it will be just like how Bethesda did things and the idea will overtake everything. Fallout 4 isn't bad because it had decent combat, it's bad because Bethesda is a garbage developer and can't make a decent game, that's why they focused on mostly the combat and settlement building.
Though you seem to understand that a bit, NV isn't good because stats and numbers and perks, it's good because, of many things that I don't have the patience to go trough actually but let's just say player choice and good storytelling, world building and characters help a bit. Also the game didn't look ugly like Fallout 3.

"Also, if you really think something like that bolded part, you must've played really shitty RPGs then."
Bethesda RPG's come to mind, WoW is also pretty terrible gameplay wise, the original Fallout games aren't that amazing in gameplay either. Even good RPG's still mostly have terrible to mediocre gameplay compared to other games. Is Terraria an RPG? Guess it's a sandbox RPG, that has decent gameplay.


9. Dislike something? Just say it's "buzzwords".
Anyway YES you were able to DO THOSE things, getting on my nerves now.
But a lot of the time it would recycle animations and the game would give you a text explanation as to what happened. Limited view, limited animations.
Go into combat? Oh shit you can't really use your environment that well due to the limited perspective and of course it would be a pain in the ass to make. So, turn combat! Limited control, you get some action points to walk a bit, shoot, eat a pizza. Fallout NV? You can jump around from rock to rock, enter a building quickly take out a bat smash some guy, take his gun idk, less limited, you can play around with objects and such, move them around.


"and since this is a top-down isometric game the devs has all the excuses to not animate more activities unnecessarily so the budget can go to other aspects of the development"
Ah yeah, not animate more activities, that's why it's limited, why are you contradicting yourself? Also storage space might have something to do with it as well, idk. Point is, things are recycled and sometimes the game explains what's going on because it can't show you.

"and the sounds of NPCs and animals as they're getting hit in the eye or being split in two or turned into a goo.............. Wow, so limited!"
Yes limited, by today's standards. With today's technology you can give way more sounds to an NPC which means during combat the NPC can give you AUDIO queue on how damaged it is, when it's about to die, if it's about to flank you and so on, you can use decals so that the more you shoot an enemy the more covered in bullets or blood it gets like in Serious Sam HD, you can use animations so the creature starts limping or the human gets tired and starts running more slowly and so on. But I guess that has nothing on those badass 5 frames of sprite animation.

"Jokes aside, tell me games that have half of character controls I mentioned above, or having something better than those kickass animations, or even sounds as satisfying as the sounds of NPCs dying or at least musics as atmospheric as Mark Morgan's ambiental masterpieces."

Music is good, can't fault that. However I'd argue Fallout is nowhere NEAR as atmospheric as a game like STALKER, and with the new Fallout games you can make the case almost any game is more atmospheric than them, HL1, System Shock 2 made me soil my pants, Quake 1 has more atmosphere. But yes the original FO games are good in terms of atmosphere.
I'm still not sure what you mean by "kickass", is that a buzzword? Certainly it can't be the quality of the animations because they're pretty... dated. Is it the gore factor? As I said, games these days have improved a lot, Serious Sam 3 has beautiful creature animations and deaths, HL2 has beautiful animations, at least for the creatures, any game really. If you mean sprites there are many sprite based games with amazing animations, not even sure what to bring up here since I'm not sure if you want specifically RPG's in the same style as Fallout 1/2.
But I must say I enjoy the style of the earlier games, even if the visuals are dated. As for the sounds, idk as I said games have improved a lot and they're not as limited, there are many soundtracks and sounds out there that are kickass, the Half Life games have amazing creature sounds, a lot of them sound so alien and weird and disturbing, a lot of cool ambient music

It's not even a new game, again SS2 enemies made me soil my pants due to their audio

It's all preferences really, I can probaly say Zoo Tycoon 2 has better quality audio but if you mean the tone of the actual recordings, it's all subjective. Gonna bring up STALKER but that amazing audio as well, I like to compare the atmosphere to Fallout.

"And seriously, all those 'you don't need numbers anymore because it can be conveyed through blablabla' has been achieved by Dark Souls already."
Not really. What's with you and Dark Souls?


10. "Wrong, because Sawyer used Bethesda's games as a reference on "examples of a developer taking role-playing games in a different direction."

And how would you learn new tactics when using your sword and practice anything in your hypothetical 'figure it yourself' game?"

IT TOOK it in a different direction, but it's not the game I'm talking about, and it doesn't mean it's the game he's talking about. Skyrim dumbed down its systems but it still has those systems. The goal is not to remove those systems without replacing them so even if it did that it still wouldn't be the, ah why am I even trying.

By the way, how you would learn tactics? You can make the combat more advanced than simply HIT HIT HIT DODGE. It isn't worth going into a deep explanation since I know you'll just dismiss it, but games with complex combat systems exist, like Mount and Blade (no it doesn't need to be exactly like that). You can design the AI to communicate attacks better, give different patterns, again rely on visual data outside of numbers, like the npc's getting tired and the animations showing it, the sounds they make, the blood decals and so on. Yes Bethesda games have a bit of visual queues but they're so poorly communicated it's not worth comparing.


11. "Implying RPGs have bland gameplay.

Also, define 'gameplay'."

Ways you interact with the game and how it interacts with you, the rules. It can be trough mechanics that allow you to use your environmets wisely to sneak around and complex pizzles when you hack or lockpick, it can be how you fight and how the enemies react to that and so on. So you can have a game where you go from cover to cover avoiding energetic AI that uses the environment to hide and flank and there can be creatures that attack in very specific ways that demand different styles of gameplay, like the wherebulls from Serious Sam, the Kleer skeletions, the Bullsquids, Houndeyes from Half Life, the antlions, it can be like the Eater of Worlds from Terraria for instance, really anything that demands attention and strategy from you, changes up the pace, has weak spots and is very different from each other.
Thief which has very complex sneaking mechanics and so on, generally it helps when the game strongly demands you to adapt to your environment. This are just examples of what "gameplay" is, it doesn't mean I want a hardcore super actior oriented RPG.



12. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it, you're the real RPG guru, the true fan, us mere mortals should shut up because the RPG realm is from people who know how to avoid "everything simulator" or whatever you call them, even if a lot of RPG's are basically that anyways.



"Edit: All that's wrong with what you're trying to say here, Snark567, is that you aren't being realistic. From where would you get all the budget to achieve this 'figure it yourself' RPG? Not to mention numbers are inherent part of the code and the programs, which is exactly how you make games in the first place. The numbers will always be there, whether you like it or not. In fact, showing it would actually help the gameplay, and taking away the numbers would only confuse any players with above average IQ, which should be your target audience IF you actually want to make an RPG that truly evolve the genre."

To be honest it's not as complex as it sounds, I don't want "real life" amounts of complexity, again this post is too long anyway and it's a waste of time explaining in detail a whole game.
I already mentioned in a past comment that it will be expensive, also change doesn't happen not just due to money limitations but because a lot of studios don't see the point. Why spend money and effort to make something new when you can make the same things constantly and people would buy it anyway, hell you can be like Bethesda and do a worse job each time and no one will care.

