RPGs are bad game design and shouldn't exist anymore

[Jonathan Lanza]

I think the use of literal numbers as a way to represent abstract concepts like strength, speed and experience can be effective enough but I largely think it is something that should be moved on from or reduced to as infrequently as possible.

Less arbitrary and more diegetic visual indications of these things would serve them better in the long run as they would end up being a lot more incorporated into the overall game rather than the usual state of affairs where the raw numbers seem to occupy a space completely removed from the rest of the game.

I understand that certain turn based games seem like they HAVE to be this way but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Any game with animation has the potential to be able to show if someone is fast or not turn based or not.

 

[MilkBeard]

I've thought for a long time if it would ever be possible to create an RPG where you're "leveling" is totally dependent on slowly adapting and developing your own skills as you play rather than dumping points into a spreadsheet or filling out some tree, like you are beating these tougher enemies solely because you've actually gotten better at the mechanics of the game, not because you have stronger weapons or armor or leveled up your health/defense, but something like that would probably require an insane amount of depth and a fucking monster to balance properly.

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That is also what makes a game an action game, and not an RPG, though. In an RPG it's not "you", it's the "role" you are playing. So the character improves, and you visually and mechanically see it in the game. Your personal growth /= your character's growth, even if they often do happen to go together throughout the game.

 

[Efejota]

Didn't a lot of people complain about recent Paper Mario because they removed levels, and thus, any reasons for battling at all? I think if those systems are there it's because (for the most part) they still work.

You can also feel progression beyond your actual improvements on the game, so it works as a compliment. When you have already mastered a game, the character plays like a master from the very beggining, but on rpgs, you still feel them grow regardless of your skill.

 

[Aether]

The term "ludonarrative dissonance" is a blight on gaming and needs to be erased.

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Well no.. but the op uses the therm absolutely wrong.
Ludonarativ edissonance = the discrepancy between game story and game gameplay

what hes at is: descrepancy of game expectations of his skills vs his skills. -> an outside factor.

 

[Death Penalty]

I think the use of literal numbers as a way to represent abstract concepts like strength, speed and experience can be effective enough but I largely think it is something that should be moved on from or reduced to as infrequently as possible.

Less arbitrary and more diegetic visual indications of these things would serve them better in the long run as they would end up being a lot more incorporated into the overall game rather than the usual state of affairs where the raw numbers seem to occupy a space completely removed from the rest of the game.

I understand that certain turn based games seem like they HAVE to be this way but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Any game with animation has the potential to be able to show if someone is fast or not turn based or not.

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What if I want my character to be strong but also not look like a musclebound freak?

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

What if I want my character to be strong but also not look like a musclebound freak?

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Then just have them perform strong feats. Lift heavy objects, break things, etc.

 

[Aether]

OP, did you ever play a RPG? i mean the oldshool tabletop ones?
The leveling and geting stronger is the whole idea behinde it. You play a character, nto yourself, and want to se him get better, try new stuff out, etc.
If characters represent the skills of the player from the start, then they arent rpgs. If you remove these elements from a Tabletop game, whats left is either an improv theater class or a group storiwriting cyrcle. (nothing bad about that... but we are talking about the legitimacy of RPG)

So, your whole point is... you like the estetics of RPGs, but like Action gameplay more, and want to have big games like FF7R design without the leveling combat...so make all modern RPGs Action games.
Or to make Action games more like rpgs in that they have more of an japan/anime influence on story/presentation?

 

[padlock]

Sounds like the OP should work for Bioware! They'd fit right in.

In any case, I don't agree. I like crpg mechanics.

 

[Death Penalty]

Then just have them perform strong feats. Lift heavy objects, break things, etc.

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I don't know, I see what you're trying to do and where you're coming from but it seems like this wouldn't be a great thing for most games that use numbers to represent relative strength as they tend to have limited scope. Like how would this solve the problem of using numbers in a turn-based RPG or even something like Dark Souls where you're basically limited in world interactions to killing things with weapons? It would also introduce ambiguity into the mix, since I would only be able to tell my character's strength by what I could see them do, situationally, in the rare case of a game that incorporates feats of strength directly into gameplay. Something like Crackdown, maybe? Overall it seems to me that the number is less ambiguous, more readily accessible and doesn't rely on visible cues while still making them a possible addition to such a system.

