RPG Design Flaws

I thought it might be fun and interesting ( particularly since everyone would apparently like to write an RPG if recent threads are to be believed ) if we had a discussion on the huge gaping flaws in RPG design and how we could, would or should fix them. To be clear though, I'm talking about RPG's in general. So I'm not looking for flaws in one or two RPG's, but rather flaws in most/all RPG's. A fundamental genre flaw, if you will. Then we can all do what we internet users do best: put the world to rights!

I'll start us off with a flaw and one possible solution to it, feel free to add your own genre flaws and solution(s) to any mentioned flaw(s).

Levelling Up

It's a huge part of most RPG's, whether they be JRPG's or Western, whether they be turn-based or realtime combat. But levelling up has some huge flaws. For one thing, your character is sometimes a new recruit or some kid fresh out of school, and for that, starting with low skills and improving as you go is fine. But some RPG's have you playing as some kind of major hero, who's been kicking ass and taking numbers for decades ( eg: The Witcher ) so how realistic is it for this ass-kicking hero, often referred to as the Demon Chav Crusher of Galacticus to be wandering around with no ability to use anything but basic leather armour and the only spell he can cast is Felmus' GlowWorm Level 1? Not very.

Also, what about games with sequels? You build up this ass-kicking character by the end of the first game, then come the second game, he mysteriously became about as dangerous as Wayne Sleep in a straightjacket ( which is Wayne Sleep should be, if you ask me :P )

It completely wipes out the immersion factor for me. Heroes should be heroes. So what possible alternative is there?

One Solution

Well one solution is to allow levelling up, but have the world level up with you. This is the Oblivion approach, if you will. It kind of works, in that you are vaguely heroic at the start of the game, but it has the drawback that even a grasshopper with arthritis is as tough as you are when you're fully levelled up. Also, it doesn't deal with the availability of armor, skills, spells etc because you still acquire those as you go.

But what else is there without just ripping levelling up right out of the game? We already have memory loss in just about every one in two RPG's as it is. Oh, he conveniently lost his memory and now he can't remember how to cast InfernoBall Level 17, but he did just get a flash of inspiration and now remembers how to cast Cigarette-Lighter Junior.

So what else is wrong with the entire RPG genre and how do *you* propose to fix my flaw and your own?

You could conceivably deal with this by making the story such that the hero is placed in an "out of context" situation for the purposes of the story. So they might be an action hero, with pre-existing skills to match, but they put in a situation where they suddenly have to learn new skills (e.g. magic). e.g. enter some weird portal that takes you to a parallel universe where you have to learn completely new skills just to get by.

It's admittedly rather limited in scope for where you could take the game storyline.

RPGs are also about collecting stuff & trading up. You could conceivably remove levelling up as such, but replace it with much more emphasis on progression of your equipment. You're a kick-ass hero, but you lost all your equipment & cash somehow, it's up to you to build up your inventory (and this could apply to magic in a game world that doesn't allow memorising of spells, e.g. only reading from scrolls and using wands works).

Or maybe a mechanism for levelling up your equipment?

Another (possibly more flexible) alternative might be to have a hard-ass hero who needs no levelling up, but companion or companions that do need levelling up.

Have you ever played Paper Mario on N64 - some ideas from there maybe around companion levelling choices?

Well I'll start by addressing your issue. One of my pet peeves about leveling up is that we are led to believe that growing up your character reached a certain degree of development in some twenty odd years, and then goes on to become a high-fantasy, world-saving, swashbuckling hero over a very short time span. I think Fable had an interesting approach to solving this problem in theory, but fell a little short in execution. Another RPG that solves the issue well, I think for the scope of the game is EVE Online, were in addition to acquiring XP, you also need to spend TIME advancing your skill. Depending on the setting, this may or may not work for you.

