Why do so many GREAT RPG's worsen in late game?

[Cryomancer]

Eg?

• VtMB is amazing till late Chinatown
• Pathfinder Kingmaker is great till Pitax and after Pitax, including the optional chapter is too boring
• Pathfinder : Wrath of the Righteous at the late chapter 4 becomes a endless slog
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadows of Amn is great till you return from Underdark, then becomes less great
• Gothic 2 chapters 1/2/3/4 are amazing but late game sucks
• Returning 2.0 mod made ch 5 a bit better with some cool areas and a undead mystery to solve and quests yet chapter 7, added by the mod is atrocious.
• NWN2 OC is good till the last dungeon
• NWN1:HotU, the last chapter is arguably the WORST part of the epic adventure
• Might & Magic VII : For Blood and Honor - After the second promotion quest, the games drops in quality a lot.
• Dark Souls : After Ornstein and Smough, the game drops in quality a lot
• Solasta : The end game fells a slog

There are exceptions to that ""rule"". Ravenloft : Strahd possession was amazing from the start till the Strahd fight. Gothic 1 is amazing from the "welcome to the colony" till the last fight in the sleeper temple. Dark Sun : Wake of the Ravager is amazing from the first minute playing till when you fight the terrifying Tarrasque at end game. Eye of the Beholder 3 has some really bad parts like UNDERWATER no magical fields but the late game is not that bad.

Why a significant drop in the quality happens in so many RPGs?

 

[bionicman]

They're bad all around, you just realize you're wasting your time in the 'late game'.

Spoiler

 

[Wunderbar]

There are no rpgs with a good endgame.

 

[Ryzer]

Simple, devs have a deadline to reach and at the end of the development, they are fed up on the project. The budget allowed to the game is also a criterion.

 

[santino27]

Because neither budget nor time nor inspiration are infinite.

 

[Dodo1610]

It's not just games. Eventually you run out of both time and ideas so you take shortcuts knowing that most people will never see the end anyway.

For RPGs you have the problem that combat usually isn't that good anyway but you need a final confrontation with the villain which requires lots of combat and not much else.

 

[Ninjerk]

On top of the budget/time constraints, you have to wonder how many designers only understand how their own systems work and what makes them fun at the low-mid levels.

 

[InSight]

The limits of energy/ability/timeframe of games with complex system, many rules interacting with each-other. It is to be expected as a result for such games to be also buggy for their code often entangle/jam.

CRPG character progression rules often lead to accumulation of power/ability. The game developer/designer have not placed/accounted/designed a challenge/obstacle that can match/hold the peak/highest/strongest combination of both tool(the player's character/pawns) & user(the players skills/insight/experience). In hindsight, without these two, success would not or rarely be possible if faced with such overwhelming odds.
Contrast/compare to must action (such of arcade/console era 80-90) where power ups are limited by time or hits, they are temporary be it time, damage ammunition ect. in Super-Mario power-ups make Mario invincible against attack or allow shooting of fireballs until hit.
In these, the player often must rely mostly on his skills with the game. Do more with less as game progress towards the end, although this can be question or only noticed relatively since even there more abilities are found/unlocked and can be hoarded depending on game.

Great means large ,large games are often described as bloated.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There are no rpgs with a good endgame.

ATOM RPG
Dead City is the best part of the game and you should do it right before the end. Even before that, it's a slow incline the entire way through.

Never felt like the game got too easy or that I was steamrolling over things.

 

[Falksi]

They ran out of coffee

 

[Wunderbar]

There are no rpgs with a good endgame.

ATOM RPG
Dead City is the best part of the game and you should do it right before the end. Even before that, it's a slow incline the entire way through.

Never felt like the game got too easy or that I was steamrolling over things.

Dead City was also patched in way after the development was considered to be finished, so it's more of an expansion than a proper end-game.

The actual end-game in ATOM is a bunch of mushroom cult members crammed into a tiny corridor.

 

[Serus]

In crpg half of the fun* is seeing number grows and getting new stuff to use. Late game you often stop seeing number grows - at least in meaningful ways and the new things aren't that new anymore (for exemple no new perks after certain level). Basically character building/progression stops at certain point, hence the endgame seems subjectively worse in many games.
Of curse that doesn't cover the case when other elements of game design are objectively worse endgame which is common but the above is in my opinion a factor as well.
Other than that, as other have said, limited resources of developers + games locations/encounters being often made in the same order as they are meant to be played = later parts have less resources spent on them.


*maybe not half, or not in all games and not for everyone but undoubtedly it is an important factor in CRPGs.

 

[Butter]

Most of them are too long for their own good, and you get bored of them by the endgame.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

NWN2 OC is good till the last dungeon

Hombre you are stretching the word good too far here, by a country mile or so.
While there are certainly good bits in Nwn2, it is overall ok at best.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It's not just games. Eventually you run out of both time and ideas so you take shortcuts knowing that most people will never see the end anyway.