Yes the numbers are part of the code, but you can hide the numbers when it comes to the player side of things, you can't make a game without math, I know, what I mean is you shouldn't have the math be part of this Role Playing experience because the Player doesn't need it anymore, you can convey actions without showing how things work behind the scenes.

"In fact, showing it would actually help the gameplay, and taking away the numbers would only confuse any players with above average IQ"
I think it will confuse only people with an IQ roughly around room temperature who think they are smarter than others and talk about how numbers can't be hidden because they are a part of the code.

 

[Snark567]

Stop to confuse (your) PREFERENCE,

noun [ C or U ] uk /ˈpref.ər.əns/ us /ˈpref.ər.əns/
The fact that you like something or someone more than another thing or person:​

with GENRE,

noun [ C ] uk /ˈʒɑ̃ː.rə/ /ˈʒɒn.rə/ us /ˈʒɑːn.rə/ formal
A style, especially in the arts, that involves a particular set of characteristics:​

There is no 'technical' limitation that prevents game developers in their choice of genre, not today, and not 20 years ago. You had games like Fallout 1/2, Diablo 1/2, or Baldurs Gate existing next to open world/sandbox games with a first person perspective like Morrowind and Daggerfall. And on top of it, there are still games developed even today, with MODERN GRAPHICS using stats and top down/isometric view points - see X-Com or this visualy promising Kickstarter project:



AGAIN!: The problem, is NOT a limitation in engine or technology!

Why do some game developers still create games with stats and skills and numbers, if it's a LIMITATION from (old) technology? There are countless of CHEAP 3D engines to chose from today, and Obsidian COMPLETELY MODIFIED THE UNITY ENGINE to deliver a game that looks similar to the old Infinity games. What you say makes no sense.

You're whole narrative can be sumed up with one sentence perfectly. "Why don't you like the things I like?"

For some reason I read your post in an overly excited voice.

Here's the deal, when you make something, be it a game, movie, erotic japanese comics, fake beard, ya works with watch ya gots ya gots it boi?
When people made pan and ze paperz games they got only penz and ze paperz, SO, they designed a system which would convey the world, and actions with the limited gameplay options that Pen an le paparinoz can bring.

Of course working within limitations doesn't mean the system SUCKzzzz, but (and a curvy one) it is a product of the limited media they were working with. So some Spicy BOIzz foind them penzez an peperzz gamingoz and they played them and they like them.

Now when computarinoz where a thing but still very early in the larval stagez, a lof of technological factorzzz at ze timez played a role, also if the company is dirt poor it might not be possible to make something grand like the matrixxxx. Anyway, some persorinoz brought the Pen le paperz formula because
A: That's what they knew
B: That's what worked at the time with the financial/ technological limitationz

Nowadayz, people still make such game because
A: That's what they know
B: People will buy it anyway

That doesn't mean it wasn't once a product of limited resources or apples though.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Have you ever actually played a Pen and Paper role playing game? And is this even something that you 'enjoy'? Because believe it or not there is still a HUGE P&P community out there, who love it and it has not been created due to some limitation like you're claiming here. And they do not just love it, beacuse that is the only thing they know, the alternatives are out there too. Just so you know, people can enjoy more than just one hobby, for DIFFERENT reasons. I can play Doom, Skyrim and Baldurs Gate and have a ton of fun. But that doesn't mean that I want the next Doom game to play like Baldurs Gate or the next Pillars of Eternity to play like Doom.

Believe it or not, a lot of people out there actually WANT(!) this number crunching and complexity you get from some P&P games. They want this because they actaully enjoy it, do you understand this?

What you're trying to explain right now, is that Chess would be a better game if everyone could make a move when ever they wanted, because the 'turn' based aspect of it, is a limitation because A: That's what they know and B: People will (buy) play it anyway. Maybe your perfect version of Chess would be real time first person game ...

Again, STOP to force your own preference on others as objective opinion.

For some reason I read your post in an overly excited voice.

Its more like this:

 

[Snark567]

Its more like this:

Nah it's more like an edgy 10 year old. But yeah you got me, nothing in real life is ever a product of whatever is available, limited materials and technological progression, different kinds of media trough which we entertain ourselves are all a chinese propaganda. Make RPG's great again.

Games dedicated to giving players the options to play out different roles are impossible to exist without them numberz and even if it was possible for them to exist they shouldn't because someone having a different experience is too much to bear.

"What you're trying to explain right now, is that Chess would be a better game if everyone could make a move when ever they wanted, because the 'turn' based aspect of it, is a limitation because"

Oh so we're talking about chess now, glad to know.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Games dedicated to giving players the options to play out different roles are impossible to exist without them numberz and even if it was possible for them to exist they shouldn't because someone having a different experience is too much to bear.

Where did I say that? Don't put words in my mouth.

How often do I have to repeat, that there are different ways to enjoy something.

 

[Snark567]

Where did I say that? Don't put words in my mouth.

Learning from the best <3

 

[Risewild]

Not this again... What is or not a RPG is back.

The whole thing about a game being a RPG is that the characters controlled by the player mainly use their own capabilities to deal with the world and achieve/fail things. If the player controls and does everything that the character should be doing, it stops being a RPG.

I once again see people confusing the gaming genre RPG with the term "role-play". They are two different things. In the genre you decide what your character(s) do, but they have to do it themselves, in the term, you pretend and act like your character. They are two very different things. That is why there are P&P/TT RPG and then there is a different kind of genre called LARP, because in the first, you control characters and decide what they do, but they have to do it themselves using their abilities, in the other, while you still have characters with abilities, the focus in on how you pretend your character does things (many times it even overwrites your character abilities).

No amount of squirming or yelling changes that. We have many genres in gaming, and there are genres that already include what people are saying about "what a modern RPG should be". Those are Action, Adventure, Shooter, Simulation, etc.

People these days like to say that RPG is a game where someone can assume one or several roles in a game. But that is just bullshit. You assume a role in pretty much 100% of the games these days. Other games allow to assume several roles. For example, games like Team Fortress, you have classes and each have a particular role. By that definition Team Fortress games are RPGs and not Shooters. Other games like Metal Gear Solid V give your character the choice of what he can do or focus on doing, Snake can be a stealth expert that specializes in infiltration and espionage, he can focus on being a cowboy, riding on his horse using pistols, he can focus on using artillery and blow things up, he can focus on relying on support from base using his helicopter and supplies, he can focus on collecting weaponry and vehicles from the battlefield, he can focus on disarming mines in war zones, saving and extracting soldiers, destroying enemy heavy troops and armored vehicles, and so on... Is Metal Gear Solid V a RPG, no, it is an Action Adventure game.

Now why aren't those games and many others like them RPGs? Because gaming has many genres and they are from those genres. I don't understand the obsession people have these days with trying to cram games into the RPG genre. It is like there are no other genres or that RPG is the king of genres, so any game has to be a RPG.
You have inventory? Then you're a RPG. You have experience points? Then you are a RPG. You have level up or upgrades? Then you are a RPG. You have quests? Then you are a RPG. You have dialogue? Then you are a RPG... Never mind that RPGs don't need any of the previous things, if a game today has any of those, it becomes a RPG, it's just like magic.