One solution is the "race scenario", which would work well for any high-fantasy type story-line. You have a certain amount of time to reach a given objective before a key event occurs. You then have to chose between leveling up your character and uncovering clues as to what and where the key event is going to take place, and what skills and equipment might be good to have. That way you can chose how well prepared you want to be for any confrontation, and whether you want to spend your time relying on brute force (be the biggest, baddest swordsman there is) or strategy (find out that your would-be opponent is vulnerable to fire, and bring a fiery weapon).

Marks idea seems pretty good. Well the second part anyways ;o)

I don't know, I don't mind the whole "losing your memory" thing because it gives you the opportunity to learn the characters back story.

I like the world levelling up idea too. It didn't work too well in Final Fantasy 8 though. The enemies didn't level up quick enough compared to you. Althought, it is nice to come back to an area and crush some enemies once your so much better than them.

As for the hero story. You could play it out so for instance a meteor hits earth and emits a mystic energy and cause strange things to grow. By harnising the energy of these plants/crstals/whatever, you character learns abilities off of them. Just simply make your character learn new skills. Perhaps after a certain point in teh game take the old skills away from him and blame it on the new item he has.

A cliche-ridden plot is a design flaw that many people overlook. Particularly the "farm boy makes good" and the "amnesiac who turns out to be a powerful hero/villain" themes. If I load up an RPG and the first scene is the protagonist waking up with amnesia, I'm strongly tempted to turn it off. I certainly won't be interested in the story, and this has a huge impact on my enjoyment of a game.

I also dislike high-fantasy settings (orcs, elves and magic, etc.), Star Wars style settings (droids, space ships, wise-cracking rogues), and military-grunt settings (lots of macho, back-slapping, "USA! USA!" Space Marine types) for the same reason.

Personally, I think that combat is included in RPGs as a stalling mechanism - a way to prevent the player from speeding through the game to its conclusion. One major flaw in most RPGs is their reliance on combat rather than character development. So I reckon that the mandatory inclusion of combat in every RPG is a huge flaw.

I'd get rid of leveling up entirely. Some skill advancement yes, but instead of leveling allow the character to collect better stuff, stuff that wears out and breaks with continued use...

There's nothing wrong with any RPGs ever, they are all perfect, and I love levelling up. An asside (related): When I finished NWN: Shadows of Undrentide and started Hordes of the Underdark, it asked me at the start if I wanted to import a character (from Undrentide or other mission pack I guess) or start a new one. I started a new one but it instantly leveled up to level 15 and I could manually or automatically choose my abilities. This was cool.

I've been playing MAss effect on the 360, that still has the flaw of NPC's acting like they've never seen you before when you just spoke to them two minutes ago, and you can keep asking the same question over and over parrot fasion without either party ever changing what they say. It was meant to have this amazing conversation engine in the game, but so far I've not seen anything new.

Some topics come immediately to mind:

1) Silly booty (eg Bats dropping gold pieces when I kill them). There’s really no excuse for this, as it is easy to avoid.

Solution: Give experience points and/or some sort of appropriate product I can sell or use later. (eg bat wings)

2) Select character skills/attributes before beginning a game. This is most annoying as it requires me to read through a manual (which may or may not be helpful) or to read through reams of in-game text before I’ve even started the game.

Solutions: Implement a sort of mini-game that asks me ethical / personal / background questions linked to skills / attributes (eg Ultima’s pre-game Gypsy tent).

OR, preferably, create a system that builds and adapts according to my playing-style (which I might feel like changing at any stage in the game).

3) Re-spawning enemies. Some people probably like killing masses of enemies in an area only to return later to find that area re-filled with the same masses of enemies. I do not. It negates my sense of achievement.

Solution: Give an ‘option’ for me to ‘turn off’ this re-spawning in-game by killing the ‘bosses’ or destroying their ‘homes’. I realise this could introduce balancing issues, but perhaps not if the game is designed with this feature in mind.

the biggest issue i have is amount of usage doesnt affect performace. i would like to see a system where the skills and attributes are not dependant on leveling up with experience points, but dependant on how much you use them. instead of predetermining what you want to be, mold yourself by use. for example, using a bow a lot would build your dexterity which in turn would make you better with the bow. as opposed to a warhammer which would build strength. the more you use of a certain magic type the better you get. this allows for people teaching you as well. for passive skills, someone could teach you the technique and then the more your computer dice roll the technique the better you get at it. anyways you get the idea :) just tired of hacking and hacking with lots of magic use only to have to choose to upgrade my weapon skills or my magic skills.

