What makes a great RPG?

[EgonSpengler]

In many past situations I have found that the complaint really translates to "all the different skill possibilities cannot be interchangeably used within my very small spectrum of playstyles."

Personally, I play like a tank. If I choose the right skills for a tank the game is easier than if I choose the wrong skills for a tank, because I'm still most likely going to play like a tank. If there are skills available that make it impossible to succeed playing like a tank I have the awareness to realize that doesn't mean those skills are defective, but a lot of people don't.

I've seen that sort of thing in every multiplayer game I've ever played (which, admittedly, is far from all of them). There are people who seem to play a class/vehicle/character/army as though they're waiting for it to adapt to them. "Surely the tenth time I charge my cavalry into the pikemen it'll work." **oh, the humanity** "Man, this cavalry sucks..."

 

[AmazonQueen]

In many past situations I have found that the complaint really translates to "all the different skill possibilities cannot be interchangeably used within my very small spectrum of playstyles."

Personally, I play like a tank. If I choose the right skills for a tank the game is easier than if I choose the wrong skills for a tank, because I'm still most likely going to play like a tank. If there are skills available that make it impossible to succeed playing like a tank I have the awareness to realize that doesn't mean those skills are defective, but a lot of people don't.

Yes, you do have to be careful you don't level up a skill that doesn't help in combat too quickly. Speechcraft and lockpicking can get you killed in Bethesda games
I tend to play a sneaky archer but I always end up having to train my light armour because it doesn't get used much but when it does it really matters
In Morrowind I once played a Breton savant (a NPC sage-type class). She only survived because of ridiculous amounts of alchemy abuse

 

[Farm Boy]

Relevant.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Relevant.

Yeah, that was pretty much the only real blunder in Human Revolution .
Frustratingly common blunder in the genre. You're allowed to make a non-combat oriented character and you actually can solve most missions with minimal violence (or sneaky violence), but then the game throws an unavoidable boss battle at you.
Anyone here played Alpha Protocol ?
I couldn't get that song out of my head for days because I kept dying and retrying.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I have the same kinda deal in League of Legends (which I've started playing again, to my shame...), I default into a tank playstyle unless I'm actively thinking about what I'm doing so I generally play tanks with the occasional other archtype thrown in for variety.

In Skyrim I also haven't played with any of the stealth stuff because it just has no appeal for me.

I quit League because I couldn't deal with the anger issues.. Again

I don't know what to tell you. I play on Legendary Difficulty and have done all combat playstyles, and it's flat-out not true that an archer can kill a target in two hits that would take expert-level destruction spells forever to kill

Mages' damage doesn't scale with skill, incidentally - mana cost reduces as your skill increases, so damage/mana ratio increases, but not damage itself.



Yeah, and this is just completely not true as well. Conjuration level 100 allows you to summon two Frost Atronachs or Dremora Lords. Conjuration is arguably the most powerful magical school of all. Alteration allows you to cast paralysis which makes the game so easy that I mostly just don't use it.

I guess we must play the game very differently because all the stuff you're saying entirely contradicts my experience in playing the game.

I suppose it's worth pointing out that I usually get Enchantment to level 100 first, and that is the key to becoming powerful as a mage, since Extra Effect allows you to stack up enough mana and mana regen to basically have an infinite pool.

I've also done the -100% cost in various schools of magic, I found it inferior to enchantments that increase your mana pool.

Very interesting, my experience was different from yours entirely and the only thing we supposedly did different is that I didn't use Enchanting much at all. Maybe Enchanting is just so broken (I've read this over and over so there is some truth to it) that it can make any playstyle viable, because the buffs are just that strong. I played with Alchemy focus instead of Enchanting and thought Alchemy was incredibly weak compared to TES 3 / TES 4 where it had great potential Personally, on legendary difficulty, I agree with Ryika's assessment that only Destru is a viable magic playstyle. I do however think that conjuration can be very strong, but it's just flat out boring and horribly designed. I dread summoning a Dremora Lord and having him rape and pillage his way through thousands of enemies while I do literally nothing besides running away and healing when I feel like it. It's so incredibly passive. Summoning as a concept has so many cool applications.. I'm thinking about something like SL/SL Warlock from WoW where you'd split damage with your pet and keeping it alive essentially meant keeping you alive. You had to time all of your pets abilities manually and sacrifice some of your own mana/health to keep it alive.