I have wrote in this forum so many times about this that I should just start quoting all my previous posts instead of typing more stuff... Here is one of my past posts about what is a RPG:

First roleplaying game was Dungeons and Dragons (Pen and Paper) and so we can see what a roleplaying game is by looking at how it worked.
Then we can see through history what other RPGs share in common with the first and we can define what a RPG is by seeing what all of those games share in common. And no, controlling a character, leveling said character up or do quests are not the only things that make a RPG. Pretty much 99% of games have you controlling a character in some way, today most games have some kind of leveling up and/or quests, but that does not make a RPG, those are elements that were first encountered in roleplaying games, but are not what made that genre being a specific genre.
We also need to deconstruct all of the RPG genres too, because RPG has subgenres:

• cRPG
• Action RPG
• Tactical RPG
• jRPG

Why are these genres also RPGs? Because all RPGs have the same base element:
-The character or characters you roleplay use their own skills, strengths, abilities, weaknesses, and faults to interact with anything in the world. A RPG uses the character to interact with the game world, not the player. That is the fundamental rule of what a RPG is. From P&P to cRPG, Action RPG, Tactical RPG, jRPG, etc, It is always what they all have in common.
Your character(s) have stats and values and those are used in everything (usually using some kind of "dice roll" or RNG), from hitting the enemies to convincing someone that a lie is truth, from unlocking a locked door to sneak past enemies, etc.

People say that what is important in a RPG is good choices and story, a good and reactive world, believable characters, good combat system, action, dialogue, and whatever else people prefer, but that is still not what a RPG is. That is all what makes a good RPG for each of us, not what makes a RPG.

For example World of Darkness RPG system didn't have character levels, characters do not level up. World of Darkness is a RPG and has one of my favorite RPG systems ever (it is the same used in Vampire the Masquerade cRPGs too). So leveling up is not what a RPG is.
For example people say that a RPG needs quests. But quests are just objectives, and pretty much most games have objectives in one way or another. Quests are not what makes a RPG.
Etc.

Those things are not what makes the RPG genre but what enriches it instead.

If you remove the character being the one doing things instead of the player, you totally removed what makes a RPG a RPG. It stops being a RPG right away, because that is the fundamental system/mechanics that make the RPG genre.

If you imagine any RPG ever made (including any sub-genre) for consoles and computers and remove from those games all the stats, skills, perks, attributes, and any other similar thing. You end up with a totally different game genre that already exists.
Do that to the classic Fallout games and you would end up with a game that can be considered a bullet-hell-lite or isometric shooter with dialogue. Do that to Daggerfall and you have a FP Action game. Do that to Fallout 3 or FNV and you have a FP/TP Shooter. Do that to Planescape:Torment and you have a Isometric Interactive Novel .
Why is that? Because without that system/mechanics, the games stop being a RPG. It's as clear as night and day.

 

[Snark567]

"People these days like to say that RPG is a game where someone can assume one or several roles in a game. But that is just bullshit. You assume a role in pretty much 100% of the games these days."

The only bullshit is your entire post. Yes you assume a role in almost every game, but not every game allows you to assume many roles, not many games are dedicated to provide an in depth expirience with each role.

What you gave here is your personal description of what a Role Playing Game should be, if you search online for an explanation on what an RPG means, you'll get many different answers. Some sites say it's a game where you assume the role of a character, other sites say it's a game that uses aspects from DnD, the term itself is so useless.

Again, take NV, remove the numbers, replace the skills and perks with gameplay but still make the progression the same. Instead of just adding 20 points to medicine, you actually practice medicine and get good trough learning different ways to solve things.
It's still an RPG. I don't expect you understand it because this is a site where people seem to be pretty hardcore when it comes to Old vs New. Really, as I said, whatever Sawyer has on his mind, he should find a way to make it because many people lack the ability to visualize concepts. The problem is not with the term, it's how people use it and I don't think it's worth the effort changing the way people perceive it. He should drop the term not because his game is not an RPG but because people like you will get upset at the fact that it's not old school. He could just as well call it an adventure game, but since it's made to be an RPG you have the mechanics to assume a role or even just "create" a certain limited character just like you can do with skills and points.

 

[Deleted member 98605]

Sawyer can do whatever he wants. If he wants to shift towards casual ARPG games, then, well, he'll still rake in cash. Just not mine.

 

[Black Angel]

I'm just going to put my replies to Snark567 into a spoiler because there are more important things I want to talk about in this post, so here it goes:

Spoiler

1. Limitations do play a factor, even if a lot of RPG's were made because people just implemented a lot of what they knew and loved, that doesn't mean limitations weren't a factor. The removal of numbers is something that games of the past would have struggled with, games like Fallout 1 and 2 would struggle to convey information without those numbers. The reason numbers exist in the first place IS due to limitations, in tabletop games you couldn't actually take control of your character and actually fight the monster or do the thing, that's why people used dice rolls and dem numbers.

2. Perks and Skills are "gameplay" but it's boring gameplay. What's better? Playing a rogue in a game where you have to adapt to the environment, learn which objects provide better cover, like "hey if I hind behind that barrel there I'll be harder to spot than if I hid behind that bench, and being on this side of the street where there's ambient noise means it will be easier for me to hide, especially if it's dark, and if I wear these kinds of boots I make less noise, especially if I walk on specific surfaces at a specific speed. If I use this weapon it will be easier to kill quickly because of the shape of the weapon and I'm also skilled at doing that button combination" and so on.
OR a game where you just add 20 points into sneaking and bam you sneak better and your weapon has more numbers than your enemy's.It's bland. Both are gameplay but one makes you a part of the world, and helps you use the world to your advantage, the other is "add some numbers here and you do this better I guess". That's why a lot of RPG gameplay sucks, it's lazy.
As soon as you make a game with real time combat in which you have to move the character around and shoot/hit in real time the whole "Skills of the character" thing starts to fall apart because now the PLAYER is guiding the character by using his/her reflexes but the gameplay sucks because it's not responsive.

A ROLE playing game can be about the player assuming a role and staying in that role, it doesn't mean the player can't use his or her skills to progress, again you only know RPG's with classic mechanics.

Look, mate, what you're really looking for with this is a VR-based Everything Simulator tagged as an Action game. I've mentioned to you the distinction that separates RPGs with Action games, right?

3. I guess you don't know what a menu is. Ok I guess User Interface, nah it's buzz wordzzzzzzz.
I'm not sure what your rant about Lockpicking is, having a deep mechanic doesn't mean suddenly the whole game will be taken over by that mechanic and it's gonna turn into a "Lockpicking simulator".

Did you mean Character's Sheet? It's not just menu or UI. UI is, for example

Where things like HP and AP are shown, where you can choose to switch between weapons and attack modes and reload them, where you can interact with various objects shown on the screen, all the while the game is not paused. A menu is, for example

An item menu. Or more precisely, an inventory from what you can see here. Or that list of options you can choose when you pause the game. Or when you just boot up the game. And finally, a character sheet is:

Where all the entering numbers in the menu that you talked about. Which is a bread and butter of any proper RPGs.

