I've noticed that almost every game I've ever played has a heavy emphasis on combat. Even the roleplaying games that have "speech", or "non-combat" skills still have combat as the main focus and anything outside of it eventually relates back into combat. Are there any rpgs you guys like ( preferably good ones :/ ) that treat combat more like a failure state that you want to avoid, or don't have combat at all?
As a side note: Is anyone else underwhelmed with the depth of dialogue in rpgs nowadays? Most dialogue can be essentially boiled down to
>Tell me more about X
> Give me a quest
> Advance the current quest
> Perform your function (trade, repair, enchanting, whatever)
> Goodbye
And when skills come into play, it's either
>You have X% chance to successfully use this dialogue option.
>You must have X in Y skill to use this dialogue option.
It feels like every game is copying each other and no one wants to be the one that makes talking to npcs different.
Pic semi-related since it's an example of the "You must have X in Y skill to use this dialogue option".
 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
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It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
Moon RPG?
Seems cute. Thank anon.
Lol, thanks, maybe I'll finally try out a dating sim for the hell of it.
I suppose I should be more clear. What I meant was that dialogue in RPGs feels very repetitive and uninspired. It never feels like you're having a real conversation with the NPC, it feels like I'm putting in inputs to get an output. The illusion of the NPC being a real person in a real world isn't working anymore. The more I've thought about it, the more I've realised most "dialogues" with NPC's were really just me promting them to begin, continue, or stop talking AT me, not with me.
>do you have any ideas on how it could be different?
Yep, a few even, but I'll just say one cause character limit.
Players should have to use their brains to pick options in important moments of dialogue. I'll use the confrontation with Legate Lanius as my example. Your options are
>Fight
>Do you have X in Y skill?
To your character, this scene is a tense, important, and dangerous diplomatic effort which would let him avoid combat with a monster of a man and route an army, but to the player?
>Click here to CONVINCE if you have X in Y skill.
There's no game or thought. This scene would be improved 100 fold if skills weren't taken into account and you as the player had to pick the correct dialogue options to convince him. You bluff or raise arguments, he would shoot them down, and you would refute what he says until he is convinced and retreats. You have to use your knowledge of the game world to make convincing arguments. This would obviously put a lot of onus on the writers, but that's why I'm asking about games that don't have combat as a focus, since it frees up developer time and energy to work on other aspects of the game.
in human revolution there's a few conversations like that. they're semi random so you can't just memorize which options to pick, and there's a social perk that gives you hints
There was a dialogue like that with Ulysses iirc. It
This is what you're looking for
>most dialogue can be boiled down to talking about things
well, yeah. do you have any ideas on how it could be different? i'm wondering when games will have chatbots built in for main characters, but computers will have to advance more before most people can run that locally
>locally
hah, as if they aren't going to use it as an excuse to force you to connect to a server
>treat combat more like a failure state that you want to avoid
this sounds like one of those moronic porn games where you have to lose to see the scenes. why would you have it that failure gets you to the good part of the game?
Combat is oftentimes not the good part of the game. OP's picture is an example of that
it's also an example of non-rpg combat.
but rpg combat is fun and stealth games are awful.
Frick I'm moronic. I meant this
for you.
>Why would you have it that failure gets you to the good part of the game?
In the hypothetical games I'm asking about, combat would not be the good part. Avoiding combat would be the good part. Think of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. (stealth game if you've never played it). That game has gun play, but it's not The Good Part. The Good Part is avoiding guards and figuring out how to get through an area without being scene. Combat in those games is a failure state that you want to avoid. I'm asking for roleplaying games that treat combat like that, something that happens when you frick up or games that don't have it at all.
>but rpg combat is fun and stealth games are awful.
Okay.
i mean think about it. playing with abilities, leveling , equipment, positioning, using supplies. that stuff is fun. rpg combat is just a lot better than something like a stealth game, where it's made to be punishing and deadly to be caught with endless waves of deadly guards. you'd basically have to purposefully gimp the combat to make it unenjoyable and at that point, why not just make an adventure game instead of wasting resources designing and implementing something to be bad on purpose. overall, you seem to have genre confusion.
>playing with abilities, leveling, equipment, positioning, using supplies. that stuff is fun
None of this is unique to combat based games.
>rpg combat is just a lot better than something like a stealth game
Subjective and entirely depends on the individual games being compared
>overall, you seem to have genre confusion.
This is the roleplaying-game board. Combat as the focus is not necessary for roleplaying.
you aren't talking about a game with no combat, designed around building a character and having them roleplay within some profession or activity. you are talking about having combat, creating systems for it, and having it be bad so that it's a punishment to enter into it. this is moronic.
I'm talking about and asking for both, as I say in my original post
>Are there any rpgs you guys like ( preferably good ones :/ ) that treat combat more like a failure state that you want to avoid, or don't have combat at all?
I want both.
>you are talking about having combat, creating systems for it, and having it be bad so that it's a punishment to enter into it
I don't want combat to be "bad". I said that I want games that treat it as a failure state, or a "punishment" as you put it. Combat being good, and combat being a failure state isn't mutually exclusive. You can have a game where getting into fights is something you want to seriously avoid and don't want, but are still fun.
>this is moronic
Just because I'm asking for something you can't imagine doesn't mean it's moronic. Maybe you just really like combat in RPG's and can't imagine that some people might want something else.
Thanks, I'll try it out. I heard bad things about Human Revolution from by brother ages ago, so I never gave it a look.
You could always play as a pacifist in an RPG.
>Fallout 1, 2, New Vegas
>Kingdom Come: Deliverance
>deus ex
>arcanum
>outerworlds
In the case of Fallout 3 & 4, there are pacifist mods. You can also use mods to increase the difficulty, making stealth essential. In my opinion, when a game doesn't allow pacifist routes, it makes it all the more fun to be a pacifist. Running from combat, stealth, and using your environment to your advantage. It makes the game more fun because it is constantly pushing you to use violence.
>don't have combat at all?
You're basically asking to play Life is Strange
The function of the face in an rpg is to people what treasure chests are to a thief. If anything rpgs focus on dialogue WAY too much and it's become a really gross parody of what an rpg is.
How the frick is there a thread of none-combat RPGs without anyone mentioning the GOAT until now?
Because it's entirely self-evident and doesn't bear mentioning.
Making fun combat is relatively easy, and it's easy to tie other systems into it.
>is anyone else underwhelmed with the depth of dialogue in rpgs nowadays?
That's mostly a symptom of modern rpgs trying to force grand linear stories like they're a movie, there's no design room for the player to go off script nor enough resources to write such options.