>Bravely Default’s level design is The Big Book of Easy Mazes (ages 3+). The twists that Bravely Default throws at you on the formula of Go Down This Hallway and Then Turn Around are 1) maybe instead of going from point A to point B, you have to hit a switch at point C first 2) you end up in a dead end and have to backtrack 3) maybe you should go out of your way to get a treasure chest (helpfully counted!) instead of the most efficient route.
>Mazes are not very fun after age four because either one of two things are true: 1) you can either see the most efficient answer instantly 2) the answer is hidden from you, so you are merely making arbitrary guesses at what the most efficient path is. There is no penalty for wandering around these tedious mazes due to how permissive that very permissive combat system is, except, very crucially, wasting your time, which is the harshest and cruelest penalty you can inflict on a player. Nothing could be meaner than encouraging and expecting a player to explore every little nook and cranny and then make every step an agonizing slog. And your time is exponentially wasted because every step you take isn’t just wasted travel time, it’s a chance for a random encounter to occur at every mistaken step!
https://medium.com/@MammonMachine/nobody-cares-about-it-but-it-s-the-only-thing-that-matters-pacing-and-level-design-3ed043dc3309#.9iky8wvlo
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Yes, I agree despite the fact that I enjoy bravely default a lot.
Dungeons in this game arent Very good, a problem that seems to repeat in most games of team asano, really. octopath 1 and 2 also suffer from these boring dungeons that really are just wastes of time.
Most modern jrpgs in fact have been like this for quite some time, a thing that even led them into well, ditching dungeons ALL together.
I however dont think its because of random encounters that this is a problem, or because It takes time, but rather because these Dungeon are too small, making of exploration an obvious bland thing, and because there is nothing wondrous of value to be found effectively by the player.
Oh, you deviated 5 meters from the main Path? You either get nothing or one of the planned treasures of the Dungeon. There is no real Discovery, its Just a matter of are you okay with wasting a little of your time for this marginally better item?
Mazes can be Fun though, mazes that Work are expansive, have plenty of places to either find things or to fail, to die, to lose, risk It part of the fun.
Just look at games like Zelda 1, that did something simple but effective with its small Dungeon and not many items, or else look at Elminage, and RPG, that has a ton of Dungeons and all of them are fun to explore, spending time there not only improve resources, but let you find Nice treasures by killing monsters and are a crucial thing to fulfill many of the game quests. There is purpose to that exploration, purpose behind being thorough and meticulous.
Don't worry anon, it's not a problem unique to jrpgs, there are plenty of shit crpgs too.
>moronic journo that hates rpgs considers every moment not spent watching a cutscene to be "wasted time"
Wow! /hide thread
She a strong independent black woman that loves etrian odyssey.
This just makes me think of how much I hate the temple puzzles in ffx. They are so tedious and unnecessary.
same, I think FFX has some very strong points but the dungeons were total dogshit
Two corridors, not big enough to be called a Dungeon.
Which is ironic, since 99% of all RPGs have utter dogshit level design that is still over 20 years behind.
You don't even know what level design is.
If your idea of good levels consists of hallways and rooms with sporadic encounters here and there, you're part of the problem why LD in RPGs is so shit. You're satisfied with garbage.
Both CRPGs and JRPGs can have very interesting level design. You just don't listen and only play bad games.
You just proved what I literally just said. Your idea of good level desing is hallways with a few rooms and sporadic encounters. We're talking archaic design that's over 20 years behind. You think literal garbage is good and claim others need to play "good games"? The delusion.
The moathouse has incredible level design.
Why are you echoing your ignorant and simple idea of what level design is, as if that changes anything.
Disregarding how bad the level design itself is, contextually it doesn't make sense at all to have buildigns just mostly consist of long single connection hallways with random rooms here and there. It's a toddlers idea of what a """dungeon""" is.
>have buildigns just mostly consist of long single connection hallways with random rooms
But it's not that, it's specifically laid out so rooms serve a purpose and are logically connected. Show me a jrpg where the most powerful foe in the dungeon is guarding the entrance.
>it's specifically laid out so rooms serve a purpose and are logically connected
Except they're not. If you really want to push this idea that things should contextually make sense, this is as unrealistic it gets. It borders on utter moronation.
Absolutely none of it makes sense.
Almost all RPG dungeons consist of illogical hallways that lead to random rooms where a fight and/or puzzle happens. The level design is effecitvely non-existant. They're junior level flowcharts and nothing more.
>Show me a jrpg
Try paying attention to what I've been saying. I know it's difficult, but re-read it until you get it.
>Except they're not. If you really want to push this idea that things should contextually make sense, this is as unrealistic it gets. It borders on utter moronation.
>Absolutely none of it makes sense.
You have to explain why when you say that or you look like a fool.
No I don't because I would be wasting my time on someone ignorant and has absolutely no interest in being educated. I've been on Ganker long enough to know when I someone is not worth wasting 2 hours on (of said person repeatedly shitposting and being close-minded).
If you think a layout of a structure "makes perfect sense" because the boss isn't in the first room, that says it all. You have absolutely 0 understanding of architecture.
get a trip
Get a brain first and I'll think about it.
Im not the anon thats been replying to you up until now but isnt those exactly the problem?
Every Room in this Dungeon servers a purpose, there is nothing there to be really found because everything you find is meant to be easily found, as It is also on bravely default.
These dungeons should make you think risks, dead ends, traps etc. Things that make you Wonder If its worth It to risk dying or getting lost for a bit more treasure. Not something that is achievable with this size and by making every Room have a defined purpose.
The moathouse is the perfect dungeon. Due to being low level it has to provide all the tools necessary to beat it while still being extremely difficult, and its loaded with memorable secrets and encounters.
It's incredibly sad to see the low low bar RPG players consider amazing level design. No wonder they're all so terrible.
I frankly doubt you even know what level design is, based on these posts.
This doesnt look much different that the examples in bravely default, really
>I frankly doubt you even know what level design is, based on these posts.
Not those anons, but it's pretty clear you don't know anything about Level Design either, and definitely have no experience with RPGs at all.
If you knew anything about RPGs, you'd know that in most cases (outside of Wizardry-style JRPGs with random combats in a separate gamespace), "Level design" is nearly synonymous with "Encounter design." A good dungeon is not necessarily a maze or a puzzle, it's a graph of encounters and decision points. You cannot analyze encounter design by abstracting rooms and hallways into a blob the way you did. That's a stupid thing to do. You're trying to disguise your stupidity with inflammatory condescension and being stupid, you will remain stubbornly ignorant even if I spoonfeed you the truth. Guarantee you will lash out with low-effort shitposts.