And if you're not sure what my rant with Lockpicking is, then you should educate yourself properly on game developments. A final product you're talking about would've been a huge nightmare to design from a programmer/coder's perspective, IF they're being told to make it for an RPG, but if they're told to just make a game around Lockpicking then of course it would be called Lockpicking Simulator.

Aren't RPG's simulations though? Just very bad simulations in which you barely do the thing your character is supposed to be all about. Yeah you're a hunter but you don't really have in depth mechanics for the shooting and the animals, it's just add points here and you're done.

Nope. RPGs can simulate real-life behaviors within the context of what kind of game is being made, but it's not a simulation in a way Goat Simulator or Euro Truck Simulator are simulation games. And lol, in what kind of RPGs you've played where the characters you made barely do the thing your character is supposed to be all about? I can play Age of Decadence and roll a Thief character, and my character can do all the thievings he can do like he's supposed to be all about. Did you happen to make characters with shitty stats and skills that you can barely do what you think your character is supposed to be all about?

4. Of course it isn't, it was an example. Also yes the "outright deducting of points" won't have to change, but except "points" you focus on a couple of things you want your character to be about and you play that so you can become better at it. It's the same function but without the "gamey" element, which isn't quite right since you actually get more gameplay out if it rather than just adding "points".

Again, ignoring locks doesn't mean you can't lockpick that lock. Without providing a substantial way to limit one aspect of the gameplay when players focused on the other aspects, how would you make characters with defined strengths and weaknesses? How will you provide players with opportunity to become better at becoming one archetype while simultaneously preventing them from becoming any other archetype? Well, you already answered this question with, "Oh, players would just ignore them", in which case you got a LARPing simulator, not a proper RPG.

Also, complaining that games being 'gamey' is dumb.

And no I don't mean "Oh it's like skyrim, you just do whatever and get better at it", I mean proper deep mechanics, simulating character growth by you growing as a player, the mechanics would be deep enough and the encounter complex enough as to where you would need to commit to getting better at it. Again it's probably not a game you'd like but it doesn't make it less of an RPG, and no it doesn't have to be about combat.

Except players aren't always the character they made nor it's the case vice versa. And again, in the end, the game you're talking about would just be some Everything Simulator because you can't define a character's strengths and weaknesses nor can you prevent one character archetype from accessing the abilities of other character archetype.

Also I don't see the problem of a character being able to learn new things, in real life people don't stay static, I didn't know how to use the GECK to import models and place them around the world, or edit the weather, I didn't know how to use a chainsaw but with effort I learned. If you want to play the ROLE of a static character you can totally stay in that role all you want, no one is stopping you.

Except this is just a game, not real-life. Real-life has its own sets of rules, so does a game. The moment the an RPG allows you to access abilities from multiple type of characters, it fails as an RPG.

"How can you achieve this specific configuration by taking away stats and skills, and giving us this 'figure it yourself' gameplay?"
I don't know man, maybe you stay in character in a role playing game and play without touching things you don't want your character to get good at, like in standard RPG's LARPing simulators.

Fixed that for you.

5. The problem is, there is no problem and you guys are Sawyer is just making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Fixed this as well.

Sawyer isn't seeing "problems" he's seeing different ways of doing things, no one is going to remove your games, there will still be plenty of studios that are too lazy to try and diviate from the formula, there will still be companies that want to recreate nostalgia.

Your word, not Sawyer's

“Fans tend to skew towards the more hardcore cases and they tend to be fairly resistant to change. I don’t want to paint too broad of a stroke there but RPGs can be a lot more than we have done with them so far. There’s much more than we can do and its much more radical.

“I’m also contributing to the problem,” he added. “Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 are very traditional role playing games. But the genre can go in a number of different directions it’s just a matter of framing the project size and things that meet up in the same place.”

Also, you've been absolutely out of touch with the industry if you think other studios are 'too lazy to try and deviate from the formula'. Age of Decadence's and Underrail's developers each reminded us few possible directions RPGs can go to evolve. AoD with its vast reactivity and spiderweb-like narrative intertwined so well with its gameplay, while Underrail have intricate system where NPCs are attracted to the sound and when sneaky characters stayed too long in their line of sight, not to mention it has THE best stealth system in a cRPG as far as I know, and pickpocketing system are completely savescumming-proof. I'm a relatively newcomer to the genre, so I'd assume there are other RPGs that has achieved what AoD and UR's done, but I can tell you there are very little RPGs that managed to achieve what this two indie-games have done in 2015.

Also, the upcoming Disco Elysium (formerly known as No Truce with the Furies) and Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones are also RPGs-in-development that actually tries anything to 'evolve the genre'

You don't like it, someone else does, which means there is an audience, Sawyer is just too blind to see that it's not the RPG crowd because to them RPG means a very specific thing. Sawyer can easily just remove the RPG from the description and the game will still be an RPG, just without you guys complaining. The whole RPG genre at this point is so pigeon holed that the only way for his game to have true freedom is to abandon the label.

How nice of you to completely ignore @Risewild's post

"when in fact he wanted to develop the games that make all the big bucks like the ones made by Bethesda and Bioware." and that's making a mountain out of a mole hill. Point stands, if it's a game without numbers and stats and perks you guys won't consider it an RPG, can't get more pigeon holed than that, well you can but whatever.

Context, smarty-pants. If you're really in touch with the industry in the last 20 years, you would've known about the interview with Feargus Urquhart and how he wants to make the next Skyrim. Not to mention I also already linked up Tim Cain's talk in previous page.

Dark Souls is an ACTION RPG, it focuses on ACTION. A game can have GOOD COMBAT, without focusing on it, does u comprehand? Also a game can have GOOD mechanics outside of COMBAT without being a combat focused rpg.

Ever heard design priority, mate? Do you think someone would spend all the many making a jack of all trade kind of game?

Yes, a game can have good combat without focusing on it, but that would means the developers already have the experience in making good combat AND needs very little resources to make it again, either because of his experience or because he simply took his previous game's engine and begin adding non-combat interaction to it. Question is, does Sawyer and his team in Obsidian have an engine with good combat, so that he can just focus on non-combat interaction and ignore combat gameplay mechanic all the way through the development? Oh, also don't ignore the bugs.

Jesus it's like you have DS and Skyrim implanted in your brain.

I can say the same about you, but with Sawyer and your inability to differentiate genres and preferences.

Plus I looked up Action-RPG, all it says is that is has real time combat instead of turn based combat, so by that definition NV is an Action RPG, which you seem to hate for some reason, Morrowind is an action RPG. And all those relics of the past mechanics do is make the real time combat clunky.

From where did you get an impression that I don't like Action RPGs? I love Dark Souls and New Vegas. You must be special if you think I hate Action RPGs, when all I say is not all RPGs has to be an Action RPGs.

Whatever man, as I said no one will steal your games away from you just because a guy wants to actually try something new and isn't living in the past. Things shouldn't stay the same, they should evolve, the current system is flawed but there will always be people who like it, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with going in a different direction.

Indeed. Guys like folks at ZA/UM Studios and Cultic Games are definitely trying something new and isn't living in the past. In fact, one is making Disco Elysium, an RPG that's trying to implement a much better dialogue system for an RPG and have no traditional combat gameplay mechanic, while the other is making Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones that's trying to implement an intricate Fear and Sanity-based mechanic within the context of what kind of RPG they're making, as we speak.

