I feel that the only condition that would be true would be when games are easy as pi.

Quote:

Original post by Kest Quote: Original post by Splinter of Chaos Quote: Original post by Kest A stat in most RPGs is nothing but a measure of your character's progress. And true RPG fans do not want to remove them. Not sure what else can be said about that. Well, removing the stats in an RPG is not entirely unthinkable, an is in fact very logical if you think about how in most RPGs, your character starting - although is a vet - somehow works his skills up to 50X greater than they were. And stats do more than just measure progress too: statistics are directly related to battle strategy. But if those stats weren't collected than there would have to be other, more interesting game play mechanics to follow suit. Difficulty, in other words, would be much less artificial. What negative reasons are there to remove character development through stats? That's the part I'm missing. And what will you replace them by to keep the genre?

I never claimed to have that magical idea. Sorry.

Quote:

Original post by Splinter of Chaos I feel that the only condition that would be true would be when games are easy as pi. Quote: Original post by Kest Quote: Original post by Splinter of Chaos Quote: Original post by Kest A stat in most RPGs is nothing but a measure of your character's progress. And true RPG fans do not want to remove them. Not sure what else can be said about that. Well, removing the stats in an RPG is not entirely unthinkable, an is in fact very logical if you think about how in most RPGs, your character starting - although is a vet - somehow works his skills up to 50X greater than they were. And stats do more than just measure progress too: statistics are directly related to battle strategy. But if those stats weren't collected than there would have to be other, more interesting game play mechanics to follow suit. Difficulty, in other words, would be much less artificial. What negative reasons are there to remove character development through stats? That's the part I'm missing. And what will you replace them by to keep the genre? I never claimed to have that magical idea. Sorry.

Then why do we want to remove them at all? To make something new? That's why I've been claiming that it won't make something new. You'll just convert to another genre which already exists.

I can imagine a game world detailed enough with a lot of personal character focus to be allowed into the true-RPG genre without character stats. It's just that I don't understand why character stats would limit its potential, or why removing them would make the game better. I enjoy them being in the games I play, and enjoy trying to train my characters into super machines.

The fight against stats to stop grinding is a waste of time. The idea behind grinding implies that the combat in your game can become repetitive. Instead of removing the possibility of grinding, why not try to limit the repetitiveness? Some games, most of which are not RPGs, focus completely on combat. The character is fighting all the way to the end. Sometimes killing masses and masses of enemies. Why is this not considered grinding? Because it's fun?

Quote:

Original post by axcho Also, when I say "RPG" I am not necessarily thinking only of the current state of the genre. Remember that it stands for "Role Playing Game". If there is a better way to convey the experience of playing the role of another person, then who is to say that it shouldn't be called an RPG? From what I've read, including GameDev's own The Future of RPGs, it seems that RPGs have not been very true to their supposed purpose.

In discussions of the RPG genre, someone will innevitably point out that the RP stands for "role-playing", and criticize the genre for failing to deliver a true role-playing experience.
But this argument is wrong.

Looking at the "pen-and-paper" RPG world, one sees that most players role-play sporadically or not at all, with most playing sessions turning into dice-based combat simulators or "wish-fulfilment games" (wherin players perform actions they could never do in real life without regard for trivial concerns such as story or character consistency); thus why "dungeon crawls" are a perennial favorite adventure type.
If you look at an RPG rulebook, you will usually see huge sections filled with lovingly-detailed combat mechanics, large sections of world-interaction mechanics, tons of "loot" and monsters, a small note to the effect of "reward the player X points for good role-playing," and frequent reminders that low stats are "prime role-playing opportunities" and not reasons to re-roll. (And let's face it, "role-playing" is hard; that's why we have a class of professionals who theoretically get paid to do it. We call them actors.)
Truth be told, the defining characteristic of RPGs is, in fact, stat-driven character advancement, and it has been since before video-game RPGs were even concieved of.

Quote:

Original post by Anthony Serrano Quote: Original post by axcho Also, when I say "RPG" I am not necessarily thinking only of the current state of the genre. Remember that it stands for "Role Playing Game". If there is a better way to convey the experience of playing the role of another person, then who is to say that it shouldn't be called an RPG? From what I've read, including GameDev's own The Future of RPGs, it seems that RPGs have not been very true to their supposed purpose. In discussions of the RPG genre, someone will innevitably point out that the RP stands for "role-playing", and criticize the genre for failing to deliver a true role-playing experience. But this argument is wrong. Looking at the "pen-and-paper" RPG world, one sees that most players role-play sporadically or not at all, with most playing sessions turning into dice-based combat simulators or "wish-fulfilment games" (wherin players perform actions they could never do in real life without regard for trivial concerns such as story or character consistency); thus why "dungeon crawls" are a perennial favorite adventure type. If you look at an RPG rulebook, you will usually see huge sections filled with lovingly-detailed combat mechanics, large sections of world-interaction mechanics, tons of "loot" and monsters, a small note to the effect of "reward the player X points for good role-playing," and frequent reminders that low stats are "prime role-playing opportunities" and not reasons to re-roll. (And let's face it, "role-playing" is hard; that's why we have a class of professionals who theoretically get paid to do it. We call them actors.) Truth be told, the defining characteristic of RPGs is, in fact, stat-driven character advancement, and it has been since before video-game RPGs were even concieved of.