I despise the whole conceit of starting off as a weakling with no worthwhile possessions, skills or weapons. Like in Morrowind, which looks like it might conceivably be fun and interesting once you advance past struggling to fend off birds with a twig, but I guess I'll never know because I'm not prepared to wait several hours for that thanks.

When I pick up a game like that it's because of the images of bloody broadswords and potent spellcastery plastered over the cover (along with obligatory Valkyrie norks) -- that's what I'm buying it for, not to have my undernourished beanpole of an avatar repeatedly killed by beetles.

One thing i dislike is the numerous quests of "get me X of this", "kill X of Y" or "give X to Y". I hate running all over the place as the errand boy.
And usually you dont get anything worthwhile for it either, some cash and xp?? i could have goten more from 30 mins in the forest killing things...
Where we have the other major cliche, the xp "grind".
I have better things to do than working for several hours just to be able to kill a large rat.

I do love RPGs though, its just that ive played so damn many of them they have become somewhat boring and predictable :(

andy_mc: Agree. Some of the better conversation engines go, "Oh can I ask you about so an so again" and the characters goes "well if you really must" which is a bit better.

impixi: Agree. It always annoys me a) getting weapons and stuff from animals and b) killing something with a weapon only to discover you can't pick it up afterwards! Respawing enemies is always annoying except in very rare game types where it's OK.

gman: Dungeon Master had a system like this. I remember doing stuff like just making fireball after fireball then sleeping and eating for ages until I could make massive fireballs. I also practiced throwing stuff over and over again until I got powered up.

In most RPGs i had the most fun in the beginning because you really have to care about your character and feel vulnerable. This very important feeling stays until a certain level and then after a few levels of enjoying new gained powers things mostly run out of control due to a) the balancing doesn't work anymore or b) you are a superhero and so are the others which means nothing has really changed and you more end up not caring anymore.

I found InXile's Bard's Tale a very well balanced action roleplaying game. You feel that they had some experience in doing RPGs in the ongoing game design. For instance they introduced new spells each time when you needed them for you next mission so that it was integrated in the story and varied.

I would prefer having a reasonable LevelUp in context with the surrounding/story, keeping away mighty stuff via price and quests, and much more work on the story side in terms of unique quests with slight enhancements instead of bashing different monsters with a +20 sword instead of a +2 one.

You also can experience this in paper and pen roleplaying games, the best are those were you take a beginner to advanced character (so that you also can introduce more heavy stuff) but with a good story. Once you have a superhero things get boring pretty soon as you loose contact to what's normal.

Beside of this you could write dozens of pages about this topic...

I like gmans ideas. Gaining skill by use. :)

and also, as Grey Alien mentioned; you should be able to pickup all the stuff the monsters have when you kill them.
Ie. if a skeleton is trying to split your skull with a cool sword, then you should be able to pick it up and use it, after you've slain him.

Warcraft does sort of have the thing of being better the more you use something. It has weapon skills, so if I were to go out now with my high level warrior and buy a two handed mace, I'd have to go around killing very low level things with it for a while before I could fight something my own level, because I simply don't have the skill points on that weapon type, even though my actual character level is 66 (which is quite high for Wow)

Movement speed. If the player is just moving too slow it really kills the whole game. I like gaining skills by use too. Everquest has this type of set up.

For instance, at level 1 your max slashing skill is 50. Everytime you swing your sword you have a 5% chance to get better at it. Eventually you'll hit 50 and get max chance to hit/damage from your slashing weapons. Then when you hit level 2 just raise the slashing cap to say 70.

More to come later...outta time atm.