 

[En-ou]

levels and experience are fine. A well designed game will require little to no grinding.

 

[Deleted member 2254]

I'll chime in saying that the RPG formula is excellent, but too many games make it a chore instead of fun. Endless grinds, identical enemies, clearing boring dungeons, fighting bosses with half an hour's worth of health bar where you're only really tested for endurance rather than skill, and all this is often behind barely sufficient core gameplay that is either generic turn-based stuff or very standard, nigh janky real time action. On top of the fact that half of the Western RPGs rely on the typical Tolkien fantasy tropes, while the Japanese ones have these (abundantly memed) stories of coloured-hair teenagers going from chasing chicken to killing deities. It's a genre with so much potential, yet so few games manage to nail all aspects of it imho.

No wonder that when an RPG finally nails gameplay, aesthetics and story altogether, I become addicted real hard like with Kingdoms of Amalur. But too many RPGs have a lot of great things but too many other aspects dragging them down.

 

[BlueManifest]

I think rpgs should just have money, gear, items, abilities, spells, but no leveling

kinda like monster hunter

 

[Mirage]

I think the idea of gating progress in a game behind certain skills is great - for example enemies that you can only damage by fire which is some magic you didn't learn yet so you can't really progress further.

Having a giant RPG with a sprawling interconnected world be build around that sounds pretty difficult to me though.

The Xenoblade example sounds infuriating to me though. You should never have to grind to get through the main story of a game. Sidequests - maybe. But the main story should always stay accessible without having to grind for hours - I'm not saying it should be easy, tactics and a good mix of skills to beat some boss should be in. But because I don't pursue sidequests in this run I'm not gonna be able to put a dent into the boss? That's what I don't like.

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Xenoblade is really a game where you're meant to engage with the side content to a certain extent. There's hundreds of them in the game, like it's pretty easy to end up overleveled from doing them.

 

[Deleted member 37739]

OP, you might get more truck if you offered realistic alternatives. Not only that, you're not really arguing in especially good faith. Yes, there is an inherent sense of ludo-narrative dissonance in the systems games use - almost all of them are abstractions of real experiences - and this is true of films and books as well. The term 'suspension of disbelief' exists to address this.

It might be more valuable to ask is why these systems exist in such ubiquity among so many different types of games and to wonder if the ludo-narrative dissonance is not a reasonable trade off for gaming systems which are genuinely engaging and exciting for the majority of players?

Lastly, there's a reductio ad absurdum to the whole argument, because if you're taking shots at the immersion breaking effect of levelling, you might as well point at health bars, to wonder why crippling injuries like gunshot wounds can be insta-healed by a handful of herbs, or a band-aid; you might highlight the convenient level and game design that places all the necessary items a person needs within ready and sensible access to progress. Before long you'd be down a hole wondering why on earth games even exist at all when they're so unrealistic.

I think rpgs should just have money, gear, items, abilities, spells, but no leveling

kinda like monster hunter

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I'm surprised The Elder Scrolls system of 'learn by doing' isn't more popular. I always like that you'd get good at stuff by practising. Most systems will allow you to accrue XP by doing combat and then let you spend it on skill points that improve alchemy or lock-picking. I don't hate it, but I'm shocked people don't follow BGS on that.

 

[Cand]

Wait so are you suggesting something like what nintendo did to the last paper Mario games? Because that just made random battles pointless and annoying.

 

[Mirage]

I'm surprised The Elder Scrolls system of 'learn by doing' isn't more popular. I always like that you'd get good at stuff by practising. Most systems will allow you to accrue XP by doing combat and then let you spend it on skill points that improve alchemy or lock-picking. I don't hate it, but I'm shocked people don't follow BGS on that

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The SaGa series has always done this.