For RPGs you have the problem that combat usually isn't that good anyway but you need a final confrontation with the villain which requires lots of combat and not much else.

I want to know who draws horses starting from the butt.

 

[NJClaw]

There's nothing wrong with BG1's and IWD1's lategame. If you enjoyed the rest of the game, you'll enjoy the late parts. I'd include IWD2 too, but the last set of non-combat subquests is too much.

 

[BlizzardStockholmSyndrome]

Throne of Bhaal keeps upping the ante all the way until Amelyssan. You do feel a smug sense of satisfaction that there are entire Kingdoms in Thethyr that are bankrupting themselves trying to put a bounty on your head.

 

[wishbonetail]

There's nothing wrong with BG1's and IWD1's lategame. If you enjoyed the rest of the game, you'll enjoy the late parts. I'd include IWD2 too, but the last set of non-combat subquests is too much.

Never finished IWD1,2 because of a nice little abomination called the level cap. Slapping my boner with a ruler would be more engaging than continue playing with no exp gains.

 

[NJClaw]

There's nothing wrong with BG1's and IWD1's lategame. If you enjoyed the rest of the game, you'll enjoy the late parts. I'd include IWD2 too, but the last set of non-combat subquests is too much.

Never finished IWD1,2 because of a nice little abomination called the level cap. Slapping my boner with a ruler would be more engaging than continue playing with no exp gains.

There's no way you'll ever reach the level cap in those games if you play with a full party.

 

[wishbonetail]

There's nothing wrong with BG1's and IWD1's lategame. If you enjoyed the rest of the game, you'll enjoy the late parts. I'd include IWD2 too, but the last set of non-combat subquests is too much.

Never finished IWD1,2 because of a nice little abomination called the level cap. Slapping my boner with a ruler would be more engaging than continue playing with no exp gains.

There's no way you'll ever reach the level cap in those games if you play with a full party.

Too old for parties.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Dark Souls : After Ornstein and Smough, the game drops in quality a lot

It does?

There are no rpgs with a good endgame.

Deus Ex
Witcher 2
Morrowind

Simple, devs have a deadline to reach and at the end of the development, they are fed up on the project.

More like they didn't plan the final act well enough

In crpg half of the fun* is seeing number grows and getting new stuff to use. Late game you often stop seeing number grows - at least in meaningful ways and the new things aren't that new anymore (for exemple no new perks after certain level). Basically character building/progression stops at certain point, hence the endgame seems subjectively worse in many games.

I think the real issue is the fact that devs have a hard time coming up with proper challenges and uses for all the various late game builds

 

[Humbaba]

Because neither budget nor time nor inspiration are infinite.

That's the most likely answer.

Dead City was also patched in way after the development was considered to be finished, so it's more of an expansion than a proper end-game.

The actual end-game in ATOM is a bunch of mushroom cult members crammed into a tiny corridor.

Yep, both ATOM RPG and Trudograd have terrible endgames.

There's nothing wrong with BG1's and IWD1's lategame. If you enjoyed the rest of the game, you'll enjoy the late parts.

Let's put it this way, those late games are not as bad as some of the others that were mentioned. The labyrinth in BG1 is a very blatant attempt at padding and those skeleton warriors are huge bastards. I won't say too much on IWD because I only played that game once and got pissed during the endgame because my crossbow elf ran out of bolts and there were no merchants to buy more, which was pretty bad because that guy was one of my main damage dealers.

 

[Humanophage]

A bad endgame can't really spoil your impressions from a game because it's optional. On the other hand, no one will trudge through bad early and mid game to reach the reputedly strong endgame. One exception are add-ons that let you skip the early game (as with NWN2), but they effectively mean you skip the endgame from the original game too. Besides, people generally don't finish longer games, so good endgame doesn't matter as much.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Most of the good ideas are used up by the early game. Most attention is paid to early game areas when dev enthusiasm is at its peak. Design principles are more strictly adhered to in the early stages, then give way to expediency of development. Devs get carried away with the initial areas and lose precious time or get burned out. Devs lose intellectual interest for their own project as soon as they reach key milestones of development (in early areas they're still developing the game systems, so they're infused with the joy of discovery). Anxiety related to the business side of development taking over once the release date approaches, leading to less risk-taking and a more straightforward approach (linear quests and more combat with less variety). Trying to shoehorn an adequately epic ending to conform with some previous vision which meanwhile became inadequate.

 

[octavius]

Games that improve in late game:
The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate (level design gets progressively better)
Gateway to the Savage Frontier (final battles are the only highlight of this rather dull GB game)

I can only think of these two, and they are old.