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[gimymblert]

When a thread derail to genre discussion, please come here.

 

[moi]

Oh god I haet the sonic gameplay

[Happy Shabby Games]

Text boxes need to be nerfed in King Arthur's Gold. Genre/influence arguments > bombs. 

[Sankar]

Genre can't be really discussed, most of the time. Simply because the idea of genre is just of a "abstraction that helps theorizing about something", in other words, if too much debate is made, it loses its initial idea: Making thing simpler.

If we start going too deep into "what is what", we'll end up with 1000 of genres.
Can you really say that Half-Life 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Doom, belong to the exact same genre?
Mario Kart and Gran Turismo?
Super Mario and Donkey Kong Country?
Tekken 3 and Street Fighter 3?

Sure, we all usually classify these games in the same category, because "More or Less" They have similarities, but in-deep they are totally different animals.

And most genres come from a specific historic moment, like "point-and-click adventures", it's not that EVERY adventure game needs to be played with a Mouse, it's just that, at that time, most people used to think of many games as "adventures", and the press/audience needed a smart way to define, what is and what isn't.

Games can be categorized by technology: "Side-Scroll"
By Theme: "Survival-Horror"
By View: "First-Person Shooter"
By Freedom "Computer RPG"

And getting a consensus is impossible, for many people "Indie Games" are any and all Independent Developed Games, for me, its more about a specific thing in the design: The Focus on the "Mood" of the Game, Ambient and so On.

So, Genre Debate is Pretty Much a Waste of Time.

[laserdracula]

Let's talk about Zelda II.

[Bree]

Balancing in RPGs is a topic I am very unsure about, partly because of how grinding is perceived to be an inherent part of the genre. Through this viewpoint, a boss that's 20 levels higher than anything else in the dungeon isn't poor balancing, it's just a challenge that you can overcome either through clever strategy or just plain old hard work. What frustrates me is that I have no clue what could be done to remedy this sort of irritation when I play something like Pokemon... one would think there'd surely be more interesting ways to create challenge than raising the stats?

[SundownKid]

Balancing in RPGs is a topic I am very unsure about, partly because of how grinding is perceived to be an inherent part of the genre. Through this viewpoint, a boss that's 20 levels higher than anything else in the dungeon isn't poor balancing, it's just a challenge that you can overcome either through clever strategy or just plain old hard work. What frustrates me is that I have no clue what could be done to remedy this sort of irritation when I play something like Pokemon... one would think there'd surely be more interesting ways to create challenge than raising the stats?

That's one of the good things about Zelda, it's focused on exploration, puzzle solving and (usually) strategic boss-killing rather than leveling up.

[s0]

Unless you only play the most primitive JRPGs, MMOs and "social" grind games, I don't understand how you can see leveling up and raising stats as universally bad design.

[Bree]

I don't mean to imply that leveling up and raising stats are bad design choices in and of themselves- I think they work as great rewards and a way to measure progress and challenge. What specifically frustrates me is the grind- essentially, encountering a roadblock and chipping away at lower level enemies to be strong enough to survive the next boss. To me it just kills the pace of the game, especially when there's a massive gap. I'm hardly suggesting that all RPGs forget leveling and become Zelda games (although I'd be interested in seeing alternative takes on the Zelda formula), nor should grinding be eradicated altogether. Clearly, people like it, so it shouldn't go away. But surely there's some sort of alternative way to make the game battles challenging and fun to play?

[Sankar]

Grinding, Farming and Trading are, essentially, "pain in the ass" mechanics that are used to make the game last more and, force the player to slow down and "enjoy the view".
They need to be very well used or else they bore the player out of its mind.

First of all, I believe video-games need to have a video element in it, by this I mean, I don't want to face a monster 50 times just to get a number. I want a Item, I want to Equip said Item, I want to see how cool it looks or not. I want to sell it. I want to find a recipe that mixing this item with that one I'll make something cool.

Second, choice is important. Games like Harvest Moon are (irony aside) all about farming, but its cool because I'm choosing to do this. I could just walk around in town, but I want to have a nice farm, to search for good items, mining, choosing the right combination of crops.