My friends and I played Traveller in high school in the early 1980s. During pre-play generation, characters could receive lots of skill training, education, and starting possessions if they served several terms, getting older with each one. But, physical/mental characteristics could drop with age, so you had to find a balance (you could even die during chargen, so it was like a mini-game before actual play). As a result, we teenagers often ended up role-playing characters in their 40s through 60s, suffering from some effects of aging, but very skilled and with lots of gear. :)

I get annoyed at seeing my character with 1 hitpoint left still sprinting about and swinging that massive battle axe like as if he's never been hurt. I also miss a lot of the micro management such as the water/food thing. Backpacks these days can carry way too much equipment.

Modern RPG's have been dumbed down to suit the masses, and I guess that's what sells. It would be nice to see at least one that isn't though, sort of like what Flight Sim X does for planes.

I'm not sure if RPGs have been dumbed down so much as streamlined. My biggest problem with RPGs is that there is little actual role play involved, but lots and lots and lots of combat.

True, but equally "backpack management" is a design flaw in my book. The "collect every last thing so I can sell it to buy uber-item X" mechanic forces this. If you had a handful of uber-items (or cash) at the end of each "dungeon", rather than collecting many random things through the dungeon, this would help.

Definitely agree on the pointless-ness of choosing attributes at the start. It makes no sense - you have no real idea what they mean or how they'll benefit you in the context of each specific game. And why do you get to choose? A fairy comes along and gave you a magic wand to improve some of your attributes by a total of 10 points? Yeah, that happens every day (I'll have +10 charisma please!).

I think Ultima Underworld had reduced movement when you were injured which was reaslistic.

Yeah we need smaller backpacks so you can't pick up every weapon you find. Hell FPS games are dumb when you can carry 9 weapons at once (BUT it makes them more fun to play)

hmmm... About the leveling up bit, has any ever played both Golden Sun Games for the GBA?

The second series had you playing as the "enemy" of the first game against you from the last one. But you have it in a new perspective and you feel what you did in the first game was "wrong" and "evil". Strange feeling.

MMORPG's address the leveling issue ...

Let me finish that sentence for you: "... badly."

MMORPGS are all about repetitious grind and meaningless leveling.

Oblivion was really good. Those of you complaining about leveling, xp grinds, and boring quests should really try oblivion.

And you don't start off with a stick to fend off some birds. After the first 30 min, the game is awesome!

My problem with Oblivion is how enemies seem to be all equal, thanks to how they also level up with your character. One telling example is that a rat is about the size of a wolf and tends to take just as many hits from your sword to be killed. This reminds me of over-sensitive characters in weird Japanese RPGs, but at least those are done to not take themselves too seriously, such that I can consider the enormous rat to be some kind of hyperbole done for effect. Oblivion, on the other hand, does seem to take itself seriously, so I despise being unable to squish the rats with my foot, or at least with a single hit from my sword.
The game needs about a gigabyte of downloaded mods to become an interesting experience.

This leads to my biggest problem with most modern RPGs. The game world consists of a completely static scene (with "changing borders" being some lousy compromise for its complete lack of mobility). Then the actual inhabitants of said scene tend to be "Good guys" and "Bad guys", with the occasional random pixel moving in the sky that is supposed to be a bird. I find Oblivion's "Bandit" class quite irritating, for example. Those guys are potentially very cool, since they all have little camps with supplies, often guarding caves. However, for reasons that I cannot figure out, they are "bandits" and thus try (and fail) to kill you on sight. There is absolutely no interesting interaction, and they tend to be quite weak and guarding absolutely useless things like garlic and sleeping bags. These bandits may as well be wolves armed with swords.
...Speaking of which: Wolves often do not kill on sight. A bear tends not to attack something bigger than it. A rat almost always runs away from an enormous shiny person.
By introducing neutral NPCs that still defend themselves if necessary, there is a lot more life in the game -- especially when it comes to the moral dillemma of whether one should really be going and killing all the rats in an area, potentially upsetting the rat-powered generator that the dumb outsiders know nothing about. In Oblivion, there is no dillemma: If you see an NPC, you either kill it or walk over and press the "Talk" key, depending on whether the battle music has come on.

umm, i thought the rats were "dire"?