Consider the following: Maybe you're just really good I genuinely struggle playing any mage class at legend difficulty, but then again I have several combat mods that make the game a lot harder. I personally thought Vanilla combat AI was garbage and very easy to abuse so I never even bothered doing a 100% Vanilla playthrough. I must admit I haven't tried Alteration much, but Paralysis was completely broken in previous games so I don't see why it wouldn't be broken now. Paralysis in and of itself doesn't make the Alteration tree strong, though. Para doesn't do any damage. You still rely 100% on either summoning a pet or going destruction if you want to do any damage as a mage, and that sucks. Give Alteration Arcane Missiles and telekinesis that actually does damage (like in DMOMM where it was great).. Give Illusion traps (what are they doing in destru anyway?), mirror magic, blinks, decoys.. Give conjuration multiple damage over time effects that you have to sync up, which allows for a very mobile and diverse playstyle, give Resto both holy damage (I think that is in the vanilla game?) and Absorb Health effects (why did they get rid of this cool mechanic? ).

Not every school of magic should focus on doing damage. Resto heals, Illusion has crowd control, Alteration modifies your character and its surroundings, Conjuration summons minions, but all these schools should at least have some way of dealing damage, even if it is low damage output. Damage is needed to play the game, otherwise it forces every mage into Destru again.

 

[Dachs]

Those sound more like standard stealth game problems than RPG issues. All stealth games (or games with stealth systems) from the first Thief to the latest Deus Ex encourage some degree of save scumming.
What makes Styx particularly bad ?
A lack of anti-frustration abilities for stealth games (see through walls, vision cones, short-term invisibilty) ?

Also, Styx is desperately unfunny, even though the developers clearly thought it was comedy gold.

 

[Lexicus]

Very interesting, my experience was different from yours entirely and the only thing we supposedly did different is that I didn't use Enchanting much at all. Maybe Enchanting is just so broken (I've read this over and over so there is some truth to it) that it can make any playstyle viable, because the buffs are just that strong.

Yeah, I can't imagine pulling off the mage without having the ability to do my own powerful enchantments. Can't rely on the right item-enchantment combinations just turning up by luck.

but then again I have several combat mods that make the game a lot harder.

This would also probably explain it because I'm playing the normal game, my mods are all basically cosmetic.

I usually start out on master and switch to legendary at some point in the mid-20s, I did one playthrough all-legendary and it just took too long to kill stuff in the beginning.

Not every school of magic should focus on doing damage. Resto heals, Illusion has crowd control, Alteration modifies your character and its surroundings, Conjuration summons minions, but all these schools should at least have some way of dealing damage, even if it is low damage output. Damage is needed to play the game, otherwise it forces every mage into Destru again.

IIRC you can do limited amounts of damage to undead with some of the higher-level Restoration spells, but that doesn't really change the point.

 

[Ajidica]

Frustratingly common blunder in the genre. You're allowed to make a non-combat oriented character and you actually can solve most missions with minimal violence (or sneaky violence), but then the game throws an unavoidable boss battle at you.
Anyone here played Alpha Protocol ?
I couldn't get that song out of my head for days because I kept dying and retrying.

I lucked out when I played Alpha Protocol by leaving the Russia map for last, so I was able to rip the guy apart after I poisoned his coke stash after doing a mission for the crazy conspiracy theorist you pick up in Hong Kong.
But yeah, the boss fights in that game were crap.

 

[Farm Boy]

Good song. Haven't heard of that one until now!

 

[Ryika]

I don't know what to tell you. I play on Legendary Difficulty and have done all combat playstyles, and it's flat-out not true that an archer can kill a target in two hits that would take expert-level destruction spells forever to kill

You've likely never played a proper Archer then.

...well, turns out you really haven't:

In Skyrim I also haven't played with any of the stealth stuff because it just has no appeal for me.

Give a stealth archer a try and you'll understand what I'm talking about when I say mages do low damage.

Mages' damage doesn't scale with skill, incidentally - mana cost reduces as your skill increases, so damage/mana ratio increases, but not damage itself.

Mage damage scales with skill tier. Whenever you buy a new spell and get it to a point where you can cast it somewhat regularly (which usually means, you've unlocked the -cost skills in the skill tree), your damage increases.

Yeah, and this is just completely not true as well. Conjuration level 100 allows you to summon two Frost Atronachs or Dremora Lords.

I mean sure, if you want to wait for them to reach the target and then wait for them to kill the target, sure... why not. It's slower than the already slow destruction mage. Even worse, you can't properly use destruction to support your minions, because you'd just end up stunlocking and damaging your own minions, and unlike destruction, you can't easily AoE down groups of mobs.