A good RPG encounter combines environmental features with a unique set of enemies and behavior yielding a unique challenge to overcome. A series of very high-quality encounters in an area with an otherwise totally linear layout would be a great level that would look boring by your reductive analysis. The larger layout does impact dungeon crawling decision-making but it's far from the most important aspect of Level Design in an RPG.
>"Level design" is nearly synonymous with "Encounter design."
>in games with random encounters divorced from the dungeon layout itself
You didn't read. And the pic he posted with the analysis I criticized sure didn't look like a jrpg with random encounters. So you ought to have a nice day or learn to pay attention better.
Dont forget the experience balancing is also very important in jrpg. A good rpg dungeon has good scaling to facilitate level grinding. Theres always a spot in jrpgs where if you know when to stop and grind for an hour the game is trivialized.
>Level design" is nearly synonymous with "Encounter design."
Not really, no, level design and encounter design are certainly complementary, but they're not the same thing, you can have good level design with barely any battle encounter whatsoever if any at all, conversely, you can have very good encounter design put into completely unremarkable, if not actively bad levels.
>A good RPG encounter combines environmental features with a unique set of enemies and behavior yielding a unique challenge to overcome.
You don't need environmental features at all in order to have challenging encounters, it's a fricking meme, it's just a fancy way to play around with numbers crunching, it often creates more issues than it solves and you can recreate the same exact functions through more abstract systems anyway, RPGs are largely about narrative, not challenge, all of the mechanical layers exist to create stories, characters and worlds, nobody thinks elementary school math with some dice rolling is brainwracking rocket surgery.
What truly matters is something that makes the encounter memorable and stick with people and there's really no specific way to do it, it can be anything from Irenicus pulling infinite contingencies out of his ass in a steamy finnish sauna, a former villain who unexpectedly joins you as an ally in the middle of a heated fight or some environmental tricks as you said, hell it might even be just some showdown with a really cool motherfricker with some amazing music blaring in the background when it comes to videogames specifically.
Some people cream themselves over fricking ASCII purely because of the sheer power of narrative conveyed through the numbers, not the other way around, zero tabbing your way through dungeon floors is one hell of a power trip because it makes you FEEL strong by simply looking at your @ while the monkey brain immediately converts the abstraction layers effortlessly, you don't see or think about the numbers at all.
>You don't need environmental features at all in order to have challenging encounters
Environmental features make encounters far more deep and interesting.
Also, you seem to have misunderstood my use of the word "challenge.' All I said was "unique challenge," I didn't say anything about any particular level of required difficulty
> [environment]'s a fricking meme,
No, it's not, it's easily one of the most important aspects of tactical combat gameplay and quite possibly the single most reliable way to distinguish patrician designs.
>RPGs are largely about narrative, not challenge, all of the mechanical layers exist to create stories
That's exactly why environment is so important to combat. A good environment generates a much greater range of interesting combat narratives. Instead of just lining up and bashing each other until one side wins, you have scouting and reconnaissance dynamics, you have surprises and ambushes, you have units taking cover behind barriers, using special movement abilities to access spots that yield tactical advantage, you have environmental hazards to avoid or exploit.
>What truly matters is something that makes the encounter memorable and stick with people and there's really no specific way to do it
Yeah I never said there was. Leveraging environmental detail is one of the best ways to do it, however.
>Some people cream themselves over fricking ASCII purely because of the sheer power of narrative conveyed through the numbers, not the other way around, zero tabbing your way through dungeon floors is one hell of a power trip because it makes you FEEL strong by simply looking at your @ while the monkey brain immediately converts the abstraction layers effortlessly, you don't see or think about the numbers at all.
I don't disagree with any of this but it doesn't have anything to do with the point. Abstracted environment is still environment. Levels implemented at high abstraction are still levels and still have detail.
>If you knew anything about RPGs, you'd know that in most cases (outside of Wizardry-style JRPGs with random combats in a separate gamespace), "Level design" is nearly synonymous with "Encounter design."
Please keep your delusional ignorance to yourself in the future.
They are completely different roles and completely different tasks. What's next, every other role like Quest Designer, Narrative Designer, Combat Designer, Enemy Designer, etc. are also actually "Level Design" because you ignorantly think so?
Level Designers plan, prototype (often with blockouts, crude simple versions of the level)
Some RPG studios call their LDs Area Designers instead since they're focused more on larger areas and not just dungeons.
What also might confuse you is that designers sometimes wear multiple hats, which isn't unlike any other job where people love to push more responsibilities onto a single person despite it not falling under their job title. But a level designer needing to do mission design and system design does not mean level design is system design.
The inverse also happens, where say Environment Artists have to do Level Design.
>A good dungeon is not necessarily a maze or a puzzle, it's a graph of encounters and decision points.
Except there are no informed decisions to be made when you're just given hints of 1 or 2 linear paths in a flowchart leading to a room. Most of the bad ones are just hallways you stumble around until you get where you need to go, with encounters here and there.
>A good RPG encounter combines environmental features with a unique set of enemies and behavior yielding a unique challenge to overcome
Oh so something they effectively never ever do. At best in *extremely* rare cases you might see a "poison puddle" area in an area with snake people in it. Masterclass LD, amirite?
I'd even argue that RPG encounter design is generally terrible too, but that's another topic, since we're talking LD here. Or at least I am, since you're not.
>they never do
Moving the goalposts now.
You came in guns blazing claiming people like garbage when your points have been nothing but pathetic garbage. So now you want to discuss for real?
Also, if you think ED can be easiley separated from LD then you are a zoomer pseud who doesn't actually know what LD is on the first place and just shouldn't even bother using the term at all. Just tall about specific games until you actually understand principles.
>Moving the goalposts now.
Stop parroting buzzwords you don't even understand.
Out of my entire post you chose to cherrypick this while ignoring everything else (because you're close-minded) and yet *this* is the hill you chose to die on?
Then you don't even provide and counter-point to the very thing you quoted, well done. You made the most moronic post in this thread.
>Also, if you think ED can be easiley separated from LD then you are a zoomer pseud
They are flat out different roles that require different skillsets.
If you're trying to peddle the stupid idea that
>uuuh, x takes place in a level so it's level design!
then the same thing applies to sound design, environmental art, narrative design, progression design, vehicle design, enemy design, 3C design, AI, programming, networking, etc.
Design frequently touches other areas for obvious reasons (like how animation touches 3D action combat design), but doesn't magically make them the same thing or that the same person does all of it.
This might be difficult to comprehend for someone like you that is utterly clueless when it comes to professional game dev.