 

[Deleted member 7883]

I don't like linear cinematic adventures like the last of us.

should they stop existing bc I still—after over a decade—lowkey fail to see the point of games that play so similarly to a movie? (Not tryna start a debate over this) Hell no lmao. They have millions of fans that love that shit. Yourself included. There's no need to say they shouldn't exist anymore. While I don't understand the point of the cinematic-over-everything games, I can't deny the popularity of 'em. Can't deny how many people eat that stuff up.

I can understand you disliking RPGs. That's on you. Play Monster Hunter and Outward if you don't like leveling. But there's no need to say THEY SHOULDNT EXIST. Calling that bad game design is peak era man. Just let the people play RPGs. Don't subject yourself to games you don't like lmao.

 

[KillLaCam]

no

 

[Canas Renvall]

Hey devs, here's an idea for your RPG you're developing right now. Ditch levels. It's pretty easy, set every player character and enemy to an arbitrary level (say 20), and try balancing your game around that. If you have a turn-based system, or a slower form of combat, you can require more strategy for enemies that are supposed to be more difficult, and less strategy for those that should be easier.

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What you just described was Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Nobody likes that game. Kindly stop thinking you're smart, thanks.

 

[hobblygobbly]

last 10 years i rarely play video games but the only ones that get me hooked are RPGs and strategies

in fact I even go replay so many RPGs because they still hook me, like New Vegas

what I love about good RPGs, is that their game world is designed around the ability score system it uses. This means you can design your character how you want to play as. Designers can make quests that resolve certain ways that are only possible with certain ability scores, world interactions different based on your scores, dialogue, combat, etc

I don't consider games like The Witche 3 RPGs, they're adventure/character games with RPG elements, since they lack core RPG mechanics for me, since everything is designed to fit within the spectrum of Geralt's design, where as a full blown RPG bases its design off ability score of your character, which allows you to play the game more uniquely and more fun, for me.

Like that's why New Vegas is my top 5 RPG, there is so much ways to go about the critical story path, and side quests, and world interactions, just based on your ability scores.

There's a lot more interesting things designers can do with this

 

[Arithmetician]

I think the use of literal numbers as a way to represent abstract concepts like strength, speed and experience can be effective enough but I largely think it is something that should be moved on from or reduced to as infrequently as possible.

Less arbitrary and more diegetic visual indications of these things would serve them better in the long run as they would end up being a lot more incorporated into the overall game rather than the usual state of affairs where the raw numbers seem to occupy a space completely removed from the rest of the game.

I understand that certain turn based games seem like they HAVE to be this way but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Any game with animation has the potential to be able to show if someone is fast or not turn based or not.

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I agree with you. I like stats, stats are good. But they should match up with the visual representation you're seeing in the game. All I want is for every boss to have higher stats than every random enemy, and that for enemies that look the same to have the same.

Pokémon is a good example. A lvl 100 Charmander should not be stronger than a lvl 32 Charizard. It just shouldn't. Every Charizard has to be stronger than Charmander, the thing looks intimidating. The stats need to match the sprites.

 

[Efejota]

I think the use of literal numbers as a way to represent abstract concepts like strength, speed and experience can be effective enough but I largely think it is something that should be moved on from or reduced to as infrequently as possible.

Less arbitrary and more diegetic visual indications of these things would serve them better in the long run as they would end up being a lot more incorporated into the overall game rather than the usual state of affairs where the raw numbers seem to occupy a space completely removed from the rest of the game.

I understand that certain turn based games seem like they HAVE to be this way but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Any game with animation has the potential to be able to show if someone is fast or not turn based or not.

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I always liked Madou Monogatari's approach to this problem. The games didn't feature any numbers except for the shop, so health and progress of the battle overall could only be seen via an always-present display of your character and text explaining how badly there were feeling. In the PC-98 you could see them bleeding and everything.

The Snes game even had the character do a little dance every turn to show how much energy (magic) she had left, thought I'll admit it felt a bit weird sometimes (if you had lots of magic but were almost dead, for example).

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

I don't know, I see what you're trying to do and where you're coming from but it seems like this wouldn't be a great thing for most games that use numbers to represent relative strength as they tend to have limited scope. Like how would this solve the problem of using numbers in a turn-based RPG or even something like Dark Souls where you're basically limited in world interactions to killing things with weapons? It would also introduce ambiguity into the mix, since I would only be able to tell my character's strength by what I could see them do, situationally, in the rare case of a game that incorporates feats of strength directly into gameplay. Something like Crackdown, maybe? Overall it seems to me that the number is less ambiguous, more readily accessible and doesn't rely on visible cues while still making them a possible addition to such a system.

