Can the genre decline below ArcaniA, Diablo 3 and other GFCM ""rpgs""? What is the next step?

[Cryomancer]

GFCM = Gear farming, cooldown managing.

This self entitled RPG's that has less RPGs than visual novels. They have zero mechanical and narrative character building. Everyone is just a clone. Attributes got degraded into measurements of your gear. Somehow everyone has the same IQ and muscle mass and the unique way to grow muscle mass is by finding a fancier pair of boots. There are cooldowns to everything. Even ordering your minions.

Magic? Magic is not s part of the fictional world, is just mindless flashy things. The most iconic example is Diablo 3. There is a spell called siphon blood. You can siphon the blood from the skeleton king(don't ask me how) and the amount of blood sucked is proportional to the size and sharpness of your axe. BTW, you dimaterialize your axe before casting.

And is not as if gear is interesting in this GFCM games. Are mostly just stat stickie. They rarely do anything cool. Remember BG2:SoA itemization? A ring which can summon a Djinn(daily) and is available much before the player can learn the spell to summon a Djinn? and if the Djinn dies the ring is destroyed? BG2 Mace of Disruption? Carsomyr? Gothic's 2 Claw of Beliar? Or even attempting to use a elephant gun in Arcanum and it destroying your face cuz you have too much magical affinity and magic messes with tech in the game? GFCM games tends to have way worse itemization than non item focused games. They are this bad. They are all about inflating numbers to produce big numbers that represents nothing. Claw of beliar will be FOREVER in the minds of G2 NoTR fans. D3 items, nobody cares about then.

From immersive games with cool unique characters in a amazing world, with game mechanics in line with lore to glorified slot machines and artificial timers. That is how far the genre have declined. Can the genre decline even more?

What is the next step in decline? Is hard to see how a game can be worse than ArcaniA and Diablo 3 TBH. Maybe giving a macro to the player, so he don't even need to manage cooldowns in the GFCM game. Or put the weapons which determines how much blood your can suck from a skeleton(d3) in lootboxes, making PC's immortals. Is very hard to think in ways to decline the genre even more.

 

[Humanophage]

I'd say they aren't the worst offenders. The worst decline were items like Mass Effect, late Dragon Age, Fallout 3, all the JRPGs, etc. That is, cutscene-focused games that are essentially machinimas (not even CYOAs) without any challenge and customisation.

Loot-focused action RPGs have been recently improving, as a matter of fact, moving away from focusing too much on reaction and clickety stuff towards elaborate and unlikely builds. Grim Dawn and Path of Exile have pretty intricate character building. Cooldowns aren't great, but they're still better than turning them into pure action games.

 

[ThewDev]

I’d participate in this thought experiment, but I find thinking about Diablo 3 physically painful.

The short answer is yes, things can, and probably will, get worse. There’s now a generation of gamers that expect this sort of shit.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

People here often misunderstand the true face of the decline because they put RPGs into these little boxes (according to their own subjective preferences). It's pretty common on the Codex to love a certain type of RPG (turn based tactics, C&C heavy story, etc). But the truth is you can have many different kinds of excellent RPGs. A game like PST or Disco Elysium might have outstanding writing, while a game like Ultima Underworld has amazing puzzles, while Kingdom Come: Deliverance combines great historical atmosphere and immersion with excellent combat. Witcher 3 has great dialogues and lore, Dark Souls has rewarding combat and challenge.

The real issue with most mainstream RPGs today isn't that they lack this aspect or that characteristic of older games, it's that they absolutely suck in EVERYTHING, in every single facet of their being. Because they are looking to sell as many copies as possible, and any excellence in any respect ironically enough would hurt their sales. To create an excellent combat system, it would have to challenge the player's tactical thinking or their real time skills, and drive many casuals away. Creating a well written game would result in walls of text that casuals don't want to read or long dialogues which they might not want to watch, or complicated plotlines that they might not follow. Having good exploration means removing quest compasses and markers, and well.. we know how that goes.

So you have shit like Fallout 4 or Skyrim or Mass Effect or Assassin Creed Odyssey, with not a single good thing about them.

 

[d1nolore]

People mistake Role Playing Games(RPG) for Fantasy Action Games(FAG). To classify as an RPG the game needs to contain sufficient role playing elements, the mistake people make is thinking a FAG is an RPG because it contains RPG elements.