Unless it's a smaller team where people wear multiple hats or the workload is low enough the same person could do both. But realistically the encounter and level designers would work together on the areas/levels assigned to them.
So they might agree (or get a brief from higher up) on X, Y and Z encounters together with the narrative designer and/or writer. The ED would then design and test the encounters and potentially request changes to the level from the LD, like "I want to have 3 Ogres here, but they don't fit so can we make this passage bigger?".
Now, after all this, what the frick is your moronic point dumbass? Apart from proving how ignorant you are. Because so far all you've done is shitpost and argue for the sake of arguing.
>Out of my entire post you chose to cherrypick this
yeah because you're bringing up a whole pile of random copypasted bullshit to save face when all you had to do was not be a massive homosexual in the first place.
>yet *this* is the hill you chose to die on?
Yes you dumbshit, that's how discussion works. If you make a moronic point while being a humongous butthole about it and I blow your fricking point clean out of the water, you lower your tone and behave yourself if you want satisfaction on new topics you might want to bring up.
>yeah because you're bringing up a whole pile of random copypasted bullshit to save face when all you had to do was not be a massive homosexual in the first place.
Nice shitpost deflection. In reality it's just you being a close-minded toddler that can't handle being wrong, so you provide no arguments and just attack me instead.
>Yes you dumbshit, that's how discussion works
You're so mentally fragile you actively avoid discussion. Right now you didn't adress a single point or argument I made. Instead you just attacked me while deluding yourself you weren't wrong about anything. That I am the butthole and you the one doing nothing but insulting me is the one in the right. All the while not even being capable of basic discussion while riding around on a high horse telling others what "discussion" is.
Here's the reality of the situation:
>you made an ignorant statement about something you're clueless about
>2 anons carefully explained why you're wrong
>you disregarded the arguments because you're close-minded and can't accept that you're wrong about anything
>you chose to attack 1 of these anons with logical fallacies over providing any arguments or engaging in discussion
>you were once again told you were wrong with extensive elaboration
>you kept sticking your head in the sand and continued to insult the person while prattling on about how you of all people know how discussion works
Grow up and a backbone and learn to accept that you're wrong about things instead over shitposting and crying about other people being meanies while you're one one being the genuine butthole.
>that headcanon
You're pathetic. Nobody debunked any of my criticisms or even properly addressed them. You have severe reading comprehension issues.
>Right now you didn't adress a single point or argument I made
All this whining and crying. Yes I debunked the dumb image here:
and there's been not a single defense of it that wasn't "well if it was a JRPG with random encounters..." which I'd already disclaimed in the original post. You are stupid. But you're still crying so you want me to address your other idiot points? OK
>Stop parroting buzzwords
Wrong. You moved goalposts meaning you claimed a particular level design was bad (along with flinging insults at another anon). I debunked your point out the specifically then you pretended like you had been making a different point all along. This is moving goalposts.
>Then you don't even provide and counter-point to the very thing you quoted
There's no need because it's just moronation. Anon posted an example of good level design, you attacked it as bad and when I defended it you changed the subject to talk about other games again. There's no counter-point to make you're just an idiot.
>ED and LD are flat out different roles that require different skillsets.
Not necessarily. Either way, it doesn't matter dumbass titles any given homosexual company slaps on their employees. We're talking about games themselves not fricked up industry practices.
>>uuuh, x takes place in a level so it's level design!
Nope. A linear series of carefully placed, escalating encounters where each encounter builds on the previous one is indeed LEVEL DESIGN, even if most of the time and effort is devoted to the encounters themselves. The specific sequence of encounters matters, even if you don't do any gay story quests, puzzles, or maze shit.
>the same thing applies to sound design [...etc]
shit we aren't talking about and provides no useful analogy whatsoever.
>Nobody debunked any of my criticisms or even properly addressed them
Where and what?
>Yes I debunked the dumb image here
Your post got dumpstered and you ignored the rebuttals entirely byt several anons.
>I debunked
Read the above.
>There's no need
So that's what you call plugging your ears to the people that "debunk" you. Anything that doesn't align with what you already believe you ignore because you're too emotionally fragile to admit to being wrong about anything.
>Not necessarily
They factually are. They are different roles. End of story.
>We're talking about games themselves not fricked up industry practices.
You're talking about how levels are made in professional games, in case you're not aware of it. Not your fanfic of how you would make some RPG level.
>A linear series of carefully placed, escalating encounters where each encounter builds on the previous one is indeed LEVEL DESIGN
No, it's not. You're talking about encounter design. Level design is the architecture itself. Levels will overlap with other parts because it's the actual world where things are placed. The level has a pass by a lighting artist, vfx artist, environmental artist, sound designer, narrative designer and stuff. That doesn't mean that is level design. If it was then almost everthing in a game is "level design", which it isn't.
Where exactly did you get your defnition of level design from? Where did you learn it? have you made any games or studies the subject? Because surely you're not just making all this up, right?
What was the point of your post? You added nothing except just crying about how everyone except you is stupid while admitting you ignore everything everyone else says.
>No, it's not. You're talking about encounter design. Level design is the architecture itself.
Wrong, level design is the combination of both.
I asked you a question.
>Where exactly did you get your defnition of level design from? Where did you learn it? have you made any games or studies the subject? Because surely you're not just making all this up, right?
It's very clear you're making all of this up based on your own assumptions. Which everything you try to push about LD moot and especially when we're talking professionally made games.
I got my definition of level design from normal English. That is, a lifetime of hearing people use the term and deriving the meaning from context, then recognizing similar contexts in which the word makes sense to use.
It seems like you're a zoomer in your first entry-level shitter job for an indie game company and after 8-12 months you feel like an industry expert and come to vrpg to flex about shit no one cares about.
Look up the Etymological Fallacy. Level Design in normal English doesn't mean what you think it means. You're not using the proper definition of the word since this thread is not a gamedev company and we don't give a shit what the specific roles are.
Good dungeons in picrel
>I got my definition of level design from normal English
Is this a joke. You're literally saying you pulled it from your ass and would go an tell people with doctorates in quantum physics that their definition of quantum physics is wrong because your made up one is different.
You even fully admitted that you're completely clueless on the subject.
Are you for real.
Zelda is a good example of why encounters define level design, cause it's a series of identically sized and coloured rooms that only differ between what's in them
>Zelda is a good example of why encounters define level design
It doesn't.
If your level is just a square box then there is no designed level. So whatever is left that you place in it is what the player will interact with. That doesn't mean encounter design is level design or level design needs encounters.
That just means that either your level are so bad and basic they're effectively empty boxes, or you intentionally chose to make your levels so basic for some reason.