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Numbers are indeed very literal but I'd argue that on their own they are very meaningless. What 15 STR means and actually entails in a game can't really be grasped until you engage with the rest of the game and your able to put into context that "15 STR means I can beat the little skeleton but not the big dragon". If engaging with the rest of the game is how you put meaning to those meaningless numbers then you could probably just cut out the middleman all together and just have your own actions put into context the strengths and weaknesses of a character. This can be as blatant as literally having enemies fly soar through the air when you hit them or more subdued to just having a characters animations move faster or slower depending on their speed. And I don't think either of those would necessarily be incompatible with a turn based game.

Without the numbers you get rid of characteristics being reduced to arbitrary distinctions that occupy a separate part of the game removed from everything else and are able to solve some common limitations such as not knowing what does and doesn't count as over or underleveled. None of this is to say that you'd be able to mimic and improve on EVERYTHING that numbers provide, I'm sure there are some instances of where reducing something to a raw number may be the best option even if just from a ease of development window but I don't think the issues vastly outweigh the gains in this case.

 

[ImaPlayThis]

Oh god this is a bad take. I couldn't even begin to imagine how bad games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls would be getting rid of levelling. Also what about games like Disgaea where the gameplay loop is levelling and learning how to min max it and level up like crazy

 

[Starlatine]

Didnt knew tabletop rpgs were about how skillfully you throw your dice and write your name on the sheet instead of the stats and numbers on them

People have been playing it all wrong all this time!

 

[Arithmetician]

Didnt knew tabletop rpgs were about how skillfully you throw your dice and write your name on the sheet instead of the stats and numbers on them

People have been playing it all wrong all this time!

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Look, I'm not a super experienced tabletop player or anything, but I played some D&D back in the day. Obviously levels matter quite a lot in D&D, but there's also a strong element of player strategy in combat. Where you position yourself relative to your party, what spells you have, whether you try to charge at the enemies or stand back and let them come to you, all of these are player decisions that require skill. Requiring skill doesn't mean reflexes necessarily.

The ultimate example of this would be chess. No levels in chess; you don't have a lvl 3 knight or a lvl 5 bishop. It is not an action game either, it's not about how skillfully you move your pawn forward to the next square. However, no one would argue that chess isn't a game that depends 100% on player skill – it's just strategic skill instead of dexterity, it's all about making the right choices.

Tabletop RPGs are their own thing, but for video game turn-based RPGs, I think they could become a lot more satisfying if they leaned into the chess element of their combat systems, and deemphasized or eliminated the importance of levels

 

[Zultima]

I see where you are coming from from a balance perspective. But pretty much every RPG I've played can be beaten without grinding levels. I'd argue grinding for levels exists for those without the skill to beat the game head on. But I also think any approach can work if the game is designed properly (and still balanced accordingly)

 

[Caspar]

I sort of agree OP.

RPG's could certainly replace XP with something more natual. Like, these enemies are really hard, not because they have higher stats, but because they're more aggressive, harder to dodge/parry, and have more tools in their arsenal to mess you up.

In order to defeat said enemy, you'll need to get better at playing the game whilst also exploring the world and finding better weapons, armour, items and magic to use as tools to level the playing field.

 

[Starlatine]

Tabletop RPGs are their own thing, but for video game turn-based RPGs, I think they could become a lot more satisfying if they leaned into the chess element of their combat systems, and deemphasized or eliminated the importance of levels

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There's also skill into properly managing your resources and making a rpg build that suits your playstyle. You're choosing to see only what you want to see here.