Not useless to a homeless person....


Wait, so did you want fantasy, or realistic? Can't you just go out in the woods near your house and and get the experience you desire?

No offense intended here, just pointing out our difference in opinion :-)

I thought oblivion did a good job at making up the lacks in most RPGs. The ability to just explore, or hunt deer, was a good experience.

*tried to picture a bum happily chomping his way through a bag of raw garlic*

You obviously haven't tried eating a bulb of raw garlic lately. It's not like eating an apple, you know. I don't reckon I could eat one even if I was absolutely starving. Besides, the tramps around here would rather have booze than garlic, even if they could stomach eating garlic raw.

Nah. I agree with Picklesworth. He perceptively pinpoints exactly why Oblivion sucks, although he fails to note the lame, uninspired, generic high-fantasy setting.

Yeah, because they had a fire going for no reason what so ever (cause grilled garlic is awesome)... Not to mention the fact that they were homeless (lack of home) in the game, it didn't mean they were bums. Some might have been travelers, thieves, beggars, who knows.. The game's scope didn't cover having a backup story for all 50,000 plus characters let alone an individual reaction each would have to someone disturbing their individual reason for being out of the village/city walls........

Saying every rpg sucks, and having 50 ideas (or discussing them here) on making them better with no intention of actually contributing to the market to fix the lacks that you see really gives you no ground to bitch and moan other than to prove your just going to bitch and moan regardless.

I personally hate rpgs, well most of the ones I tried. I love adventure games, and I happened to enjoy oblivion, even threw the game in last night to rekindle a bit of the adventurous aspects of the game.

In fact I saw your comments in Fredborg's youropa thread



With your own logic in here we could point out that his little demo video is neither original nor is it actual in-game play.

Oblivion is a finished product, that did rather well, and was innovative in a few ways (although using the same old generic high-fantasy setting).

I give Fredborg credit, good video. I think that even oblivion had it's weak points that might not be solvable by rpg makers today. However I am not willing to just chalk every game I play to "suck" because I have abnormally high standards in critiquing everything not made by me.

While I think Oblivion worked well in terms of levelling up what you use, the way enemies (including rats) levelled up with you really does suck big time. It's totally unbelievable and seems to be unnecessary.

And the storytelling & characterisation really wasn't very good at all. Although I've played it quite a bit in total since I bought it, I don't go back because for the story at all, I only go back because I fancy playing a bit of an RPG.

Both of these boil down to one design choice (or "flaw" in some peoples eyes, mine included) - that they tried to create a completely open game world. Most attempts to deliver open game worlds (with the exception of GTA) fall down on story. IMHO I think that is because there is a fine balance between true "open worlds" and giving the illusion of one. If you think about why GTA works (other than that it's got guns and cars), I think it's because you can't actually go out and do everything / go everywhere from the off. You have a limited degree of choice withing the overall story context, not 129 different disparate stories / dungeons to explore that mean nothing in the game context.

Hello.

Larn, of course.

Yes, Larn. Perfect levelling up system, monsters got harder to beat and lower level creatures gave you less xp as you got tougher. Stats were raised according to race, not by player choice. Skills could be purchased at the college for money, but took time off you as well - very important in a time limited game.

Monsters do respawn, but most are present on screen, in locked rooms, to begin with.

The inventory (wow, really showing my age here 'Press "I" and Return') was limited both in terms of what you could carry and was dependant upon strength/dexterity.

Granted, it's a dungeon crawler with one quest, but sweet and simple is what I like in a game. Just like my women.

Goodbye.

Although I do agree with stats going up based on usage of that skill and not by the choice of the player.

So do I adds a more real affect

When i play Morrowind/Oblivion (i like morrowind better as oblivion as to much of a console feeling) i jump around slashing my sword and using spells constantly to improve my skill.
It could be considered training, but its not that big of an improvement over manual stats tweaking IMHO.

Yeah Larn was a tight experience.