Zelda games are also a bad example because they're action games with puzzles in them, which even disproves your Zelda example anyway despite not being an RPG.
Oh but Zelda 1 Dungeons are great, despite rooms being all Boxes, they are varied enough in what can be found and how they are navigated.
Ita a maze through and through, exploration is organic and instigated by the map, there are many secrets a different paths to be found by the curious player, and really that is the only way to find all items you need.
Of course, If you use guides that is ruined, but sincerely, id say Zelda 1 perfects top-view small-sized Dungeon crawling, something modern RPGs, that only do these story-driven Dungeons or puzzle hallway Dungeons or a few enemies and a treasure chest Dungeons could learn from.
Zelda dungeons are usually better designed than RPG dungeons, because they're actually properly designed. The those games are very action focused or maybe has some puzzles. They don't even have proper platforming (like a game like Alundra).
RPGs however allow for far more nuance and aren't just about killing things non-stop.
The point about the "box" was to dismiss this erronous idea that encounter design is intriniscally linked to level design to the point where they're inseperable, one and the same.
I didnt even mean to engage with the argument in your reply to your point in such a deep level, I rather just wanted to add to the discussion that Zelda 1 dungeons are absolutely great and probably what should be a mirror for RPGs.
Yes, its encounters are prepared for an action game, but It can easily work well with random encounters and room encounters as well, as we see in games like Wizardry, because the exploration in them is really whats great.
>OMG I WASTED 543453453 HOURS PUTTING BOMBS ALL OVER THAT WALL AND I FOUND A SECRET ROOMIRINO
No one has time for this kind of bullshit nowadays.
homie Just use your brain and look at the map, you can reduce the places to bomb to 1 or 2 walls most of the time.
You are just dumb.
Oh and to add, what you'd basically be saying is that you, yes you as a person, could not make a good enjoy dungeon without something to fight in an RPG. That you need something to murder hobo.
>Zelda is a good example of why encounters define level design
I'd phrase it "encounter design cannot be separated from level design."
Zelda 1 actually has good examples of both encounter-focused and layout-focused level design. But even in the more layout-focused designs, like Level-7, encounters play a key role in the overall design of the entire Level. Level-7 is very large, has a few twists and is much more about finding your way to the end than overcoming the enemies inside, which aren't trivial but aren't nearly as hard as Wizrobes in 6 or even Darknuts in 5. But even then, the grumble gorya is a key "puzzle" encounter essentially dividing the dungeon in half. The final boss encounter is even kind of a joke-- it's the exact same boss as the very first dungeon, trivial to defeat at this point.
Meanwhile, Level-6 is extremely linear. It's designed almost entirely around the combat challenges with only a little bit of branching. The first rooms introduce the red wizrobes without any distractions. Then you have a linear sequence of rooms before the serious wizrobe/likelike/bubble room blocks your path. Then you have an encounter with Gleeok (hydra-like sub-boss) which can be circumvented. Then you have a 3-way fork, one to the wand an a tip, one to a dead-end, and one is a straight path to the end (with one trap room with a hard wizrobe encounter to punish you for not paying attention to the compass). That's it, the entire layout is based around the challenges. Even the "dead end paths" amount to a total of 3 rooms. You could drop them entirely and it wouldn't change anything about how people remember the level.
>I'd phrase it "encounter design cannot be separated from level design."
Which it can and often is, as has been explained. Many games outright just have a big open space for combat to happen in. Especially melee based ones.
In RPGs, level design extremely rarely every matter, partially because it's so bad.
>Which it can and often is, as has been explained.
You're just fussing about semantics again. There are 3 concepts here, regardless of the terminology you use.
1. Encounters
2. Architecture/Layout
3. The End Result combining both
Normal English-speakers call #3 The Level. Yes, it's hypothetically possible to have ONLY encounters in some kind of nullspace with no actual "level." And it's hypothetically possible to have only areas that are traversed with nothing that would amount to an "encounter." Maybe it's just a maze or a walking simulator. But in RPGs, this happens so rarely as to be basically irrelevant. Town areas are not "levels." The overworld is not a "level." And yes it's possible from a creative standpoint to design and build them separately, but if it's done in total isolation it's probably not going to result in very good gameplay.
Now, I completely understand that game industry thought-wankers have evolved "Level Design" into a Term of Art that means only #2. I'm well fricking aware of this mistake. It would probably take me 3 minutes on Youtube to find some RPGMaker tutorial on "Level Design" that would be entirely about using the tilemapper to create a field map with an interesting layout.
This is stupid because it leaves no practical term for the End Result, which is the thing players actually care about. So we have a situation where there are two meanings of the term "Level Design," the game industry wanker term meaning the work done by the cubicle drone responsible for creating spaces in the game world, and the normal player term which means everything about the discrete chunks of gameplay challenge known as Levels. When players praise Undead Parish for having great level design, it's not JUST the architecture it's also the placement of every enemy, from the crossbowmen on the bridge to the Channeler shooting from the upper level of the church.
They're separate things. One can exist without the other and often does, not hypothetyically, but factually. Levels contain a lot of different things which is not level design or encounter design.
In fact RPG level design is frequently so bad it rarely matters or plays a part in the encounters. When it does it's mostly incidental, like body blocking enemies in the only doorway into the room. So not even any potential for flanking like in the most basic of shooter levels.
>Normal English-speakers call #3 The Level
Why do you think it matters what someone completely clueless on a subject calls things. You fundamentally lack the knowledge required.
Any idea how common it is for level design students to come in with the wrong idea for what level design is, thinking it's prop placement and level art, because they're ignorant on the subject? Now here's you, that's not even a student trying to claim that your personal made up definition for what something is for a subject you're clueless about is.
>Now, I completely understand that game industry thought-wankers have evolved "Level Design" into a Term of Art that means only #2
You're the one doing mental gymnastics and assumptions. i.e. "thought wankery".
And no, level design is not #2. It's a small part of it. But since you've made up your mind for what "level design" is based on things you pulled from your ass, but you clearly don't care abotu what it actually is and will ignore it.
>This is stupid because it leaves no practical term for the End Result
There is. But it never occured to you that you're just not aware of it because of your ignorance.
The utter irony is that your entire post is flat out
>fussing about semantics again
The point is anyway that encounters can exist in a level, but also not. A level can be just an open space or a more complex layout. A level can be designed to support the encounter in interesting ways, but also not. The latter of which applies to 99% of all RPG level design.
>Your post got dumpstered
That wasn't my post, not sure why it got deleted.