RPGs are not chess. And thinking they could be more satisfying without levels is your opinion, which is fine, but its not gospel - many people enjoy leveling, the grind and all the "boring" parts you complain in your OP. There are plenty of other games out there that are about skills mostly (like any online one), let people chill around and just enjoy seeing numbers getting bigger and bigger in one genre for christs sake

 

[TheMango55]

Leveled areas are more of a problem than levels in general. It makes sense that I can't fight the dragon threatening my village when I just start on my epic quest, but it doesn't make sense that after I gather the legendary shards of bilaboo and reforge the mythic sword of nargwal to slay the beast, I can't take down a large rat after traveling 5 miles north.

 

[Starlatine]

Leveled areas are more of a problem than levels in general. It makes sense that I can't fight the dragon threatening my village when I just start on my epic quest, but it doesn't make sense that after I gather the legendary shards of bilaboo and reforge the mythic sword of nargwal to slay the beast, I can't take down a large rat after traveling 5 miles north.

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i dont think this is an issue with leveled areas (since i dont recall any game using "rats" or lower enemies as mobs in higher level areas anyway) but with level scaling. skyrim is the worst about it. you can immediately slay anything that breathes as soon as you leave the first town (which makes no sense) but then you play the game, levels and suddenly every common bandits hiding in caves are decked in mystic gear and far stronger than the big boss of the game you defeated hours ago

 

[DeadeyeNull]

I agree with you. I like stats, stats are good. But they should match up with the visual representation you're seeing in the game. All I want is for every boss to have higher stats than every random enemy, and that for enemies that look the same to have the same.

Pokémon is a good example. A lvl 100 Charmander should not be stronger than a lvl 32 Charizard. It just shouldn't. Every Charizard has to be stronger than Charmander, the thing looks intimidating. The stats need to match the sprites.

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What about people who use pre-evolutions with evolite to get something better the evolution. Dusclops being the best example this gen. Are you suggesting this strategy be banned because it is less immersive. Are trying make ash evolve Pikachu.

 

[danmaku]

OP, did you ever play a RPG? i mean the oldshool tabletop ones?
The leveling and geting stronger is the whole idea behinde it. You play a character, nto yourself, and want to se him get better, try new stuff out, etc.
If characters represent the skills of the player from the start, then they arent rpgs. If you remove these elements from a Tabletop game, whats left is either an improv theater class or a group storiwriting cyrcle. (nothing bad about that... but we are talking about the legitimacy of RPG)

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Not necessarily, this is just the old clash between the power play style and the story based style. OP seems to be a fan of the White Wolf style of RPG, low on rules but high on storytelling and role playing. The kind of game that explicitly tells you to ignore a rule or change it if you think it makes the story better, because rules are just a mean to an end. Of course there's nothing wrong with the other approach, it can be a lot of fun too, but videogames almost always follow the power play style, since it's way easier to implement, to the point that most gamers think this style is synonymous with RPG. No combat? No levels? it's not an RPG, then!

I don't want classic RPGs to go away, but I'd like to see more games that emphasize the story more than the numbers, like Disco Elysium.

 

[Escaflow]

Play more Souls games then. You can be overleveled AF and still die to creeps, or underleved AF and kicking boss asses because u gitgud

 

[Starlatine]

I don't want classic RPGs to go away, but I'd like to see more games that emphasize the story more than the numbers, like Disco Elysium.

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Which is fair, i would also want more RPGs in the vein of Disco Elysium in addition to classic RPGs. And totally different from "rpgs are bad design and shouldnt exist! abolish levels i'm going to play this game that have nothing to do with rpgs and its so much better than it" as OP stated (and yes i know OP exaggerated for attentions purpose and explained their points, but doesnt make the claims less - sorry for being blunt - stupid)

 

[MorshuTheTrader]

Levels are an easy way to give your game a sense of progression. They're not inherently bad, but the way a lot of games use them makes that progression feel very artificial. A good example is the recent Assassin's Creed games. Sure, you level up but by the end I was still playing the exact same way I was in the beginning hours of the game. I never got any better or had to adapt my strategies to succeed. If enemies had bigger numbers than me, I just had to get bigger numbers too and that's it.

 

[Jimnymebob]

I've been having a think about this, and my main problem with levels in RPGs, especially turn based stuff where you don't have much freedom in terms of positional spacing, is that they don't necessarily dictate how difficult something is. In most turn based games, you only really get interestingly designed fights later on, and obviously super bosses, but for most standard enemies they have a limited number of attacks and no real strategy, and the only thing that makes them difficult is the fact that they take more hits and deal more damage with their limited moveset.