I mean... I guess it's up to personal preference in this one, Conjuration CAN work, it's just very slow compared to other builds. So do we value builds on how well they can clear things? Then Conjuration is terrible. Do we just go on personal fun factor? Then conjuration can be useful, but I don't think that's a good metric. Even the most useless spec will be fun to some people.

Conjuration is arguably the most powerful magical school of all. Alteration allows you to cast paralysis which makes the game so easy that I mostly just don't use it.

Why would you need paralysis when your dual cast fireballs stunlock whole groups of enemies just passively while also doing damage?

I guess we must play the game very differently because all the stuff you're saying entirely contradicts my experience in playing the game.

I suppose it's worth pointing out that I usually get Enchantment to level 100 first, and that is the key to becoming powerful as a mage, since Extra Effect allows you to stack up enough mana and mana regen to basically have an infinite pool.

I've also done the -100% cost in various schools of magic, I found it inferior to enchantments that increase your mana pool.

It's not even my opinion, I'm just repeating the things that are were generally accepted back when Legendary Difficulty was introduced and people were doing their first all-legendary playthroughs. Getting 0 Cost Destruction Magic allows you to perma-cast Destruction Magic with no worries for anything, and it only takes up 3 Enchantment slots; or 4 if you don't do Fortify Alchemy. That's 4 Slots for INFINITE Mana in the only sphere that you'll ever be using. Mana and Mana-Regeneration are nice for Hybrid-Builds, but those are once again so much weaker than the already weak Destruction Mage.

You're free to have your own opinion of course, but the problem with your opinion is that it seems to be based on your "personal experience" which seems to be really limited and nothing else. So you're a bit like the guy in Civ 5 who starts every game by constructing two Warriors because it makes them feel safe. Nothing wrong with that, but in terms of efficiency it's an objectively bad opener that sets you on the back foot immediately.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

You've likely never played a proper Archer then.

Proper archers are insanely powerful.
Proper means getting the bonus damage perk in the stealth tree.

 

[Perfection]

good rockets, good grenades

 

[cd5ssmffan]

To some extent I'd even say The Witcher 3 is a good RPG, even though I have never played any The Witcher title before jumping into 3.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Hello Mc Ride and thank you for your first post I'm currently playing the first Witcher and not liking it too much. It's mostly the combat system, but also the "badass dudes with scars and cute chicks in skimpy armor" aesthetic really turns me off. I'm not 14 anymore, I want fat dwarves with mechanical legs and hermaphrodite gods made out of gold that float in the air..

 

[AmazonQueen]

Hello Mc Ride and thank you for your first post I'm currently playing the first Witcher and not liking it too much. It's mostly the combat system, but also the "badass dudes with scars and cute chicks in skimpy armor" aesthetic really turns me off. I'm not 14 anymore, I want fat dwarves with mechanical legs and hermaphrodite gods made out of gold that float in the air..

Apparently the next 2 Witcher are much better but the first put me off so much I've never tried them. I can only recall 2 female characters in it who got names that Geralt couldn't sleep with.
Mainly because of this thread I've been replaying Skyrim and recalling how much there is to love and hate about that game.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Apparently the next 2 Witcher are much better but the first put me off so much I've never tried them. I can only recall 2 female characters in it who got names that Geralt couldn't sleep with.
Mainly because of this thread I've been replaying Skyrim and recalling how much there is to love and hate about that game.

yeah, right? like, how hard can it be to write a cool female character. although it is kind of a clichée that no fantasy writer writes convincing females, I wonder why morrowind had so many insanely cool female characters

Therana

Therana is a Dunmer mage and probably one of the strangest characters you will encounter during your journey through Vvardenfell. She is a Telvanni councilor involved in the Main Quest. As her peers will tell you, she has not aged well and has been growing increasingly insane. Despite seeming innocent and harmless when you talk to her, she is in fact very volatile, and given that she is a powerful mage - out-levelling even the Archmagister - her outbursts can prove deadly. She seems to have no material awareness, as she will hugely over-reward you for mundane tasks, giving you an enchanted Daedric cuirass and pair of greaves simply for retrieving a "bow that smells of Ash Yams", even though she no longer wants it when you bring it to her. She keeps a naked Khajiit slave, Ra'Zahr, in her room, and her stronghold is decorated with rotting Kwama eggs, which has infuriated the slaves who mine them for her. She ignores anyone's business other than her own, preferring to talk extensively about herself. For these and other reasons, many people — even in her own House — seem to want her dead. She can be found in her tower in Tel Branora.

