What's the ideal length for RPGs?

[solemgar]

You know, I was sitting here thinking I'd be minority vote for 20-40hrs. Glad to see this is a popular stance.

I WANT to love Owlcat games, but Jesus Christ Rogue Trader could've left 20 hours on the cutting room floor EASILY.

Was thinking on giving it a whirl. Kingmaker went past the 80h mark for me. How long is Rogue Trader? Recommend?

 

[Alienman]

5000 hours minimum.

 

[Litmanen]

I don’t have much time to play. But even if I did, I personally have a limit beyond which I feel a story arc has gone on for too long and should come to an end.

30 to 40 well-crafted hours, without unnecessarily long dungeons.

 

[notpl]

There isn't one. I've enjoyed 3-4 hour RPGs, I've enjoyed 100+ hour RPGs to the point where I replayed them multiple times. There is no point in trying to divide it up further: good games are good regardless of their length, thus also to the bad.

 

[Red Rogue]

You know, I was sitting here thinking I'd be minority vote for 20-40hrs. Glad to see this is a popular stance.

I WANT to love Owlcat games, but Jesus Christ Rogue Trader could've left 20 hours on the cutting room floor EASILY.

Was thinking on giving it a whirl. Kingmaker went past the 80h mark for me. How long is Rogue Trader? Recommend?

Shit I don't know man. You'd be hard pressed to form a legitimate argument that it's a bad game, because it's certainly not.
But at the same time I tapped out after 30 hours and I've got zero desire to ever go back.

Maybe the setting just isn't for me. Maybe I don't like verbosity. Maybe I'm just a pleb. Actually that's probably it.
Ultimately, I got the feeling that the game was up it's own ass for how much content is crammed into it. Good on them for putting love into the game, but it's just too much - at least for me.

 

[solemgar]

You know, I was sitting here thinking I'd be minority vote for 20-40hrs. Glad to see this is a popular stance.

I WANT to love Owlcat games, but Jesus Christ Rogue Trader could've left 20 hours on the cutting room floor EASILY.

Was thinking on giving it a whirl. Kingmaker went past the 80h mark for me. How long is Rogue Trader? Recommend?

Shit I don't know man. You'd be hard pressed to form a legitimate argument that it's a bad game, because it's certainly not.
But at the same time I tapped out after 30 hours and I've got zero desire to ever go back.

Maybe the setting just isn't for me. Maybe I don't like verbosity. Maybe I'm just a pleb. Actually that's probably it.
Ultimately, I got the feeling that the game was up it's own ass for how much content is crammed into it. Good on them for putting love into the game, but it's just too much - at least for me.

Kinda feels like my playthrough of kingmaker. The last 30 hours were such a slog that I put the game in the easiest difficulty just to plow through the encounters. And even in easy, you had to keep an eye on the combat because the last encounters were just pure insanity

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

It's worse in Wrath of the Righteous. They really jump the shark there.
The encounters in Kingmaker are a bit annoying at first but once you work out that you just need Echolocation or Blindfight it's a lot more manageable.
Wild Cunt Archers are still bullshit though.

 

[Red Rogue]

It's worse in Wrath of the Righteous. They really jump the shark there.
The encounters in Kingmaker are a bit annoying at first but once you work out that you just need Echolocation or Blindfight it's a lot more manageable.
Wild Cunt Archers are still bullshit though.

This is a big source of discontent in my life. Wrath of The Righteous looks so cool, but I know I'm just going to play it, like the first 20 hours, then get burnt out when I realize I have 80 left.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, the problem with Wrath is that it's all demons, there's no real sense of progression.
In KM you start small and then build up to high level Fae.
In Wrath you fight demons and then more demons and then some undead and then more demons and oh look they ran out of ideas so here's some demons with special snowflake powers.
I can see why one gets burned out quickly. FFS they throw that bird demon at you in like the first or second act, and those are meant to be high leveled encounters.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I would love to see short cRPGs without any grand narratives.
Something around 20 hours.
Make a team. Raid a big dungeon and the surroundings. That's it.

 

[Iucounu]

Today's games are long because it sounds better in marketing. At the same time publishers don't want you to play the same game forever, they want you to keep buying new ones. So they frontload the best parts, then spam a thousand quest markers to show that those quests exist, but hope that you won't look too closely at them.

In an ideal world, length might be determined by the main plot, and mechanics should last for multiple replays (the more the better). Side quests might be used to deliver additional worldbuilding and lore, but the player would have to seek them out by himself (for example by exploration) to avoid feeling distracted.