I'm defending the level posted, which you tried to criticize by abstracting the arctecture in a way that removes detail. Nobody has successfully defended against my criticism of this, where I point out that the key facets of the level design in that case clearly appear to be details of the rooms and specifics of the encounters themselves. To just blot them out with red is a very stupid thing to do and not a single poster has refuted this claim.
Yeah people jumped on my comment about LD and ED because people love moronic semantic nitpicking but nothing changes the original point.
>I'm defending the level posted
Which is a dumb stance to take from the getgo and makes anything you say irrelevant.
You're approaching this from a fanboy perspective with a cognitive confirmation bias. Your goal is to prove that something you like is in fact "objectively good". This makes everything you think, type and say tainted and worthless. You're driving with blinders on, complete tunnel vision.
What makes this worse, is that because of this entirely wrong stance you approach it from you not only failed to understand the point but didn't even realize it wasn't even about any particular level.
>Nobody has successfully defended against my criticism of this
Not when you just ignore all of it and just call people stupid.
I frankly don't even know why I waste my time on you, especially when you're so irrational, close-minded and ignorant on the subject matter.
It'd be one thing if you wanted to learn or actually wanted to discuss, but you don't. You want to scream at people until they stop bothering with you so you can pat yourself on the back for being "right" as always, when it's just you being close-minded as always.
Watch as you'll sing some sad tune like
>i accept your concession
when in reality there is nothing more sad than the person not challenging their ideas. I frankly pity you. But you can't offer me anything and I can't help you, clearly. So enjoy your bubble then.
>Not when you just ignore all of it and just call people stupid.
I went and answered every single point I could find that wasn't totally moronic (and even many that were).
>not challenging their ideas.
You're not challenging ideas at this point, you're desperately pleading me to give you ad hominem fuel by asking about my credentials.
So there you go, I answered your arguments and pointed out how stupid they are. Feel free to keep bleating and squealing about being attacked.
>Design frequently touches other areas for obvious reasons (like how animation touches 3D action combat design), but doesn't magically make them the same thing or that the same person does all of it.
Again, you're getting confused by moron industry practices that aren't at all relevant to the points being made. It doesn't matter what processes a company follows, when people refer to "level design" in the context of game criticism they are abstracting that entire process down to "production of the final result." Whatever interim steps went into the level design, however many people may have been involved, none of that matters at all.
Technically yes, LD and ED are separate but based on the moronic comments made earlier attacking level-design in a game that was CLEARLY designed to emphasize individual encounters, means you need to be hammered over the head with a simplified version of the point for there to be any chance of getting through.
>This might be difficult to comprehend for someone like you that is utterly clueless when it comes to professional game dev.
Is this ad hominem something I'm supposed to respond to? So far, whatever industry knowledge you're pretending to have seems to be confusing you more than anything else.
>Unless it's a smaller team where people wear multiple hats or the workload is low enough the same person could do both. But realistically the encounter and level designers would work together on the areas/levels assigned to them.
>So they might agree (or get a brief from higher up) on X, Y and Z encounters together with the narrative designer and/or writer.
See the first paragraph of this post. None of this team roles shit is relevant at all to the topic of what actually makes for quality level design in an RPG. The point is WHAT they do not HOW they do it.
>A good dungeon is not necessarily a maze or a puzzle, it's a graph of encounters and decision points.
Isnt that exactly what bravely did though?
think about It dammit, use your brain, these dungeons are boring because they are nothing more than a few pre-planned encounters with pre-planned rewards and no real effective personal individual exploration to be had.
I cant be the only ones that sees this.
Yes, it should be dynamic instead. You might get a +2 sword or a +1 bow. You might get 2 enemies or 3 enemies. You might fall down a pit and lose some HP. That is SOVL. A monster steals your hat.
Its not even that, but the fact that everything is planned. The player path through the Dungeon is planned, every action Will resume into 2 or 3 pre planned outcomes. The whole objective of the dungeon Is not to be explorable and Explorer but rather to advance a story is these games, and that is why they are so lacking.
As I said in my First reply, you dont even need to look at RPGs. Zelda 1 does this well, Dungeon have many paths, especially later ones, unmarked Secrets, decisions that matter to be taken (keys) and care not If you find the treasures within them.
Elminage also does this well, the Dungeon are big, huge even. You have to explore them thoroughly If you want to find the things you need to find, be It the rings, quest objectives etc. Exploring them is also rewarding, because Monsters sometimes drop great loot, but It always comes at a risk, the risk of your chars dying and needing to be revived, getting turned into ashes, getting wiped etc. Every Dungeon is always a challenge because you never know what is there to be found and where It is.
The fact that it's pre-planned has no bearing. Maybe the problem isn that you grew up in an era of everything being pre-spoiled. I'm not defending bravely default specifically, I think jrpgs often have boring level design but your perspective doesn't seem especially interesting to me. Focused on the wrong details.
My point is that true exploration is what makes dungeons truly fun. Not encounters. Encounters are there to add risk into exploration, to drain what you have and pressure you into leaving.
Variation within encounters is Fun and great, I agree that you need things to be dynamic, but If its a shit map and encounters are simply more dynamic It doesnt fix much.
But I guess you grew up playing shit games and wouldnt know any better.
Yes except that it's not that bad if the random encounters are actually fun.
Jarpigs are utterly simple, there is nothing there to analyze. You are just an impressionable moron.
Modtroony is camping xer own trash thread BTW. Great.
>you can actively see the janny sperging out and shitting up the thread while desperately trying to remove moeblobs posts
LMAO what a moronic homosexual
Protip: None of that is level design. If it's a dungeon of a castle then it makes no sense at all since it's doesn't have the structure of a man made castle dungeon.
Does It need to be interanally consistent though? Or should It be Fun and rewarding to explore?
Yes, there are little Secrets, but nothing Is truly hidden, its small and the pathway to progress is eviden, the Dungeon itself has one objective, that is to house a boss fight and nothing else, ALL serve this purpose, Just like bravely default, with a few extra steps.
Main problem is that people that design levels in rpgs are not level designers. They do not have the necessary knowledge to make good levels. This is also why a lot of RPG quests are not good either, since the designers are usually taken from the same pool of PnP and MMO players.
Is the janny the one pretending to be the smartest person in the room while saying nothing of value?
How can an educated person educate the ignorant that don't want to be educated?
What do you think level design is?
What do you think makes for a good level?
What do you think good pacing is?
What do you think good structure is?
What do you think encounter design is?
Why do you think a few rooms with some one way long hallways results in amazing levels?
Do you think RPG level design has reached the pinnacle? If not, what is missing?