Again, if you're commited to playing a static character you won't start learning new things, that's why it's called role playing, you play a role. Also life doesn't work like this, people don't stay the same forever, yeah yeah "But this is a game", alright. Keep seeing that, people say it to dismiss things they don't like but when it's something they like they say "it makes perfect sense and is more realistic". Such is human nature.

To your inability to differentiate between just 'roleplaying' and 'roleplaying games', I'm just going to quote @Kohno here

One should consider the relation between the terms roleplaying and game here. Roleplaying, in isolation, is something you can do anytime anywhere with or without a game. All you need is an incentive and imagination.

Here, though, the terms are intertwined together wherein the game is to roleplay; meaning that the game has to provide and support the opportunities within its context wholesale so that even if you didn't consciously set out to "roleplay" the game makes you do it regardless (because that is the game). It doesn't mean that you only get to do a few characteristic dialog choices and then move on to play that "other" game within the product where you do all sorts of action through playing your controls (instead of your character - the role) and later return again to make those "characteristic" dialog choices; that you do a little bit of roleplaying here and there amidst an action game. It has to do it wholesale. Morrowind is an RPG, it's high and low points can be debated, but it is more of an RPG than - for example - Skyrim, or even New Vegas simply through its mechanical trappings (where the latter two much more clearly represent a "subgenre" at best).

Any way, yes it's just a game. No, it's not something I say to something I dislike, while at the same I say the opposite to what I like. There's clear definition between saying, "It's just like real-life!" and saying, "It makes perfect sense!". Because what makes perfect sense in a game and in real-life are two completely different things. Does turn-based combat makes perfect sense in real-life? No, but it makes perfect sense in a game that decides to utilize turn-based combat.

8.Nothing new to add here, yet again rushing to explain how as soon as a developer touches a new idea it will be just like how Bethesda did things and the idea will overtake everything. Fallout 4 isn't bad because it had decent combat, it's bad because Bethesda is a garbage developer and can't make a decent game, that's why they focused on mostly the combat and settlement building.

From where did you get the impression that I'm implying Fallout 4 is bad because it had decent combat?

Though you seem to understand that a bit, NV isn't good because stats and numbers and perks, it's good because, of many things that I don't have the patience to go trough actually but let's just say player choice and good storytelling, world building and characters help a bit. Also the game didn't look ugly like Fallout 3.

Nonsense. NV is good EXACTLY because of all the stats, numbers, and perks. The stats actually matter compared to how it was implemented in Fallout 3, the perks aren't those boring "+15 to skill" perks like in Fallout 1, 2, and 3. Oh yes, New Vegas is actually an example of RPGs can evolve within the context of a game series. Fallout 1, 2, and 3 mostly had those boring perks where all it does is simply increasing a skill when you can already do that by allocating skill points into it. New Vegas got rid of those completely, replacing them with really unique perks that allows the characters to play around the rules a bit and bend it to character's will. The most boring you can get with perks in New Vegas is the ones that increase damage dealt by some weapons, but even that allows the players to greatly define the strengths of the characters they've made. And because you can only take perks every 2 levels (as opposed to Fallout 3's perks every level) that means you just can't get most of the perks, thus the weaknesses of your characters can be defined thanks to this limitation instead 'oh just ignore everything else' thingy you've been mentioning in this thread. And then look at Fallout 4 getting rid of skills completely, and you ended up with a clusterfuck of a mess trying to make characters you really want because you just can't define a type of characters and distinguish it from another, since you ended up having to take specific perks which functionality can easily be replaced by skills.

Also, you must be really blind to think New Vegas isn't as ugly as Fallout 3. They're both as ugly in terms of graphical fidelity, exact same engine and shit.

Bethesda RPG's come to mind, WoW is also pretty terrible gameplay wise, the original Fallout games aren't that amazing in gameplay either. Even good RPG's still mostly have terrible to mediocre gameplay compared to other games. Is Terraria an RPG? Guess it's a sandbox RPG, that has decent gameplay.

Bethesda's RPGs past Morrowind have shit gameplay, indeed. In fact, some people would actually consider the decline began with Morrowind, and Daggerfall was the peak of Bethesda's good games/RPG. Now, the original Fallouts might not have amazing combat mechanics, but I would say they have other aspects of gameplay that's the most amazing as you can get. For example, all that interaction you can do with objects shown on the screen by way of right-clicking on them? They just don't do it anymore in later RPGs. No longer can you see some hole in the ground that leads to an underground research facility, or a broken lift, and then figuring out by yourself that you need a rope. But here's the catch: any other games would just proceed to the next stage once you're in possession of the rope. Not Fallout 1&2, oh no. In Fallout 1&2, you have to manually right-click on that hole in the ground, select 'Inventory' icon, select 'Rope', and then, and only then, your character will proceed to next stage. You might think this is inconvenient for the players, but it's not. The application is VAST, because you can also decide to mess with NPCs by planting grenades in them or pump them up full of drugs, you can use your skills where it's relevant (like using Traps skill to detect and disarm traps in containers, if there's any). It's sad that no RPGs that came out later that I know of have any kind of that freeform gameplay. The possibilities with that kind of interaction is endless. That is as revolutionary as you can get, at least in terms of trying to emulate P&P gameplay in a computer game.

9. Dislike something? Just say it's "buzzwords".
Anyway YES you were able to DO THOSE things, getting on my nerves now.
But a lot of the time it would recycle animations and the game would give you a text explanation as to what happened. Limited view, limited animations.

So what if they have to recycle animations? This is an isometric format-based game. You CAN get away with recycling animations because you don't need anymore than necessary. How much do you think it would cost them if they are to animate every single realistic movement?
Also, it's retarded to refer top-down isometric view as 'limited' perspective, when FPP and TPP are also limited in their own way. In New Vegas, objects can only render when you get close to them, where you ended up with objects appearing out of nowhere and disappearing out of will from your screen. In Fallout 1&2, aside from objects hidden by Fog of War, everything else is rendered completely. No, don't get there and say something like "objects not rendering in FPP is because it's Fog of War!" because I'm sure the last time I played Counter Strike, there are no such thing as FoW in that kind of games and objects all rendered completely and perfectly at every distance.

Go into combat? Oh shit you can't really use your environment that well due to the limited perspective and of course it would be a pain in the ass to make. So, turn combat! Limited control, you get some action points to walk a bit, shoot, eat a pizza. Fallout NV? You can jump around from rock to rock, enter a building quickly take out a bat smash some guy, take his gun idk, less limited, you can play around with objects and such, move them around.

As if you can't do all that in Fallout 1&2 in just your one turn.

Ah yeah, not animate more activities, that's why it's limited, why are you contradicting yourself? Also storage space might have something to do with it as well, idk. Point is, things are recycled and sometimes the game explains what's going on because it can't show you.

You are the ones contradicting yourself. You've been talking about how limited the animations and shit and instead, they should've animate every single realistic movement AND at the same time making this game with a system where players can figure everything by themselves. And now that you know they have limited budget, and wants them all to go to animating every single realistic movement, and then what? Where would they get the budget to design this 'figure everything yourself' system, Mr. Big Brain?