 

[Red Rogue]

Today's games are long because it sounds better in marketing. At the same time publishers don't want you to play the same game forever, they want you to keep buying new ones. So they frontload the best parts, then spam a thousand quest markers to show that those quests exist, but hope that you won't look too closely at them.

In an ideal world, length might be determined by the main plot, and mechanics should last for multiple replays (the more the better). Side quests might be used to deliver additional worldbuilding and lore, but the player would have to seek them out by himself (for example by exploration) to avoid feeling distracted.

I might disagree that publishers don't want you playing the same game. For RPGs, that may or may not be the case. But for the industry as a whole, there's been a reluctance to make sequels with these rising production costs and the ROI for titles that monetize after launch through DLC or micros.

 

[Falksi]

Today's games are long because it sounds better in marketing. At the same time publishers don't want you to play the same game forever, they want you to keep buying new ones. So they frontload the best parts, then spam a thousand quest markers to show that those quests exist, but hope that you won't look too closely at them.

In an ideal world, length might be determined by the main plot, and mechanics should last for multiple replays (the more the better). Side quests might be used to deliver additional worldbuilding and lore, but the player would have to seek them out by himself (for example by exploration) to avoid feeling distracted.

Yep.

It's quite fucking scary how many thick cunt normie twats I often see on social media state stuff like "Game looks amazing...not paying full price for it at only 30 hours though", just fucking retarded logic.

Some of my fave games (Phantasy Star 4, Thunderforce 3, Actraiser, Hellfire, Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday, Citadel, Dead Space, Blade Runner, Day of the Tentacle, Streets of Rage 4 etc.) come in at well under 30 hours, but they're fantastic, very replayable and I've had WAY more value out of them over the past X amount of years than I have bloated shite like Pathfinder & Skyrim.

 

[StaticSpine]

Today's games are long because it sounds better in marketing.

Also, it's better for marketing because the longer the game the longer streamers play it.

And yeah, normies still measure games in hours per $.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

I would love to see short cRPGs without any grand narratives.
Something around 20 hours.
Make a team. Raid a big dungeon and the surroundings. That's it.

There is this game called Battle for Esturia that fits the description, it is simple, nice and cheap. You should check it out.

 

[Iucounu]

Today's games are long because it sounds better in marketing. At the same time publishers don't want you to play the same game forever, they want you to keep buying new ones. So they frontload the best parts, then spam a thousand quest markers to show that those quests exist, but hope that you won't look too closely at them.

In an ideal world, length might be determined by the main plot, and mechanics should last for multiple replays (the more the better). Side quests might be used to deliver additional worldbuilding and lore, but the player would have to seek them out by himself (for example by exploration) to avoid feeling distracted.

Yep.

It's quite fucking scary how many thick cunt normie twats I often see on social media state stuff like "Game looks amazing...not paying full price for it at only 30 hours though", just fucking retarded logic.

And then they still abandon the game after playing just 30 hours...

 

[Revencort]

50 hour story, 110+ hours total with side content. Chef's kiss, enough time to go through whole story arcs thoroughly and not feel beholden to sacrifice your life to see the end of a story, and more than enough side content that allows you to play it for a year (If you aren't a neet that only plays videogames) if desired and just slowly taste the world building.

 

[StaticSpine]

Mortismal was probably the biggest CRPG channel on YT, though now he reviews all types of stuff.
He rants about lengths and says his sweet spot is 30-40 hours for one (story) playthrough.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It depends on its quality.

Higher tier should be long, very long.
And the lesser the quality (battle encounter, writing and quest design) the shorter it should be, just make it "replayable" so the few retards whom didn't get enough can play it again.

 

[Bloodeyes]

If the quality doesn't drop off in the later sections of the game then I never want it to end. As long as they can make it. It always does though.

 

[Red Rogue]

Mortismal was probably the biggest CRPG channel on YT, though now he reviews all types of stuff.
He rants about lengths and says his sweet spot is 30-40 hours for one (story) playthrough.

He's pretty decent, his channel has certainly exploded over the past two years. Some whack takes, especially about Dragon Age series, but I'm with him here.
I think most people these days are tiring of 80+ and enjoy 30-40.

I also think there's a valuable place for a 5-10 hour shooter.

 

[Saldrone]

A lot of the time some videogames are "long" due to how slow-paced they are, not because they have a lot of content.