 

[Zeriel]

I'd say they aren't the worst offenders. The worst decline were items like Mass Effect, late Dragon Age, Fallout 3, all the JRPGs, etc. That is, cutscene-focused games that are essentially machinimas (not even CYOAs) without any challenge and customisation.

Loot-focused action RPGs have been recently improving, as a matter of fact, moving away from focusing too much on reaction and clickety stuff towards elaborate and unlikely builds. Grim Drawn and Path of Exile have pretty intricate character building. Cooldowns aren't great, but they're still better than turning them into pure action games.

I don't like how games like PoE focus entirely on gear interactions over the actual building of the character. While the end result can be cool, it's just too one-sided for my tastes. I far prefer D2's model where most of the interactions were happening on the character itself.

 

[Butter]

Things can always decline further. The next step for these skinner boxes is cutting out the pretense of different classes. Just give the player one stat called POWER and every piece of gear directly increases POWER.

 

[Humbaba]

Considering the massive and inexplicable commercial and critical success of Disco Elysium we can at the very least expect glorified visual novels that are even worse.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Realms of Arkania HD

 

[Cryomancer]

Considering the massive and inexplicable commercial and critical success of Disco Elysium we can at the very least expect glorified visual novels that are even worse.

From GFCM games to visual novels would be a huge incline, not decline.

People mistake Role Playing Games(RPG) for Fantasy Action Games(FAG). To classify as an RPG the game needs to contain sufficient role playing elements, the mistake people make is thinking a FAG is an RPG because it contains RPG elements.

Exactly. Just like racing. A single racing level in a mission in Saints Row doesn't make it a racing game. The game needs to focus on it to be one.

 

[JamesDixon]

Well given how almost universities are turning out stupid blind followers with a specific agenda it's going to decline. Keep in mind that the original creators of prior games didn't have that level of indoctrination. They created their games out of love for the original pen and paper RPGs. This is why these modern "rpgs" can't hold a candle to classics like the SSI Gold Box Games. The charm of those older games was the feelies you got like the code wheel, manual, and campaign journal. You had to have them due to space limitations of the storage medium.

 

[JarlFrank]

Well given how almost universities are turning out stupid blind followers with a specific agenda it's going to decline. Keep in mind that the original creators of prior games didn't have that level of indoctrination. They created their games out of love for the original pen and paper RPGs. This is why these modern "rpgs" can't hold a candle to classics like the SSI Gold Box Games. The charm of those older games was the feelies you got like the code wheel, manual, and campaign journal. You had to have them due to space limitations of the storage medium.

Developers in the 80s, 90s, and some in the early 00s drew inspiration from books, movies, history, philosophy, pen and paper gaming, etc, so we got a ton of unique games that felt different.

Developers nowadays draw inspiration from other games, so all we get are clones of clones of clones.

 

[JamesDixon]

Well given how almost universities are turning out stupid blind followers with a specific agenda it's going to decline. Keep in mind that the original creators of prior games didn't have that level of indoctrination. They created their games out of love for the original pen and paper RPGs. This is why these modern "rpgs" can't hold a candle to classics like the SSI Gold Box Games. The charm of those older games was the feelies you got like the code wheel, manual, and campaign journal. You had to have them due to space limitations of the storage medium.

Developers in the 80s, 90s, and some in the early 00s drew inspiration from books, movies, history, philosophy, pen and paper gaming, etc, so we got a ton of unique games that felt different.

Developers nowadays draw inspiration from other games, so all we get are clones of clones of clones.

Yup, which is why there's nothing unique out there today. The best stuff was in the past compared to the shovelware we're getting now.

I didn't see you on Steam yet. You must be taking a break.

 

[Cryomancer]

Codex to love a certain type of RPG (turn based tactics, C&C heavy story, etc). But the truth is you can have many different kinds of excellent RPGs. A game like PST or Disco Elysium might have outstanding writing, while a game like Ultima Underworld has amazing puzzles, while Kingdom Come: Deliverance combines great historical atmosphere and immersion with excellent combat. Witcher 3 has great dialogues and lore, Dark Souls has rewarding combat and challenge.

I strongly agree.

This all are amazing RPG's by different reasons. My critique is towards mindless GFCM games like d3. that is IMO the decline taken to the extreme. I saw people who called Gothic 1/2 "popamole" games. When they have amazing immersion, story, writing, atmosphere...