"Yes limited, by today's standards. With today's technology you can give way more sounds to an NPC which means during combat the NPC can give you AUDIO queue on how damaged it is, when it's about to die, if it's about to flank you and so on, you can use decals so that the more you shoot an enemy the more covered in bullets or blood it gets like in Serious Sam HD, you can use animations so the creature starts limping or the human gets tired and starts running more slowly and so on. But I guess that has nothing on those badass 5 frames of sprite animation.

Limited by today's standards, huh? Then name me just 1 game that has "more sounds to an NPC which means during combat the NPC can give you AUDIO queue on how damaged it is, when it's about to die, if it's about to flank you and so on, you can use decals so that the more you shoot an enemy the more covered in bullets or blood it gets like in Serious Sam HD, you can use animations so the creature starts limping or the human gets tired and starts running more slowly and so on." and at the same time have wide arrays of player choices and good storytelling, world building and characters, coupled with all the good shits that Fallout 1 has like freeform interaction.

Music is good, can't fault that. However I'd argue Fallout is nowhere NEAR as atmospheric as a game like STALKER, and with the new Fallout games you can make the case almost any game is more atmospheric than them, HL1, System Shock 2 made me soil my pants, Quake 1 has more atmosphere. But yes the original FO games are good in terms of atmosphere.
I'm still not sure what you mean by "kickass", is that a buzzword? Certainly it can't be the quality of the animations because they're pretty... dated. Is it the gore factor? As I said, games these days have improved a lot, Serious Sam 3 has beautiful creature animations and deaths, HL2 has beautiful animations, at least for the creatures, any game really. If you mean sprites there are many sprite based games with amazing animations, not even sure what to bring up here since I'm not sure if you want specifically RPG's in the same style as Fallout 1/2.
But I must say I enjoy the style of the earlier games, even if the visuals are dated. As for the sounds, idk as I said games have improved a lot and they're not as limited, there are many soundtracks and sounds out there that are kickass, the Half Life games have amazing creature sounds, a lot of them sound so alien and weird and disturbing, a lot of cool ambient music

It's not even a new game, again SS2 enemies made me soil my pants due to their audio

It's all preferences really, I can probaly say Zoo Tycoon 2 has better quality audio but if you mean the tone of the actual recordings, it's all subjective. Gonna bring up STALKER but that amazing audio as well, I like to compare the atmosphere to Fallout.

Aren't we talking specifically about RPGs? SS2, I get it, but fucking STALKER? Half-Life? Serious Sam? ZOO TYCOON? I'll admit I wasn't quite specific when I asked that question, should've typed 'RPGs'. I will also admit that I've only played SS2 for its first 30 minutes of gameplay or so, but can't continue now because my laptop is dying. But everything you've been saying so far, and especially with this no. 9, it all reeks of preference instead of proper understanding of the genre.

Also, now that I'm fully aware of what we two are actually discussing here, please note that within the context of what Sawyer's talking about, what he really meant is in terms of GAME DESIGN. He wants to design an RPG system where stats and system doesn't define it, or just doesn't matter at all depending on how much you understand the context of what he talked about when placed next with the state of the industry in the last 20 years, and Urguhart's and Cain's talks. He's a VIDEO GAME DESIGNER, not an animator, graphic designer or audio designer. He doesn't fiddle with all those trivial stuff like animations, visuals, audios, or how realistic the characters movements are when developing the games. His job is DESIGNING A GAME, of which what constitute just about any kind of games, not just RPGs, are its' rules and system. Now do you get why it came out as really weird? How he's saying that 'system' shouldn't define RPGs, when 'system' are what defines just about any other kind of games and separate them from walking simulators and interactive novels/movies?

Not really. What's with you and Dark Souls?

Are you dense? You're saying things like,

You are missing the point, you can play a role in any game but not all games support all roles, you can still have a game support all kinds of roles but instead of progressing trough entering numbers in a menu, you progress by adapting to the world and situation around you, you get better at using a certain type of sword not because you put numbers in a menu but because you trough trial and error have found out the best way to use that weapon.

And

You don't need those numbers anymore, you can have that information be conveyed through animations, sounds/dialogue, decals, sprites and so on. You can have that information be conveyed trough actual gameplay, you would still need to "level up" but not trough increasing numbers.

In Dark Souls, you adapted to the world and situation around you to progress (!), you get better at using a certain type of sword and just about any other kind of weapons (!) through trial and error until you find the best way to use it (!). Every information are conveyed through animations, sounds/dialogue, decals, sprites and so on (which seems like they're the gameplay for you).

IT TOOK it in a different direction, but it's not the game I'm talking about, and it doesn't mean it's the game he's talking about. Skyrim dumbed down its systems but it still has those systems. The goal is not to remove those systems without replacing them so even if it did that it still wouldn't be the, ah why am I even trying.

It took the wrongest direction, as wrong as directions can be. And yes, the game you're talking about is definitely not what Sawyer's talking about. I doubt Sawyer's concerning himself with some petty animations where character's hands are lockpicking a lockpicking or anything trivial like that. And look at how bad Skyrim is as an RPG because it dumbed down its system.

By the way, how you would learn tactics? You can make the combat more advanced than simply HIT HIT HIT DODGE. It isn't worth going into a deep explanation since I know you'll just dismiss it, but games with complex combat systems exist, like Mount and Blade (no it doesn't need to be exactly like that). You can design the AI to communicate attacks better, give different patterns, again rely on visual data outside of numbers, like the npc's getting tired and the animations showing it, the sounds they make, the blood decals and so on. Yes Bethesda games have a bit of visual queues but they're so poorly communicated it's not worth comparing.

Yes, yes, yes, but from where Sawyer is going to get the budget to design this dream RPG of yours where you figure out everything by yourself, and you have to ignore other gameplay aspect to define the weaknesses of your character, and at the same animated EVERYTHING?

Ways you interact with the game and how it interacts with you, the rules. It can be trough mechanics that allow you to use your environmets wisely to sneak around and complex pizzles when you hack or lockpick, it can be how you fight and how the enemies react to that and so on. So you can have a game where you go from cover to cover avoiding energetic AI that uses the environment to hide and flank and there can be creatures that attack in very specific ways that demand different styles of gameplay, like the wherebulls from Serious Sam, the Kleer skeletions, the Bullsquids, Houndeyes from Half Life, the antlions, it can be like the Eater of Worlds from Terraria for instance, really anything that demands attention and strategy from you, changes up the pace, has weak spots and is very different from each other.
Thief which has very complex sneaking mechanics and so on, generally it helps when the game strongly demands you to adapt to your environment.

