An experiment in excessive freedom

[Renegade_Turner]

A good way to spur conversation on a topic which the growth of has appeared to become stagnant, i.e. it has not evolved in any meaningful way recently, is to provide an opinion or take on the topic which has not previously been contributed.

Otherwise, there are often reasons that a topic drifts away from the original topic. Among the many common reasons for this are (a) that the participants have exhausted what they have to say on the subject, (b) the new topic is more interesting than the original topic, and (c) Renegade_Turner has entered the conversation.

I'm beginning to refer to myself in the third person. I think my ego has reached the summit.

[Wilbefast]

Frankly Ren, I can see us going round in circles for all eternity, besides which you agree with me last time round, so there's not much to say

Whether or not I give any ground though, all this discussion has made my idea seem very far fetched now

To be precise, the things I came up with were:
- player runs a dojo, has to fight in expositions and tournaments to gain more students, can take on the other schools, etc.
- player controls of group of mercenaries and can side with one of two nations spoiling for a fight. Whoever they side with their rival joins the other team (for the record, I actually thought of the idea before it was suggested).
- a mixture of the two?

Also, when games pinhole me into a situation without any way of improving my skills to defeat the opponent I'm faced with or complete the task ahead of me. Like really hard adventure games without hint systems, or fucking Chrono Trigger and its really hard bosses which made me stop playing at a certain point. There was a certain point where you were on some floating world and you're atop some mountain about to engage in a boss fight, and there's a chance to save right before the fight. If you die in the boss fight, you just go back to directly before the boss fight. No chance to go somewhere else and level up. Just either be stuck in the same place unable to beat the boss or restart the game.

That's exactly like a place in Baten Kaitos, where I've been stuck for several years.
There are actually enemies to fight outside of the boss, but as far as I know, there is no way to heal yourself or to teleport to the church where you level up having gained experience points.

Happened to me too - this is why I dislike JRPGs

[Endoperez]

Happened to me too - this is why I dislike JRPGs

It could happen in any game. However, JRPGs must be especially hard to balance. If a player gets few extra levels early on, how long does he have an edge above his enemies? If the player has fewer levels than the designers assumed, how long will he go on before he realizes he has to level up? Will he realize, before a boss?

The opposite could also be a problem. What if some of your powers are too powerful for the monsters, making fights trivial, thus making them boring. There's no tactics involved; there's only one feasible choice. What if the player decides to avoid as many fights as he can, as he's already good? What if that means he ends up underleveled once he finds a monster resistant to the overpowered ability?

When I was a kid, I loved Grandia 1. I'm trying Grandia 2 ATM, and while some of the story is good, the fights have been really boring. For most of the game, there hasn't been any challenge... Most enemies will die to one move, which one depends on the enemy. After you find the one that works, battles against those become trivial...

[tokage]

Happened to me too - this is why I dislike JRPGs

It could happen in any game. However, JRPGs must be especially hard to balance. If a player gets few extra levels early on, how long does he have an edge above his enemies? If the player has fewer levels than the designers assumed, how long will he go on before he realizes he has to level up? Will he realize, before a boss?

The opposite could also be a problem. What if some of your powers are too powerful for the monsters, making fights trivial, thus making them boring. There's no tactics involved; there's only one feasible choice. What if the player decides to avoid as many fights as he can, as he's already good? What if that means he ends up underleveled once he finds a monster resistant to the overpowered ability?

Well, balancing is another issue, but preventing the player from getting stuck should be trivial. You just always have to make sure that you can return to a resting place and the easiest way to do that is coupling resting places with save spots(which is done in a lot of games).

[Wilbefast]

It could happen in any game.

What I don't like is not the imbalance, it's the having to stop every once and a while to grind

[Endoperez]

It could happen in any game.

What I don't like is not the imbalance, it's the having to stop every once and a while to grind

That could happen in any game where you get something from respawnable enemies, if the designers made a mistake or thought players want to grind. I've been playing Grandia 2 for a while, and it's been so easy I intentionally avoided grinding.

A pity, since I played it because I remembered Grandia 1 had an interesting take on a combat system and I wanted to see how it was changed for the sequel...

The first one had HP for health, MP for magic, and SP for special moves. Traps and enemies damaged HP but was easily restored, MP was used for spells but was much harder to restore, so pretty basic so far. SP was used for special moves that differed between characters, and SP were recovered every time character hit an enemy or was damaged.
So you might start throwing spells every battle or so, but when there's no save point in sight and the enemies just keep coming, you start conserving MP, which results in you losing SP and HP faster. However, because you are using basic attacks more often and getting hit more often, you get more SP back, so you still have fun stuff to do in fights, and SP could also be used to restore HP.

Unfortunately, Grandia 2 has so far been so easy that at times, even boss battles feel like grinding. Blast all, blast all, oh the small guys died, blast small, blast small, oh the boss summoned more small guys, blast all, blast all... and then the boss died when I had spent maybe half of the group's MP. None of my characters were hurt. All the small fries died before they could act once, and then the boss just summoned more.

A waste of what might have been a good combat system. Too little variation, too easy enemies so far, and spells and moves that ended up being too similar to each other...

[Renegade_Turner]

It could happen in any game.

What I don't like is not the imbalance, it's the having to stop every once and a while to grind

I will be honest with you right now, I have never resorted to grinding in anything. Having said that, I have always been the type of RPG player who tries to go around and explore everything as I move through areas.

I had a friend in secondary school back when FFXII came out, and we were discussing our progression through the games and what level we were at. He was at the same point in the game as I was, but I recall his play time being about half mine and being about 5-10 levels lower. He was speed-running the game. I couldn't comprehend the concept of speed-running an RPG. He was using intense thought to his tactics during boss fights as opposed to brute strength. Granted this only works to a certain point, because if you're far too weak than certain bosses can have attacks that kill you in one hit. This is something which did always irk me about turn-based RPG's. Being hit with an attack from which you have no chance of dodging away from, and which will automatically kill you once executed.