Minecraft is all about this too, but since I got my giant ass metal + rocks tower in my mind, I don't mind hitting blocks for 10 hours.

[SundownKid]

But surely there's some sort of alternative way to make the game battles challenging and fun to play?

I think it's just a matter of properly balancing the game so that new enemies give enough XP to not necessitate too much grinding, and weaker enemies run away. But, generally, grinding in some form is an integral part of an RPG with stats. If you really want to eliminate grinding, you will have to remove the stats too.

[gimymblert]

Grind in good game is a power climbing mechanics couple resource management, even if fighting themselves have very little strategy, that allow the player to grow at it's own pace.

There is a loop between money, equip, potion (and similar restore item), and xp with a big challenging lock (generally the boss). Enemy are laid out so there is always the cannon fodder with low risk/reward to more complex tough with better reward. Basically you have the choice of wich area to go and meet enemy pattern. If you are good enough you can go directly for tougher enemy or you can go for weak enemy to rack up enough power to tackle the next tier until you can go to the boss. So it's fight, loop, items, buy, level up, fight. Low cost service like inn help the player facing the price inflation with things like potion when he is broke (and therefore can only progress with low level enemy with low gold drop). It's all about the rate of consumption.

I remember playing secret of mana and have hard time to play and even at the last boss where I had max out the stat and power but only to crush the game literary the game on replay with half the stat I had (because I knew the weakness and had the correct resource ahead of encounter).

[s0]

you guys are all thinking of games where you literally just kill enemies, level up and gain stats automatically. what about games that allow for different character builds? even pokemon (mentioned previously) has that and it's one of the main reasons why the game is fun imo.

it only really works if "skill points" or w/e the game uses are a limited resource tho. it forces the player to make decisions and makes the game more interesing. games like oblivion and fallout 3 where you can just become "great at everything" if you grind enough suck.

[gimymblert]

What i said basically work with multiple character build too, manual stat assignment is just a general case of character build. It's just the pattern of choice for the power build that change. If you are a warrior taking the stealth path is harder than the fighting path, if a situation require some stealth you are more likely to wait until your stealth stat is higher, hence it produce a different pattern of encounter for each build from the same set. If not it's akin to difficulty level, the power climbing ask you to be smarter or just go slower until you have stat high enough. Regarding open world, you just lose the lock for difficulty gating and area double as encounter pattern, which is more choice too.

But I'm assuming the game is well design and not randomly put together. Open world is more likely to be looser on thoughtful balance, because the player will automatically go to the pattern of play through experience instead of being gate into stupidity.

Of course assumption of scarcity, at least at the beginning of the game. Game like fallout, etc... have still the power climbing until you became essentially half god. It impact the beginning of the game and is reward later on. Of course, as those game have separate progression fort stat and gameplay the player tend to just grind until good enough.

I think a lot of designer don't understand the use of scarcity to make fun game. Minecraft is a game essentially based on abundance and scarcity.

[TacoBell_Lord]

Balancing in RPGs is a topic I am very unsure about, partly because of how grinding is perceived to be an inherent part of the genre. Through this viewpoint, a boss that's 20 levels higher than anything else in the dungeon isn't poor balancing, it's just a challenge that you can overcome either through clever strategy or just plain old hard work. What frustrates me is that I have no clue what could be done to remedy this sort of irritation when I play something like Pokemon... one would think there'd surely be more interesting ways to create challenge than raising the stats?

I like that idea, here's where i think a lot of RPGs became stagnate at because of the same formula; grind, level, get new sword (repeat, wash) & thats where I think the entire narrative is drowned out by what players don't want to do for the umpteenth time.

It'll be awesome to design not only mechanics but interactivity with the need to get stronger. In this article i wrote, I said the player & the avatar are intertwined sharing a goal to "finish the game". I think it'll be great to design systems where the player wants to get out & grind, without a social (MMO) reason.


In Pokemon, its to be the very best...that no one ever was.