Can you even answer half of these? I doubt it. You'll most likely shitpost instead.
>It does though. There's even a back entrance
I know I shouldn't laugh at ignorant people, but good lord. If this is the level you're at then holy fricking shit lol. THAT is why you think it structurally and architecturaly makes sense? Fricking LOL. Man, you'd need a week long lecture to to get your head unstuck from the ground.
Anon, that thread is filled with sperging dnd larpers that can't even stay on topic and you think they're the ones not shitting up this board?
The topic was the op asking about games which have paladins which have fun playstyles. The dnd larpers didn't discuss this at all and just sperged out instead. Is that your idea of quality posts?
>No
reading is hard, i see
the following responding to the poe2 one were made by several dnd larpers getting triggered over dnd paladins for an entire thread
yes, reading is hard for you
the thread is filled with dnd larpers adamant about how dnd paladins are the best in terms of rp and little else. later another larper goes autistically on about imagination and restrictions. not even a hint of playstyle discussion.
you think posts clearly made by several people considering the post limit and timing is all done by the same boogeyman in your head, someone you want to shift blame for being the root of everything bad on this board. sad
>Not sure what he expects this place to be
It's fricking annoying to have some turbo autist trying to control the board
you're proving me right that you think everyone, including me, is your imagined boogeyman, to the point where you're shitposting and ruining threads. sad indeed.
Another case where FFXII does everything perfect again.
The Switch Dragon Quest Monters game has some surprisingly good dungeons. They are multilevel and you can only see a map of your own level of places you have been. One has paths blocked that is confusing to progress even though the map does actually show the way.
Just having an actual top down terrain view map is better than the simplified 2 color ones and lets the player navigate.
But then you remember games are aimed at 80 IQ immigrants.
AI can't kill these companies fast enough.
>Do you agree?
how are you exploring though if you never have to look at the actual dungeon and orient yourself since your car navi does all the work
Kek got em
I genuinely do not understand the point of the post or who it was targetting.
Its semantics. You cant ronanticize "exploring" if you dont even have to remember anything. The game tells you where you are with gps. Im guessing its a bravely default reference.
Have you ever been orienteering?
>I genuinely do not understand the point of the post or who it was targetting
played the demo of dungeon travelers and it got old very quick
exploration is not fun in those kind of games and I assume etrian odyssey is very similar since it uses the same style
it seems to me the women was pissed off that the gameplay wasn't dumbed down enough
?t=50
>it seems to me the women was pissed off that the gameplay wasn't dumbed down enough
Her complaint in the article was that it was not hard enough and she gave examples of harder games.
I dropped STAR OCEAN THE SECOND STORY R because of the dungeon layouts. it's such a shitty game.
>figuring out the solution of a maze/puzzle is wasted time
Why do these people play videogames
The real world has bad level design tbh, it's too easy to go from point A to point B. No SOVL
People who come into threads to insult and demean while refusing to explain their own ideas are the biggest gays
Don't even respond to their attempts
That's the point of a maze. It's designed to keep you from something. It's an endurance test. They aren't supposed to be fun.
Mazes are forced content made by lazy devs.
>objectively unfun design is good, I don't want to have fun while playing games anyway
Wizardry apologist spotted.
>objectively unfun
Define fun.
You said "fun" first, the onus is on you to define it.
Different anon.
I'm not going to get bogged down in semantics with you. If you find the process of getting stuck on something for hours and having loads of your time wasted by bad design to be fun because of a dopamine release at the end, then congratulations, you find that fun, but much like someone finding endless repetitive Disgea grinding fun, it's not normal and doesn't reflect well on your taste that you prefer such tests of patience and trail-and-error tolerance over actual mechanical skill-based difficulty, strategization, and real brainpower-based puzzles that hide nothing from you(a la Zachtronics).
that's nice but mazes and puzzles are challenges to be overcome aka games and of course you get dopamine from accomplishment.
nta btw
>nta but i couldn't even begin to comprehend your post also no u lol
Honestly, it must be nice having an IQ this low.
>real brainpower-based puzzles that hide nothing from you(a la Zachtronics
You know if you're actually intelligent those games aren't particularly super interesting due to their determinism giving substantial diminishing returns mechanically.
Freeform engineering puzzles are some of the least deterministic puzzles out there, the only puzzle type that is less so would be physics-engine based ones. I really feel like this is a cope response given the context here.
OP image is peak jrpg level design. take it or leave it.
>it's not normal
Why, thank you. That's sweet of you.
Wizardry has very fun dungeon design, most of the time, especially bradley games. Thats sort of the appeal. Even with wizardry 1 the dungeon design is really cool and interconnected. I know this is not an okay thing to say but wizardry 1 level design reminds me of dark souls with how everything is laid out and tied together organically. Its very cool to see a really old game do such cool things..
I've never seen a single useful post of this type. It's all just "here's what I like" by people who will never make a good game. Armchair designers are the worst, but at least threads like these keep them occupied.
i love when these shovelware devs start b***hing at each other, lol.
>I like the game
It has a good level design 🙂
>I dislike the game
It has a bad level design 🙁
A lot of people like the KOTOR games but I don't think anyone would argue that they have good level design.
Bruh the Endar Spire was litty af ong fr fr
You can like games with good or bad design in it. Shocking, I know.
But if you don't know what contitues as good level design, or good design in general, then just say so.
>It seems like you're a zoomer in your first entry-level shitter job for an indie game company and after 8-12 months you feel like an industry expert and come to vrpg to flex about shit no one cares about.
To be frank I got the same impression, but from a bigger company where a single task is diluted across so many "experts" that it lose all meaning. A feature, a story, an encounter become so dissected and friction-less that it becomes unmemorable garbo. They try to make it appears really complex to hide the fact that they probably need a 4h meeting, and HR to intervene, to place 2 barrels in a room. Reading them made me depressed to be honest.
How to make a good dungeon then?
https://book.leveldesignbook.com/
This is a good place to start.
>This is a good place to start.
It's a pretty bad place to start, but at least it has more accurate information that most people on this site has of level design. That site has some really bad advice and leans too heavily into impractical knowledge, which is understandable considering the author is Robert Yang, but can create a lot of pitfalls for students and juniors.
Thankfully he mostly fixed is moronic whiteboard test.
Robert Yang is better at level design than you.
He really isn't. He hasn't even done much level design. But his worst offense is giving a lot of students and juniors bad advice.
To demonstrate, I guess we can start with the aforemention infamously bad whiteboard test image he made and previously had on that very site, before better level designers than him told him to fix that shit.