When I was a kid, I loved Grandia 1. I'm trying Grandia 2 ATM, and while some of the story is good, the fights have been really boring. For most of the game, there hasn't been any challenge... Most enemies will die to one move, which one depends on the enemy. After you find the one that works, battles against those become trivial...

Me too. I still have fond memories of playing it in primary school. That and Suikoden 2 are my two favourite RPG games.

Grandia had a really epic (sorry) story, it just had that feeling of being grandiose, but in a good way rather than a whimsical tacked-on way. And this was a genuine feeling of being grandiose. Grandia 2 got boring more quickly than it takes me to have a wank, and was far less thrilling.

And yes, Grandia had a fantastic battle system. I still think of Justin cheesily saying "BURN, BABY, BURN!" every time he did that fire sword attack. lol

Also loved the magic system, how does eggs worked and how you got certain spells if you combined two different spells. Like you'd get lightning if you combined wind and earth (or something like that).

Fantastic soundtrack too. Not quite John Williams (but who is as good as John Fucking Williams?) but still pretty cool.

Also, is it me or have RPG games been going gradually downhill since the introduction of 3D graphics? The feel of the worlds of modern RPG games just isn't as good as the feel I got from Grandia, Final Fantasy 6, Suikoden 2, Sage Frontier 2, Chrono Trigger, Breath Of Fire 4. =[

[Endoperez]

Grandia had a really epic (sorry) story, it just had that feeling of being grandiose, but in a good way rather than a whimsical tacked-on way. And this was a genuine feeling of being grandiose.

Also loved the magic system, how does eggs worked and how you got certain spells if you combined two different spells. Like you'd get lightning if you combined wind and earth (or something like that).

I also remember first Grandia's story feeling great. I'm not sure how it'd feel if I replayed it...

Lightning was Wind and Fire.
I liked the way you leveled up different weapons on their own, and then got a sword/axe move; or how Feena chose between whip and daggers, and how they acted totally different even when you didn't use the special moves.

Like many other things in Grandia 2, its mana egg system could have worked better than Grandia 1's. The eggs were equipped and could be changed (even during a battle), and each came with its own list of spells, and each egg's repertoire increased as it leveled up. If a character left the party, you could give your favourite spells to another character, or if you had made the protagonist your main mage and then him in melee you could give his eggs and mage-skills to another character. It could've been great if there were two magic slots, and you'd have had to combine leveled-up Earth and leveled-up Fire eggs to get a third (explosion) type of spells. There was only one slot, and most eggs had three pre-set elements, like Fire/Earth/Explosion.

Fantastic soundtrack too. Not quite John Williams (but who is as good as John Fucking Williams?) but still pretty cool.

Also, is it me or have RPG games been going gradually downhill since the introduction of 3D graphics? The feel of the worlds of modern RPG games just isn't as good as the feel I got from Grandia, Final Fantasy 6, Suikoden 2, Sage Frontier 2, Chrono Trigger, Breath Of Fire 4. =[

[/quote]

Grandia 2 has VERY mediocre music. The only high points I've met so far have been rehashings of Grandia 1 theme (which still sent chills down my spine), and one piece directly lifted from the prequel!

As for quality of games... Part of that is probably growing up and recognizing the clichés, part of that is about how art direction took a dip because old ADs weren't familiar with 3D (hopefully they've got around that problem by now). It could also be the genres have changed somewhat. Machines can run fast-paced action games, so good stories can be told via action stories as well. And the settings might also have changed. More scifi and less fantasy, perhaps, or a fantasy setting without knights and dragons, like in the Persona series of RPGs. I haven't played them myself, but some people in my class are crazy about them, and the last one was released just few years ago.

[Wilbefast]

Err... not familiar with Grandia

Look, a video!

[Renegade_Turner]

*Video*

Hahaha, that's funny. If I imagined how you would look, sound and speak, this would be it.

[Wilbefast]

And if I had to imagine how you would look, sound and speak, this would be it:



Try to pretend it's not true

[Renegade_Turner]

This video is blocked in your country yada yada yada.

You're saying I sound like Dylan Moran? Dylan Moran is gloomy and cynical, and he's always drunk, but I'm...ummm...nevermind.

Anyway, I look like this:



Hahaha. No need to get offended by my words anyway. It's just how I imagined you'd look and sound. And he's kind of geeky.

That's the only Irish person you know, isn't it? Hahaha. Dylan Moran isn't a very good representative for us as a country.

And I don't smoke.

I do happen to be a nihilist though. I suppose there's that similarity.

He's a snob, though. He only likes the finest literature and the finest wines and stuff like that. I'll be happy with a 6-pack of Dutch Gold and a copy of The Philosopher's Stone, thank you very much.

And I don't get rejected. I reject.

[Wilbefast]

[Renegade_Turner]

Hahaha Dara O' Briain is pretty cool. I WISH I was Dara O' Briain. Sure I'm better looking than he is, but he's much cooler. And he can belittle people much better than I can. JUST THINK OF THE TROLLING I COULD DO.

[Assaultman67]

edit: my god - I've just realised something! that whole game is a "mid-life crisis" simulator!

Possible theme for your non-linear mod?

Have the player be introduced to the game via an extremely linear void of choices (like blatantly obvious that you have no choice ... maybe even a bit of redundant tasks to annoy them a bit) ... then one day an alternate option to the usual appears and BOOM! Player goes down the rabbit hole of options ...

Edit: Then again that plot sounds vaguely familiar to Portal ... other than the fact that the player STILL doesn't have choices even when he leaves the test chambers ...