Sounds like everything Fallout 1&2 have and more, and also obviously later cRPGs that came out and improved upon aspects that Fallout 1&2 are only mediocre and bad at.
Also, again, different developers have different design philosophy and focus and priorities. Thief developers managed to design a complex sneaking mechanics, ONLY because they focused on making games with that kind of stuff. If Thief's developers are to, say, begin to design a complex combat gameplay mechanic where every realistic movement is animated and every thing has audio cues AND on top of that they also have to work on the numbers so they can simulate moment-to-moment combat gameplay mechanics (like HP being deducted because of damage or restored because of healing) (no, you can't escape the numbers. To make games, you need to be programmers and coders, remember?), ON TOP of keeping the complex sneaking mechanics working perfectly in conjunction to the new mechanics (I can only imagine all the nightmare of keeping them bug free or minimize all the bugs).... Nah, I'm sure the game would just become a vaporware not even halfway through the development, or maybe not even get exposed to the public at all because of how stupid it is to even think about attempt such gargantuan task.

Developers need to focus their design priorities and be clear with what kind of games they want to make, and stick to their guns.

This are just examples of what "gameplay" is, it doesn't mean I want a hardcore super actior oriented RPG.

Yes, you are.

To be honest it's not as complex as it sounds, I don't want "real life" amounts of complexity, again this post is too long anyway and it's a waste of time explaining in detail a whole game.

Bullfuckingshit. What's the point with wanting everything to be animated and everything to have audio if you don't want 'real-life' amounts of complexity? Not even after you mentioned things like, "Also I don't see the problem of a character being able to learn new things, in real life people don't stay static."

I already mentioned in a past comment that it will be expensive, also change doesn't happen not just due to money limitations but because a lot of studios don't see the point. Why spend money and effort to make something new when you can make the same things constantly and people would buy it anyway, hell you can be like Bethesda and do a worse job each time and no one will care.

Oh man, you really ARE out of touch with the current state of the industry, aren't you? If you really think no studios aside from Sawyer are not spending money and effort to make something new, you can't be more wrong. Not to mention Sawyer HASN'T really spend any money and effort to actually make something new, or even show some concept or a prototype to really back up his words. I'll just keep mentioning to you, again and again, that cRPGs that came out in 2015 like AoD and Underrail has managed to evolve the genre in some way, or at the very least showed us all that made RPGs good in the first place can still be brought back to the current year. And of course, as we speak, Disco Elysium and Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, and also RPGs like Copper Dreams and more are being developed as we speak, each has shown a proof of concept to show that they're working to evolve the genre, and we 'traditionalists' are actually looking forward to their final product and is supporting them so it won't turn out to be shit.

Yes the numbers are part of the code, but you can hide the numbers when it comes to the player side of things, you can't make a game without math, I know, what I mean is you shouldn't have the math be part of this Role Playing experience because the Player doesn't need it anymore, you can convey actions without showing how things work behind the scenes.

Yes, math shouldn't be part of a Role Playing experience, but they're certainly part of Role Playing Games experience. Let's take a look at New Vegas. There are multiple type of weapons, one of them being Guns. And then there's multiple type of Guns, right? Like Pistols, Rifles, Shotguns, etc etc. Now, let's take a look at Pistols. There are .22LR, .357 Magnum Round, .44 Magnum Round, among other things. Even for .22LR alone, there is multiple version of this specific ammo. Standard version that deals normal damage, Hollow Point deals normal damage but incur multiplied DT, and Plinking that deals less damage. There are also Armor Piercing Rounds that reduce DT upon attacking using that rounds. How would you except players to tell the difference between versions of ammo and understanding how effective one compared to the others? Only giving simple descriptions like, "This ammo pierce through armor." or, give the numbers like "Damage x 0.75, DT -20"? Yes, the name 'Armor Piercing' should already tell you what you need, but how about Hollow Point? "This ammo deals increased damage but incurs multiplied DT". Non-native English speakers would probably have a hard time to understand what that means, but "Damage x 1.75, DT x 3" will tell literally anyone with decent understanding of math that it means Hollow Point rounds deal increased damaged but target's DT is tripled, regardless what language they speak fluently.

Yes, New Vegas also managed to partly convey how effective an AP rounds by showing how easy it is to break that DT icon that's right next to an enemy's HP bar, but bear with me. Games like Underrail doesn't have anything like that nor needing anything like it, because the numbers are sufficient to show how effective an AP round is.

And then there are other gameplay aspect that you need to consider like armor reduction and stuff like that. You just can't convey armor breaking unless you spend shitton of budget to animate it to the smallest details... or just go with the numbers, it's much simpler.

Now that it's out of the way, I just came to realize why Cain's and Sawyer's talk about removing numbers and how RPGs shouldn't be defined by stats and system just came out as really odd.

Cain's work in Fallout 1 was definitely a stepping stone for bigger, better RPG, and it spawns Fallout 2. Yes, there are many things wrong with Fallout 2, starting from disjointed and rather short development, to all the bugs they can't fix in time. But Fallout 1&2 came out during the days where its audience can appreciate it for what it is, and despite of coming out during the decline of PC gaming and the rise of console gaming, it still sells pretty well to attract the attention of Bethesda. And despite Arcanum coming out years later during the long fall of PC gaming, it and Fallout 1&2 came with a manual (!) so that means there's absolutely no complain about character creation being 'too/ridiculously complex' whatsoever at the time.
And then, we have Sawyer commenting on how 'RPGs shouldn't be defined by stats and system', and that 'RPG traditionalists are resistant to change', when the truth is RPGs has ALWAYS been defined by stats and system, and what he didn't seem to notice is that it's the stats and system that CAN be improved and expanded upon. That part about RPG traditionalists being resistant to change is also obnoxious, because
1. He made Pillars of Eternity and its DLCs. And if he really, REALLY think that traditionalists are being resistant to change, then why is he developing Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire?
2. If he only paid attention to how industry is going on the indie scene, he would know these 'traditionalists' he's referring to are looking forward to upcoming stuff like Disco Elysium, Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, Copper Dreams etc etc, PRECISELY BECAUSE THOSE GAMES IN-DEVELOPMENT ARE TRYING COMPLETELY NEW THINGS!.
3. Instead, he referred to how the genre can evolve by pointing out to what Bethesda's done with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, when in truth it's actually how NOT to make RPGs.

So, yeah. I think that's why Cain's and Sawyer's talk came out as really, really strange. One can always analyze it in context to how the industry's been faring in the last 20 years, but that's not the case with all these indie-projects showing us what they're really doing all this time.

 

[Crni Vuk]

What Bethesda does, is nothing more but 'stream-lining' their games, to use some friendly words here for a change. That's pretty much all they do. I mean compare Daggerfall to Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Each game had less options and skills for the player to chose from. You can argue that not all of them had a use, but Morrowind was mechanicaly much more complex than Skyrim and it was at least for me a joy, to completely break the game with extremly high abilities. It simply gave the game debth.

Hell, Bethesda games today are even 'smaller' compard to Daggerfall.

Sawyer can do whatever he wants. If he wants to shift towards casual ARPG games, then, well, he'll still rake in cash. Just not mine.

I am not so sure about that. It's very tempting to look at very popular games and to think, all you have to do is to simply change the gameplay, release it and you're done.

CoD for example has generated a hell of a lot of money, but it also costs a lot, at least 100 million dollar in marketing these days. There are only a handfull of games that make that much profit and the market for those is relatively saturated.

 

[Snark567]

"the truth is RPGs has ALWAYS been defined by stats and system"
Yes and movies have always been defined by being black and white and silent
The systems can be tweaked but they can also be removed, there might be a day where people will say "RPGs USED to be defined by stats".