Uhh... I think you're in the wrong thread. The "Why Levels?" thread is next left [grin]

Another idea (that I'll never implement) about Easy, Medium, and Hard. How just changing the environment. Here's my game idea (so follow along kids).

The game is basically your typical vampires, werewolves, ghosts, night creatures and zombies games. You and a team of vampire killers go through a castle getting to the master vampire.

Now on Easy: You start off with your basic gear in the graveyard and work your way into the castle. Your team does all the dirty work. You on other hand hack and slash your way from level to level gaining new weapons, armor and items along the way (from your teammates and just items). Of course you have to keep your teammate alive so from time to time when one of them are clearing a room or hall for you, you have kill pre-targeted monsters so your teammate stays alive. Wash, Rinse, Repeat until you get the Master Vampire.

On Medium: You now have a new set of weapons, armor, and items which are slightly higher quality wise than what you had in Easy Mode. Also you don't start in the graveyard but from a moat that leads to a back entrance. Unlike Easy Mode you and your teammates don't enter the same place. Everyone has gone through different entrances. You have to meet up with them. Again you have to keep them alive, but unlike Easy Mode it's not shoot one or two pre-targetted monsters and move on. You and your teammate have to stay alive. That means you each have each other back. (The teammate is a NPC in this example.) Once the area is cleared. You split and work your way up to the Master Vampire. Also you don't go through the same levels as before. You now go through new entrances and levels and have new items as well.

On Hard: (Here's where it's gets interesting, IMO) You go straight for the boss. Crash in through the roof, whips, blades, crosses ablazing. You have all the second to best equipment, armor, weapons, and items already on hand. Unlike the Medium Mode where you could get all the Ultimate EQ (which for now on stands for: weapons, items, and armor). Now if you lose the battle you get stripped of all your EQ and thrown out the castle pretty much butt naked. Matter of fact you have less EQ than you did in Easy Mode. Now the strategy has changed. As opposed to everyone go there separate way, you have a team based tactic. You all progress as a group.

On Extreme: You hold down the fort as your teammates finish their missions each will come one-by-one. Again you work and progress as a group. But now you are restricted to having a certain number of abilities and weapons at a time. Difference being is that you can now chain abilities and chain your and your teammate's abilities. This balances the lost of abilities and makes for new tactics and gameplay.

Now the enemies will all be implementing my twitch-thinking AI^TM.

My example hopefully shows that changing the gameplay itself can lead to a more challenging experience and also can refresh gameplay (at least in this game) 3 three to four times over. Players don't get bored as easily because it's essentially a new game each time they move up to the next level. Gives the player a sense of accomplish and something to look forward to.

So what do you think?

That's an interesting idea, and sort of reminds me of Perfect Dark:
In Perfect Dark, if you played a mission on easy you'd have very simple goals and very dumb AI. On the hardest difficulty level you had completely more realistic goals which ment more challenging ones, like shooting every camera before is sees you.

Furthermore, on the second level:
Playing on easy ment you started out watching an ambassador swapping briefcases with the enemy and you ended up having to save here, playing on hard (i think it was) YOU were the ambassador and you started the level with a ton of guns shooting you.


I've always been a real fan of this type of game mechanic. You not only get rewarded for beating a harder level, but you get rewarded for just simply playing the harder level!

That reminds me of an idea I had a while ago for a time-button-press sequence in an action game:
The idea was that if you played on easy there would by constant time stops and slow motion moves and it would look very stylistic. But if you played on hard, it would always be on full speed and it would be very intense.

Quote:

Original post by Alpha_ProgDes Another idea (that I'll never implement) about Easy, Medium, and Hard. How just changing the environment. Here's my game idea (so follow along kids). edit: lots of content - see above!!! My example hopefully shows that changing the gameplay itself can lead to a more challenging experience and also can refresh gameplay (at least in this game) 3 three to four times over. Players don't get bored as easily because it's essentially a new game each time they move up to the next level. Gives the player a sense of accomplish and something to look forward to. So what do you think?

I agree that it's similar to what was done in Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and the Thief series, and I loved that. I definitely love changing the mission parameters as a difficult metric. Adding extra objectives makes the game more replayable.

One of my favourite methods of adding difficulty was the one done in Thief, where the harder levels added more restrictions on the player in the form of a code of ethics. On "Normal" (there was no "easy") the player could kill with impunity. On "Expert" the player could only kill potentially threatening people; innocents could not be killed. On "Master" the player could not kill anyone. This made many areas more challenging, because you had to sneak past enemies or knock them out rather than using deadly force.

I don't understand the point to saying, 'but that wouldn't be an RPG anymore'. Instead of defining what would be a fun game, all you are doing is defining what type of game you want to call an 'RPG'. I don't see any point in doing that...

Quote:

Original post by Daniel Miller I don't understand the point to saying, 'but that wouldn't be an RPG anymore'. Instead of defining what would be a fun game, all you are doing is defining what type of game you want to call an 'RPG'. I don't see any point in doing that...

Who exactly are you directing this statement to?

Quote:

Original post by Daniel Miller I don't understand the point to saying, 'but that wouldn't be an RPG anymore'. Instead of defining what would be a fun game, all you are doing is defining what type of game you want to call an 'RPG'. I don't see any point in doing that...

You don't see the point in trying to define a meaning behind the genre name? If you don't define one, the name itself has no point. Would it be okay to call Thief a FPS? Would all FPS fans like Thief? Tight story, dialog, combat, several weapons. Every RPG element other than character development is used in nearly all games.