Using an action RPG as an example, you fight Darkside 3 times in Kingdom Hearts: twice at the start, and then once during the finale, which is the exact same fight as the second one, other than the fact it has 4x the health and deals 6x the damage as the second fight. If you fought this higher level 3rd Darkside as the second one instead, it's not really any more difficult, it just takes way longer to fight, and on the odd chance you actually get hit, you'll probably die instantly, but the fight is still as easy as it always is.

I just think that you could show character growth by introducing enemies that hit harder, are more challenging to fight, but don't necessarily have so much more health. You don't really need levels to build a character, either. You can get new weapons and equipment to choose a build, you can earn abilities etc. outside of levelling up, but you actually progress through the game by actually learning how to fight more challenging opponents who use more intricate and complex strategies. Going back to Kingdom Hearts as an example, if you put Sephiroth at the start of the game, and keep him exactly the same but match is health pool and damage with boss enemies from that point in the game, he'd still be a difficult fight because he's actually challenging in terms of how he fights.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

Look, I'm not a super experienced tabletop player or anything, but I played some D&D back in the day. Obviously levels matter quite a lot in D&D, but there's also a strong element of player strategy in combat. Where you position yourself relative to your party, what spells you have, whether you try to charge at the enemies or stand back and let them come to you, all of these are player decisions that require skill. Requiring skill doesn't mean reflexes necessarily.

The ultimate example of this would be chess. No levels in chess; you don't have a lvl 3 knight or a lvl 5 bishop. It is not an action game either, it's not about how skillfully you move your pawn forward to the next square. However, no one would argue that chess isn't a game that depends 100% on player skill – it's just strategic skill instead of dexterity, it's all about making the right choices.

Tabletop RPGs are their own thing, but for video game turn-based RPGs, I think they could become a lot more satisfying if they leaned into the chess element of their combat systems, and deemphasized or eliminated the importance of levels

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You still haven't answered the fundamental question about levels in RPGs: if you don't have character levels or stats, how do you represent the progression of the player character? That's a fundamental part of the genre that makes them distinct from skill based action games.

There has to be some kind of representation of the player character, otherwise you're not playing a role - you are just controling an avatar.

 

[Odeko]

I'm surprised The Elder Scrolls system of 'learn by doing' isn't more popular. I always like that you'd get good at stuff by practising. Most systems will allow you to accrue XP by doing combat and then let you spend it on skill points that improve alchemy or lock-picking. I don't hate it, but I'm shocked people don't follow BGS on that.

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I'm pretty glad it's not, as it's extremely exploitable and leads to a lot unfun degenerate play.

In games where XP is limited to quests, exploration, and combat encounters, that means you are pushed to keep engaging with those in order to progress. It's a positive feedback loop where you have to do quests to get stronger and getting stronger unlocks more quests to do, which is to the benefit of the game assuming the quests are good.

In Elder Scrolls frequently doing quests is one of the less efficient uses of your time if you want to level up. Why sneak through a dungeon past a bunch of Draugr to get half a Sneak level when you can crouch behind an immortal NPC and stab them with a dagger for 20 minutes to gain 10 levels? Why slowly work your way up the smithing ladder to make better gear when the best XP/hour is spamming hundreds and hundreds of iron daggers? And they removed the Athletics and Acrobatics stuff in Skyrim, but before that it was the silliest of all, where you leveled up interminably slowly unless you a)jumped constantly everywhere you walked or b) found a room with a very low ceiling and just spammed the jump button for an hour to grind.

That's compounded with the way individual skill level ups contribute to your overall character level too. In Oblivion you level up after 10 skill levels, regardless of what they are, and enemies scale to your level. That means for every Mercantile and Smithing level you gain, enemies get (on average) 1/10th of a level stronger while your combat prowess is completely unchanged. That's why unless you've extensively planned out how to minmax the game Oblivion generally gets harder and harder over time and most fans recommend slowly lowering the difficulty as you level up.