I won't try to explain a concept you can't grasp cause all I hear from you is "buzzwords"

I'll just use your logic in other genres of games.

A game isn't a Platformer unless you break bricks, hit blocks that give you items like coins and use pipes to go to secret parts of a level.

A game isn't an FPS game unless you rocket jump and use medkits.

A game isn't a Horror game unless your vision gets blurry when you see the monster. Or it isn't a horror game unless it has bad voice acting and a fixed camera.

An game isn't an Open World game unless the world is procedurally generated.

A game isn't a Sanbox Game unless you build with blocks.

Let's move to other forms of media.

A movie isn't a movie unless it's Black and white with no sound because "the truth is Movies have ALWAYS been defined by the lack of color"

Types of movies? A movie isn't really an Action Movie unless the main character is jacked and says one-liners while things explode.

Music? It's not music unless played on classical instruments, if it uses anything else then it should be called "Organized noise" or something that only people with low IQ would listen to.

Because the real world is like Bethesda's Fallout games where nothing ever changes.

 

[Risewild]

The only bullshit is your entire post. Yes you assume a role in almost every game, but not every game allows you to assume many roles, not many games are dedicated to provide an in depth expirience with each role.

What you gave here is your personal description of what a Role Playing Game should be, if you search online for an explanation on what an RPG means, you'll get many different answers. Some sites say it's a game where you assume the role of a character, other sites say it's a game that uses aspects from DnD, the term itself is so useless.

No, this is not my personal description. This is what ALL the RPGs (read again ALL the RPGs) ever made share in common. I can out of my head list all the RPGs I can and they will all be like this. Can you name any "RPG" that is not like that?

Again, take NV, remove the numbers, replace the skills and perks with gameplay but still make the progression the same. Instead of just adding 20 points to medicine, you actually practice medicine and get good trough learning different ways to solve things.

What is gameplay? Describe it, because I am sure it must be something magical that no other game made until today has.
So, we remove all the skills and numbers and practice medicine. How do we practice medicine using our skills and not the character's skills, press buttons? Also you realize that by "improving" medicine it means there are numbers in it? You can't improve something like that in a game without increasing numbers or decreasing %.
How does your character get good through learning different ways of solve things without numbers?
Whatever you are trying to describe there, NV would still be a Shooter and I guess Simulation, not a RPG. In Shooters, the only way of improving the skills of the characters is by improving the skills of the player, because shooters rely on the player's reflexes, hand-eye coordination, experience, etc.
How in the world would you quantify your character's skills/abilities without numbers? The player might be better at doing things, but the game will need numerical values (even if they are hidden) to quantify how good your character is at anything.

Let's take your NV example, so let's say that the game doesn't have any skills and you get better at medicine by playing a minigame where you have to move the cursor in a specific way or you will kill the patient or something. How will the game know when your character improved? How does doing that make the game a RPG?

Again I point out that in my previous post I mentioned that you need the character skill to interact with the world, if a RPG loses that it stops being a RPG because it turns into a different already existing genre. If NV relied on minigames (that the players use their skills to beat) every time your character needed to do something, the game would become a Shooter, Puzzle/Minigame, Adventure game. If you say that it was still a RPG, then please specify why it wouldn't be the genres I mentioned?
I say it would be those because it doesn't have the fundamental mechanics of a RPG, so why would it be a RPG for you but not a Shooter, Puzzle/Minigame, Adventure game?

This is a typical example (I mentioned previously) of people forgetting that there are other genres already, and if you remove that specific RPG system from the RPG, it becomes one or several of the other gaming genres.

Let's take it the other way. How can we turn a shooter into a RPG? How can we turn Doom into a RPG? Is it by adding dialogue? Hmm, that would still be a shooter. Would it be by adding quests? Nope, still a shooter. What about adding special attacks and an inventory system that requires management? Nope, still a shooter.
So how do we turn Doom into a RPG? We add attributes and skills to Doom Guy and the enemies.
We add an attribute and/or skill that makes Doom Guy be able to use specific guns, we add an attribute and/or skill to see if Doom Guy can dodge enemy attacks, We add an attribute and/or skill to see if Doom Guy can hit the enemy. We do that with the enemies too and just by doing that, it suddenly becomes a RPG.
Might be a crappy RPG, but it is a RPG indeed. You can make it have exp and make Doom Guy level so he can increase his skills/attributes, you can make it so those skills/attributes rise with use, you can make it so they rise when Doom Guy reaches specific "checkpoints", you can make it so Doom Guy can't raise them at all. or even decrease them in whatever fashion you want. It doesn't matter, it is a RPG.

 

[Snark567]

"So, we remove all the skills and numbers and practice medicine. How do we practice medicine using our skills and not the character's skills, press buttons? Also you realize that by "improving" medicine it means there are numbers in it?"
You figure out yourself how to make a certain type of medicine, how to apply it trough NPC's explaing that to you, or reading books. You play what you guys call "Mini" games however things would be more in depth, if a character has a broken limb each time it would be different depending on how broken the limb is and you'd need to use different "tactics" to "fix" it rather than just pressing an auto heal button when you have 40 points in medicine.

I won't make the reply longer because it seems like the longer the replies are the less people actually stop to read the previous ones. I explained in a previous post how that sort of gameplay would work in terms of Lock Picking.


Also you seem to agree that skills and numbers and perks don't make an RPG because you constantly bring up action games and say "Oh well when you add those numbers and stuff it's still not an RPG" who would have guessed


Edit: Also NV still uses player skills, since the player chooses where to invest his points and so on. You can't have a full on character without player input.

 

[Black Angel]

Yes and movies have always been defined by being black and white and silent

I won't try to explain a concept you can't grasp cause all I hear from you is "buzzwords"

I'll just use your logic in other genres of games.

A game isn't a Platformer unless you break bricks, hit blocks that give you items like coins and use pipes to go to secret parts of a level.

A game isn't an FPS game unless you rocket jump and use medkits.

A game isn't a Horror game unless your vision gets blurry when you see the monster. Or it isn't a horror game unless it has bad voice acting and a fixed camera.

An game isn't an Open World game unless the world is procedurally generated.

A game isn't a Sanbox Game unless you build with blocks.

Let's move to other forms of media.

A movie isn't a movie unless it's Black and white with no sound because "the truth is Movies have ALWAYS been defined by the lack of color"

Types of movies? A movie isn't really an Action Movie unless the main character is jacked and says one-liners while things explode.

Music? It's not music unless played on classical instruments, if it uses anything else then it should be called "Organized noise" or something that only people with low IQ would listen to.

Because the real world is like Bethesda's Fallout games where nothing ever changes.

You know what, I fucking give up. Welcome to my ignore list. If this guy keeps going on like this to the others instead of properly addressing the points being made, I would request every post he made that's not contributing to the discussion to be vatted.

Edit: I would like to admit I made a mistake of dismissing this guy's lack of vocabulary as buzzwords, but not like this. I made points after points to explain what has been known in the industry for a whooping 30+ years and all he did is shoot at one sentence of mine and dismissed the rest as buzzwords. What a fucking waste of time.