>aspiring ld's are asked to perform a whiteboard test of an fps level
No they're not. LD tests aren't that common anymore and when they are used they're more focused on following a brief that aligns with the game they'd work on. This then usually involves a very quick blockout of a level, not a topdown sketch.
>beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert
Incredibly stupid, because you make a level to fit the game, experience, intended gameplay and lots of other things. Meaning sometimes a very simple layout is better and a "complex" one would be bad. Making a CSGO map is very different from making a Halo map which is very different from making a level for a 3D melee brawler.
Adding more angles to your layout to make it look more "advanced" would only fool a complete amateur, because angles aren't used to make your shitty sketch (that instantly gets outdated once you start blocking the level out, since LD is iterative and you usually have +50 iterations of a level, especially MP ones).
Angles are used to control flow, sightlines and encounter distances (if we're looking at MP shooters, like his examples are supposed to be for). So adding angles for the sake of angles is amateurish and signals you do not actually understand the type of LD you're trying to demonstrate.
I know devs suck balls at knowledge sharing, but that's why misinformation like this can be especially bad. This includes those stupid "speed leveldesign" videos people upload on youtube and shit that isn't level design, just some clown kitbashing environmental art. Level Design is gameplay focused. Without that, it's not LD.
*laughs in 10,000 hours of de_dust cs beta 7
And the point of this post with zero arguments was? You didn't disprove or add anything to the conversation, so I can only assume you wanted to shitpost.
*laughs in facing worlds*
Yes that's an infamously poorly designed map that is mainly liked for the aesthetics and mood. So I can only conclude you want to shitpost and don't know anything about LD.
You're the one that needs to read the image, what I posted an absorb the context.
The purpose of that image was to "teach" students and juniors what an expert level looks like. That the one on the right is the most "well-crafted".
All to that is wrong.
The idea he tried to sell is that an expert LD would add more angles, "break from the grid" (as if that's relevant) and use more shapes.
If I'm being very generous, this stems from the architectural research he did before (very superficial). But the architecture pitfall is one a lot of LDs fall into, because architecture is not gameplay focused. What might look nice on your blueprint layout has no bearing on how it plays and often makes it play poorly.
The image teaches juniors and students the wrong lessons for what makes a layout/level good or not. Which is the key point.
Take a wild guess why he changed it after principal, lead and senior LDs kept telling him to change it. All of which had way more experience and knowledge than him.
If you want to argue about LD, you picked the wrong person to do it with.
>Incredibly stupid, because you make a level to fit the game, experience, intended gameplay and lots of other things. Meaning sometimes a very simple layout is better and a "complex" one would be bad. Making a CSGO map is very different from making a Halo map which is very different from making a level for a 3D melee brawler.
Just read the first sentence of the image you yourself posted.
>He really isn't
We really need to expel rpg maker tards that think they're pro devs
We need to expel people like you that know absolutely nothing about the subject matter yet pretend as if they do, while making assumptions about the roles people have.
To make matters worse, you don't even discuss or come with arguments. You just whine and shitpost because you don't like being told you're wrong.
>We need to expel people like you that know absolutely nothing about the subject matter
idk man I made a couple doom maps
>asks for first person multiplayer level
>says expert is like an uncharted 4 level
Also, wow, whoever drew that image needs to take their head out of their ass. There's no one size fits all solution and at the end of the day the "intermediate" map is unironically a better fit for many games than the advanced or expert solutions are. No one gives a frick about how "well crafted" your level is if it doesn't actually play well.
Most players don't give a frick if their first person multiplayer level "tells a story" or has "cultural differentiation", or "narrative aesthetics."
They want a level that
>feels fun
>fits the gameplay mechanics
>easy to get a grasp on the layout after a few rounds
A lot of these modern, overly detailed, overly concerned with visual aesthetics and "real" architecture maps are absolutely horrid to actually play on and much harder to learn the map layout of (ironically making them less memorable in the cultural eye when the claim is that they should be the opposite, they all tend to blend together in memory) compared to old school simple box and hallway style maps.
That picture reads like the person who wrote it is eternally butthurt they didn't get into a "real" discipline like architecture or engineering is trying to cope with their dead end game design job making toys for adults when their dream was to design pretentious art-snob city centers.
>image
Just got depressing flashbacks to my mapping days, where I spent all this time and effort making really pretty maps but the only map I ever made that actually saw play was one i cranked out in 30 minutes to test shaders on. It's pretty much a cross with spawns + health on the edges, weapons in the center of the map, ammo close to the weapons and a smaller upper level floating in space above the map that leads to a superweapon and can be fired down from, but is very vulnerable to being knocked off.
Good dungeon design is only possible with bird's eye view, like in older jrpgs.
Encounters have nothing to do with level design in rpgs.
No, because you can have 10/10 level design that's ruined by shit mechanics.
as a complete layman to all this stuff, level design seems like snake oil
You are correct, it is something that spergs latch onto when lacking the self-awareness to know why they like/dislike x,y,z product.
There is no judgement from someone who lacks aesthetic sense.
I just spent the last 3 days doing a Dark Souls 3 run. It's funny seeing this talk about level design after what I just went through. Souls games find ways to steal your attention, use darkness, and tricks of perspective to make very simple layouts with few real options seem like mazes until you figure them out.
There's a lot I could say but for me good levels seem plausible. Then you find a way to fit the game mechanics into a living world.
handheld zelda dungeons are all completely unfiltered kino.
>Turn Based RPG with a big beefy jump, field only encounters and complex vertical environments
I love this shit, Xenogears impacted me a lot growing up but random encounters greatly soured the big beefy jump. SMT V is everything I ever wanted as a kid from rpg level design.
If I might contribute to this dumpster fire.
Level design is such a hydra of a beast that it’s impossible to highlight any particular element as the most important or essential element, because people appreciate and pay attention to very particular parts of level design in development and consumer groups.
Both groups MIGHT appreciate realism in the design of a level- can I imagine this environment existing authentically within the context of the world? Should a castle built into a mountain have players ascending the level if they entered from the sewers? Should they be able to leave through the main gate if they unlock it? Can you realistically approach from above?
But whether or not realism factors into a compelling level does partially rely on other game mechanics. If you have switch-flipping or lock-and-key mechanics established in your game, are you implementing them in a way that is realistic, or is that realism going to negatively impact the overall experience?
The way the player moves around the world and engages with enemies is an essential consideration, as it might change the scale of the level or the complexity of the tasks featured. Is there a jump function? Can they be meaningfully integrated into level design? Are encounters random, based on line of sight/aggro, or scripted? Do these contribute to or impact the sense of intended realism?