 

[Dever]

Yeah I dunno if it would benefit all games but I largely agree. Sekiro didn't really lose anything by ditching levels, for example. Instead of dumping souls you got from a boss into a menu to make numbers bigger, you get a memory that increases attack power. Works fine and with less hassle.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

All I think OP wants is RPGs to get rid of things like the high level enemies on AC Odyssey, where in one camp a guy dies in one headshot, and in another it takes 50 headshots plus kicking him off a house 5 times to kill him until you reach a certain level.

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a) that's not what other of their posts in the thread are saying
b) if that's it, then the entirety of the OP's essay and the thread title are just unrelated, hyperbolic bullshit anyway and my reply still applies

 

[Starlatine]

I'm pretty glad it's not, as it's extremely exploitable and leads to a lot unfun degenerate play.

In games where XP is limited to quests, exploration, and combat encounters, that means you are pushed to keep engaging with those in order to progress. It's a positive feedback loop where you have to do quests to get stronger and getting stronger unlocks more quests to do, which is to the benefit of the game assuming the quests are good.

In Elder Scrolls frequently doing quests is one of the less efficient uses of your time if you want to level up. Why sneak through a dungeon past a bunch of Draugr to get half a Sneak level when you can crouch behind an immortal NPC and stab them with a dagger for 20 minutes to gain 10 levels? Why slowly work your way up the smithing ladder to make better gear when the best XP/hour is spamming hundreds and hundreds of iron daggers? And they removed the Athletics and Acrobatics stuff in Skyrim, but before that it was the silliest of all, where you leveled up interminably slowly unless you a)jumped constantly everywhere you walked or b) found a room with a very low ceiling and just spammed the jump button for an hour to grind.

That's compounded with the way individual skill level ups contribute to your overall character level too. In Oblivion you level up after 10 skill levels, regardless of what they are, and enemies scale to your level. That means for every Mercantile and Smithing level you gain, enemies get (on average) 1/10th of a level stronger while your combat prowess is completely unchanged. That's why unless you've extensively planned out how to minmax the game Oblivion generally gets harder and harder over time and most fans recommend slowly lowering the difficulty as you level up.

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Preach
The way you level skills in TES games is so incredibly idiotic and exploitable its astonishing people not only like them but want them as a standard

 

[mutantmagnet]

OP, did you ever play a RPG? i mean the oldshool tabletop ones?
The leveling and geting stronger is the whole idea behinde it. You play a character, nto yourself, and want to se him get better, try new stuff out, etc.
If characters represent the skills of the player from the start, then they arent rpgs. If you remove these elements from a Tabletop game, whats left is either an improv theater class or a group storiwriting cyrcle. (nothing bad about that... but we are talking about the legitimacy of RPG)

So, your whole point is... you like the estetics of RPGs, but like Action gameplay more, and want to have big games like FF7R design without the leveling combat...so make all modern RPGs Action games.
Or to make Action games more like rpgs in that they have more of an japan/anime influence on story/presentation?

Click to shrink...

Ha! Someone dares to invoke respect old school table top design when first and foremost those games emphasized role-playing.

Those games existed to help people act out their fantasy and used dice rolling to resolve physical actions. Their underlying purpose was always to help you pretend better.

These games live and die more based on being a good story teller+manager aka dungeon master.

 

[JChung55]

Maybe just watch tv instead fam

 

[Tarpii]

OP's example was a little weird - XC (remake) Expert mode gives you complete control over your parties level, so it's up to you to make the final encounter a challenging (or a pushover) battle whichever you feel like. I'm playing the same game now, and I feel it's a perfect solution.

+ 1 for use of 'ludonarrative dissonance'

 

[Arithmetician]

OP, did you ever play a RPG? i mean the oldshool tabletop ones?
The leveling and geting stronger is the whole idea behinde it. You play a character, nto yourself, and want to se him get better, try new stuff out, etc.
If characters represent the skills of the player from the start, then they arent rpgs. If you remove these elements from a Tabletop game, whats left is either an improv theater class or a group storiwriting cyrcle. (nothing bad about that... but we are talking about the legitimacy of RPG)

So, your whole point is... you like the estetics of RPGs, but like Action gameplay more, and want to have big games like FF7R design without the leveling combat...so make all modern RPGs Action games.
Or to make Action games more like rpgs in that they have more of an japan/anime influence on story/presentation?