 

[Zeriel]

Things can always decline further. The next step for these skinner boxes is cutting out the pretense of different classes. Just give the player one stat called POWER and every piece of gear directly increases POWER.

That's literally what D4 is doing.

 

[Cryomancer]

That's literally what D4 is doing.

Was the initial design but they changed and D4 will have player allocated attributes https://diablo4.wiki.fextralife.com/Stats+&+Attributes

 

[Zeriel]

Ah, okay. I'd say at least they are listening, but Blizzard is in such turmoil and so declined I can't muster any hope.

I would argue that attributes having different effects for different classes is the same mistake they made in D3 though and kind of defeats the purpose of attributes--if there isn't a bad attribute for your class because they all do something, it undermines the actual intrinsic nature of attributes (i.e they are representing some characteristic of a person, not just a game mechanic, in the sense that a barbarian doesn't need high INT in order to do calculus, because he's a fucking barbarian, but under this system arguably he would benefit from it because it'd do something else like reduce cooldowns rather than just being tied to mana and sorcery).

 

[Adenocaulon]

I still prefer cooldowns before consumables for strong abilities, because I always finish the games without using the consumables.

Games should consider a balance between:

-abilities with cooldowns
- abilities with limited number of uses per day
-abilities with casting times
-consumables

 

[d1r]

Things can always decline further. The next step for these skinner boxes is cutting out the pretense of different classes. Just give the player one stat called POWER and every piece of gear directly increases POWER.

That's literally what D4 is doing.

It still has classes though.

 

[Humbaba]

Developers in the 80s, 90s, and some in the early 00s drew inspiration from books, movies, history, philosophy, pen and paper gaming, etc, so we got a ton of unique games that felt different.

Developers nowadays draw inspiration from other games, so all we get are clones of clones of clones.

That's for economic reasons, not because of some schizo jooysh or academic conspiracy. The videogame industry these days is big business and mainstream and no longer serves a niche. Additionally, games cost a lot more to make than ever before. This in turn means that game companies will not and cannot produce anything that is not projected to sell well, so they often look at what has sold well in the past, hence the clones of clones of clones. Kickstarter does the same thing; PoE got so much money thrown at it precisely because it more or less promised to be a clone of the IE games. On the flipside, this is why indie games are a lot more creative than AAA games for example, because indie devs don't have the same economic pressures put on them. The solution? Support the little guy.

 

[Reinhardt]

"RPG" "Diablo" "Diablo 3"

Nigga u wot

 

[JarlFrank]

Developers in the 80s, 90s, and some in the early 00s drew inspiration from books, movies, history, philosophy, pen and paper gaming, etc, so we got a ton of unique games that felt different.

Developers nowadays draw inspiration from other games, so all we get are clones of clones of clones.

That's for economic reasons, not because of some schizo jooysh or academic conspiracy. The videogame industry these days is big business and mainstream and no longer serves a niche. Additionally, games cost a lot more to make than ever before. This in turn means that game companies will not and cannot produce anything that is not projected to sell well, so they often look at what has sold well in the past, hence the clones of clones of clones. Kickstarter does the same thing; PoE got so much money thrown at it precisely because it more or less promised to be a clone of the IE games. On the flipside, this is why indie games are a lot more creative than AAA games for example, because indie devs don't have the same economic pressures put on them. The solution? Support the little guy.

I'm not just talking about the big AAA and AA businesses, I'm also talking about indie teams of 1-10 people. A lot of those passionate indies just wanna clone their favorite game and their design lacks any influence outside of the last decade of game design theory.

 

[alighieri]

They are all about inflating numbers to produce big numbers that represents nothing.

There you have it. Either you love this genre or you hate it but the whole premise of Diablo and its clones is to collect things and see numbers go up.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

but the whole premise of Diablo and its clones is to collect things and see numbers go up.

sounds like an idle game like cookie clicker

 

[jackofshadows]

Is it so hard not to be butthurt about x or y game with RPG elements? Or about DE for the umpteenth time? The market is wide enough and yet people here always wanna try to collapse it into imaginery 2d chart in order to determine relative incline or decline. Who the fuck cares about main stream games at this point beyond pissing at it or at drama around it? Genre-enthusiasts are getting plenty of new games to talk about and discuss at length but here you are. Don't embarass yourself by talking about different kind of games and applying to them ridiculous measures without knowing what makes them good or bad within their own scales. What's next: "why CoD Modern Warfare is the biggest decline of the whole game's history?