Everything is an opinion, what's your point? If you don't like the game, you don't play it.
Yes, you do. The key here a rogue, a hunter, a what ever. If the stats didn't simulate that to different degrees as per how you play, you would just like you would in Thief or Half Life, and then the experience of that rogue or hunter would always be the same. There'd be no inept rogues or bad hunters (or good ones, if the game just too hard for you).
No you wouldn't, again take the minigame concept and apply it to the whole game. The more you play with a fire arm the better you get, your character for instance reload faster, repair the weapon faster, enter ironsights mode faster, he can be more accurate at shooting while walking, less recoil the more experienced he is and if you want someone who can't shoot to save his life, you can choose someone who has never seen a fire arm in his life.
However if it's a game with real time action it wouldn't make sense for you to shoot directly and see the bullets fly to the side, that doesn't make sense, it also doesn't make sense for the weapon to do more damage the more you progress. Again that comes from the style of game, if it has a limited perspective you can't have the same control, however in a game that is first or third person, how much damage you do to your enemy will depend on where you shoot them.
Again it's a game, and that's like an unspoken rule, if it's a platformer you don't make it so the character has only 10% chance to jump properly unless they invest in skills. If it's an isometric RPG it won't feel good if your character only goes in the right direction 50% of the time because in game he doesn't know the way. If you're controlling him and he does the opposite it feels bad.
The RPG - optimally - attempts to put you and that other guy on the same line regardless of your differences and faculties and give both of you the same possibility to succeed. Both having an awful hunter as a character means the same thing for you both, how either of you would proceed from there is where the statistical progression comes into play, and at the end game you could have marksman level bowman while the other guy decided to spread out with his abilities and now has a ranger.
Again you can't remove skill entirely and that doesn't mean RPG's that require some skill won't be RPG's. If you can't aim your gun properly or turn around the mouse to hit something in an RPG because you have bad reflexes, does that mean the RPG is bad? Maybe if everything was just an interactive movie it would be more fair.
Also as I said, there will be progression, but without the skills. Actually I'm wording myself badly, the skills will still be there, you just won't be able to see the numbers and the game will convey things trough animations, sounds, AI, the interaction with the world and so on.
Yes you can. That's why the stats are there. But you can't unlearn how to play a game without waiting until you've forgotten. That's why, once you've learned how to master it, you will always play as a master.
THAT makes no sense, as I said the skill progression is still there. Also this applies to any game ever, even RPG's, once you have played them, you know how things work. It's as if you don't want a game at all.
Yes. That's how you play an RPG.
And that's how it will be, but you'll "invest" by doing the thing you want to progress at and you'll get better over time naturally, not just adding points in a UI.
But the point is that once you've learned it, you can't not know how to do them anymore. An on the other hand, if they're just too much for you to learn and master, you're always going to be fucked by them - that means you might never be able to play a master lockpicker because it's just out of your reach.
Ok, again once you learn a game you know how it works, once you learn to lockpick in NV you know how the mechanic works, however in games like NV the mechanic is very simple, has very little variation and stays the same. You won't get fucked by them always, RPG's already work like that, if you try to pick a strong lock or whatever it tells you to go fuck yourself. You can go back and try weaker locks.
However once you remove the requirement, you can make it so you try to lockpick higher level stuff and succeed if you put in the effort, and you can also go back to weaker lockpicks or go training (which will probably just allow you to practice with weaker lockpicks) and the more you practice, the more advanced ways you learn to lockpick so higher level minigames become easier. There you got progression.
I'm very confused what you want, you want to be able to create a character who can't lockpick very well but as soon as I give an example of such a character you say that higher level lockpicks will be hard for them. Isn't that how it already works? You want a character good with swords but bad with bows. That's how RPG's work, if you want to get good with a bow you need to train.
Here, again, the range of stats calculates the characters aptitude regardless of your own skill or the lack thereof, and the results vary accordingly.
So basically what I said. You're good at something, bad at something else. What's the problem? Also it's not regardless if your own skill, again, as long as it's a game, skill will be involved.
So, you'd want there to be statistical progression afterall?
YES, that's the point, but you progress by playing the game without having to add numbers in a skill tree or whatever. You don't need them, you can convey everything with the in game world.
Yeah, I would say so too. But I think you missed the context there.
Nah
That's the avatar simulation I mentioned earlier. You play the given character like you would in Half Life, and you'd master the gameplay, and then the character'd never be a beginner again and the next game you start, you start as already having mastered a good chunk of it.
That counts for every game ever made. Also as I said, if you want to be a rogue in a new game, and you make it so right from the get go, the character has no actual history of sneaking around. You would have a harder time sneaking, the character for instance might be lousy on their feet, if they suck with a bow they might now be able to attach a rope somewhere because they can't shoot the arrow far enough. You won't be able to use specific items unless you prove yourself to other characters and so on. The progression is there but you just removed the unneeded numbers, because you as a player don't need to see them.
The stats provide versatility and diversity to the gameplay that you can't master since you are not in full control. Ergo, even if you replayed the same character as in previous game, you could not cheese it with having mastered the controls.
But that doesn't make sense, as I said, you will be bad at something if you decide to start with a character who is bad at it. There will be player skill but a lot of it will also be on to the in game character itself, it's a video game, you play the game.
You won't be able to get the special tools or special techniques in a character that isn't made around lockpicking even if you played a game with a character who was. You won't be able to sneak perfectly just because you leveled a character who did so before.
It's still an RPG but without the numbers. It's a blend of skill and in world logic or whatever.