Barenzia

Once a month a courier came from the emperor, bringing a small bag of gold for Inga and Sven and a large bag of dried mushrooms from Morrowind for Barenziah's consumption. She was always made presentable, as presentable as a skinny dark elf girl could be made to look in Inga's eyes, and summoned into the courier's presence for a brief interview. The same courier seldom came twice, but all looked her over rather as a farmer looks over a pig he's readying for market. In the spring of her sixteenth year Barenziah thought the courier looked as if she were at last ready for market.

Upon reflection Barenziah decided that she did not wish to be marketed. The stable-boy, Straw, a big blond boy, clumsy, gentle, affectionate and rather simple, had been urging her to run off with him for some weeks. Barenziah stole the bag of gold the courier had left, took the mushrooms from the storeroom, dressed herself as a boy in some of twelve year old Timmy's casual clothing, and one fine spring night they took the two best horses and rode hard through the night toward Whiterun, the nearest city of any size, which was where Straw wanted to go.

But Morrowind also lay east and it drew Barenziah as a lodestone does iron. In the morning they abandoned the horses at Barenziah's insistence. She knew they would be missed and tracked, and she hoped to throw pursuers off the trail. They continued afoot until late afternoon, keeping to side roads, then slept for several hours in an abandoned hut. They went on at dusk and came to the Whiterun city gates just before dawn.

Barenziah had prepared a pass for Straw, stating an errand to a temple in the city for a local village lord. She herself sneaked over the wall with the help of her levitation spell. She had reasoned that by now the gate guards would have been alerted to look for a young dark elf and a Nord boy traveling together, but country boys like Straw were common enough. Alone and with papers, he would be unlikely to draw their attention.

Her simple plan went smoothly. She met Straw at the temple, which was not far from the gate. She had been to Whiterun on a few previous occasions. Straw, however, had never been more than a few miles from Sven's estate, his birthplace. Together they made their way to a run-down inn in the poor quarter of Whiterun. Gloved, cloaked and hooded against the chill of the morning, her dark skin and red eyes were not apparent and no one paid any attention to them. They entered the inn separately. Sven paid the host for a single room, a large meal and a jug of ale, and Barenziah sneaked in a few minutes later. They ate and drank together gleefully, celebrating their escape, made love vigorously on the narrow bed, then fell into an exhausted sleep.

They stayed a week in Whiterun. Straw earned a bit of money running errands and Barenziah robbed a few houses at night. Barenziah continued to dress as a boy. She cut her hair short and dyed her flame-red tresses jet black as a further disguise, and kept out of sight as much as possible for there were few dark elves in Whiterun. Then Straw got them places as guards for a merchant caravan that was traveling east. The sergeant looked her over dubiously.

There's more later, pretty sure there was some really smutty passage where she was having sex with a khajit (which is basically an anthropomorphised cat, so like a furry), whether or not she was still pretending to be a man at that point I forgot.

you can really feel the character's agency and personality, they're quirky and lively, make mistakes, have regrets, basically just like us.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I've already given up on Bioware, and now Microsoft is looking to buy Obsidian.

That basically leaves Larian, CDPR and Bethesda as the only good, high-profile Western RPG studios, and I'm really not hopeful about the next Bethesda game. Fallout 4 was a major disappointment.

Apparently the next 2 Witcher are much better but the first put me off so much I've never tried them. I can only recall 2 female characters in it who got names that Geralt couldn't sleep with.
Mainly because of this thread I've been replaying Skyrim and recalling how much there is to love and hate about that game.

The sequels are much better in almost every respect, especially the portrayal of female characters.
I think there are only three women (if you don't count prostitutes) Geralt can sleep with in the third game. Two exes and maybe-again-partners and an old acquaintance who's trying to manipulate him.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I've already given up on Bioware, and now Microsoft is looking to buy Obsidian.

That basically leaves Larian, CDPR and Bethesda as the only good, high-profile Western RPG studios, and I'm really not hopeful about the next Bethesda game. Fallout 4 was a major disappointment.

I'm always perplexed by how anything from Bethesda can be considered a major disappointment, post Oblivion. I mean, after that feces-show how could anyone have high enough expectations to wind up disappointed?

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'm always perplexed by how anything from Bethesda can be considered a major disappointment, post Oblivion. I mean, after that feces-show how could anyone have high enough expectations to wind up disappointed?

I think Oblivion was half the reason I liked Skyrim.
I had such high expectations for it after Morrowind and it fell so short.

I've given up on major studios for good RPGs (didn't like Divinity: Original Sin, good mechanics but awful writing IMO) but still enjoy Bethesda games as action games (with mods ofc)

 

[brennan]

Stop being mean about Oblivion. It was a fabulous flower-picking simulator.