Click to shrink...

I don't really want turn-based games to become action games, or change the stories of any games.

All I want is a mod for something like Dragon Quest XI that makes both your party and the enemies always be at level 100. That way I don't have to worry about what level I should be at, bosses are always difficult, regular overworld enemies are mildly difficult no matter whether they are at the first area or the last area, and I can focus on what gear I should put on which character, which characters should be in my party, and what abilities I should use when during battle.

Instead, I dropped Dragon Quest XI before the true final boss because I avoided most overworld enemies and got through battles mainly on strategy, but it meant I was level 55 and no way I am going to spend lots of time grinding to be able to battle just that one boss.

 

[Odeko]

Ha! Someone dares to invoke respect old school table top design when first and foremost those games emphasized role-playing.

Those games existed to help people act out their fantasy and used dice rolling to resolve physical actions. Their underlying purpose was always to help you pretend better.

These games live and die more based on being a good story teller+manager aka dungeon master.

Click to shrink...

This sets up a dichotomy between there being a good story and people gaining levels which I fundamentally don't agree with.

I've played a fair amount of Call of Cthulhu, for example, and that game is a wonderful example of how the two work together to elevate the experience. Obviously the GM is important as they craft the setting and NPCs and plot hooks, but your own character's abilities matter a lot too, and it's fascinating how that game both represents the creeping insanity associated with Lovecraftian horrors and learning the skills required to resist them as two sides of the same XP bar. Throughout a Call of Cthulhu campaign you can feel your character both gaining competence and losing grasp on reality, which is driven by your own decisions and reflects on your own success and failures.

If the characters were static, like the OP suggest, or if things like mental breakdowns were purely driven by GM fiat, it would lose so much. Now you have to be wary of decisions like "should I study the Necronomicon for a month? If I do I'll be 15% more likely to know the weakness of any monster I come across but also 20% more susceptible to insanity checks" which is a really interesting decision and keeps you on your toes.

 

[Arithmetician]

OP's example was a little weird - XC (remake) Expert mode gives you complete control over your parties level, so it's up to you to make the final encounter a challenging (or a pushover) battle whichever you feel like. I'm playing the same game now, and I feel it's a perfect solution.

+ 1 for use of 'ludonarrative dissonance'

Click to shrink...

I *was* using Expert mode. But how do I know which level I want to be? I don't know the level of the final boss! And I don't know how much more or less difficult an extra level will make the battle! I thought I would be fine in terms of challenge but it turned out to be slightly too easy. I don't wanna have to tune the difficulty of the game by trial and error.

 

[TheMango55]

i dont think this is an issue with leveled areas (since i dont recall any game using "rats" or lower enemies as mobs in higher level areas anyway) but with level scaling. skyrim is the worst about it. you can immediately slay anything that breathes as soon as you leave the first town (which makes no sense) but then you play the game, levels and suddenly every common bandits hiding in caves are decked in mystic gear and far stronger than the big boss of the game you defeated hours ago

Click to shrink...

You are thinking of Oblivion more than Skyrim. Skyrim reduces level scaling to a limited range (for example a cave might have vampires of level 5 to 15) and also limited the equipment that enemies had. High level bandit bosses might have an enchanted glass axe or steel plate armor but they weren't going to have a full set of daedric armor like in Oblivion.

 

[Tarpii]

I *was* using Expert mode. But how do I know which level I want to be? I don't know the level of the final boss! And I don't know how much more or less difficult an extra level will make the battle! I thought I would be fine in terms of challenge but it turned out to be slightly too easy. I don't wanna have to tune the difficulty of the game by trial and error.

Click to shrink...

Ahhh come on now, it's not a science here. I think you're inflating the issue a little.

I have been able to tweak my party level to nearby mobs, until the challenge feels right. I can't talk about the final boss as I'm not there yet, but I've found a party level that feels right for the chapter I'm in.