Depending on the type of RPG, these elements and more (character progression, narrative pacing/beats) will dictate the level design. If you want a story-focused, briskly paced game, you might design linear levels to accommodate the real-time combat system in hopes of appealing to this idea. But, this does require a director or overseer of multiple disciplines to be asking explicit questions and making observations regarding all of these decisions.
so basically it's not worth talking about at all and this thread is just anons endlessly bickering with some esl "dev" who can't even design a good post.
I mean, we can discuss why we feel level design does or does not fail, but we need to acknowledge the mission of the developers.
For example, Bravely Default has a failure of level design from my perspective because the game’s primary ethos is to empower the player by allowing them the ability to break classic JRPG conventions. You can adjust encounter rate, exp gain at a granular level, battle speed, and enemy strength to such an extent that encounters, which are triggered randomly, are completely trivialized, which then makes the act of traversing simplistic, but spacious level configurations with little intractable elements tedious. There is no inherent risk to the encounters here other than the player’s own “literacy,” or ability to understand how enemy stat spreads affect the damage they take. Which is basic shit.
But, the developers wanted to empower the player to this degree, so they thought that this type of level design would accommodate players who adjusted the options in any and every direction- except it clearly doesn’t, because the people who over-level prior to the dungeon and decide to turn encounters off because it’s a waste of time are left with a boring, uninspired environment to navigate.
>design a good post
What does this even mean.
But there's nothing to discuss really. Most RPGs have very bad and basic level design and it's all archaic. Nothing has really improved in over +25 years.
Meanwhile, even shooters have advanced in terms of level design ten times over in that time. Especially competitive games. Because the bar is much higher and levels are pushed further.
RPG dungeons boil down to basically a single linear path with a few dead ends with some loot, only broken up with some large rooms with enemies in them, for over 25 years now.
Now compare that to something like a Hitman game. It's vastly more complex, offers vastly more options, vastly more ways to explore and solve various situations, more meaningful interactions.
The way RPG levels are approached is extremely basic and doesn't even lean into the potential the genre has, or even what RPGs should be about. Instead we get linear murder hobo dungeons, with maybe 1-2 basic puzzles.
Part of the reason why RPG level design isn't improved (apart from RPGs not actually having proper level designers) is because RPG players are satisfied with what we're getting.
kys moron you haven't managed even one interesting critique of an actual RPG
Dude, I get it, you don't like RPGs and instead want to play action games. Not a big deal, common even, but why do you use so many words to say simple things.
>Dude, I get it, you don't like RPGs and instead want to play action games
I'm literally talking about allowing levels to offer more choice and roleplaying options instead of just being murderhobo tunnels.
If you disagree with this, you're the one that should stick to action games, since you just want murder hallways.
>RPG dungeons boil down to basically a single linear path with a few dead ends with some loot, only broken up with some large rooms with enemies in them, for over 25 years now.
Prove this. List the RPGs you are talking about. Build an actual argument using evidence.
>I'm literally talking about allowing levels to offer more choice and roleplaying option
You aren't, though. Maybe that's what you believe and what you think you're writing, but that sure as hell is not what's coming out.
>Prove this. List the RPGs you are talking about. Build an actual argument using evidence.
Why should I go through all that effort when you don't actually care, your mind is already made up, you have no intention of discussing anything.
Or do you think I actually care what you think? That you not undertanding something is something I should care about?
You aren't, though
Uh huh. All you do is shitpost. Nothing else.
It doesn't even sink in when I dumb things down and repeatedly clarify something. Or you just choose to ignore it just so you can continue to shitpost.
Like how you ignored
and will pretend I'm talking about "something else" you can't even articulate.
You're literally just shitting up this thread and board. I really shouldn't even reply to you, since it just spurs you to keep shitposting.
my whole thing is i like to play rpgs, not design them, so i need real examples to wrap my head around it. really, i don't get the point of preaching to players about level design as if anything we think or do matters. i get that it's a thought experiment, but why u heff to be mad about shitposting? just ignore it.
A quick and very basic example could be
L
>the standard type of dungeon structure and combat room layout
>a single main path, with dead ends with some basic loot, with the boss room at the very end
>combat space is just a big open room, maybe if you're lucky there's something that blocks movement, like a hole (but has no special interactions, like being able to knock enemies down it)
R
>structure isn't hallways based (which makes no sense in terms of how something is built), with more connections between rooms and paths
>main path to the "boss" room has them with frontline fighters at the front, with the mage boss and archers more at the back
>the second main path entry on the right makes it easier to flank the fighters or push through, or you could attack from both paths
>2 is a secret path, to allow you to flank it, but requires someone with high perception to see it, maybe it also has poison gas in spots here, so you might need to cure it or take damage passing through
>3 is a locked door, which could be picked with high enough skill, this path leads to a flanking route
>1 is a cave-in, that also has the key to 3, but requires someone with very high strength to move the rocks
>you could combine the approaches for a multi pronged attack
>4 could have wooden defences you either have to break (takes time) or burn (fast) to get to the archers
>5 could have elevated enemies that gain a bonus to attack for being elevated, to reach them easier a character with leap/grapple/teleport skills would work
you could also approach from the front or side path to try and flank some enemies
>6 could be a small hole that fits a dwarf, halfling or gnome character, regardless of class. so a dwarven fighter could sneak in for a flank attack, despite having no stealth
Basically give the player more interesting decisions and roleplaying options, with better structure.
But naturally you want something properly expanded and not limited to this basic example.
Your example on the right looks a hell of a lot like this:
, with the minor difference that the room connections aren't hallways.
Try analyzing a real game.
Try writing up a real post, with real arguments if you want a real reply. I'm in no mood to reply to more lazy dismissive shitposts that actively do not want to engage in discussion.
>Why should I go through all that effort
Because otherwise your posts are worthless. The gross claim you're making is obviously false, but clearly you believe it to be true in some way. Bringing up specific games would allow people to better understand what you mean, where you are coming from, and what games actually deserve the criticism you're trying to deliver and which games don't.
If you actually understood the topic, you would be able to do this. If you actually wanted to have a discussion, you would be eager to do this. If you actually wanted discussion, you wouldn't retreat to posting generalized flamebait attacking all RPGs with no evidence.
>Or do you think I actually care what you think?
No. But I am right nonetheless.
> outright ignores those posts, like
The way they could be improved would be standard level design stuff, such as
>not just make dungeons a bunch of long hallways and a few rooms, with a structure that makes no contextual sense and plays poorly
>allow for more proper roleplaying support, like stealth being more than just used for backstabbing, there are more switches that change the environment (not just opening a bridge, but maybe changing the state of a crystal so it would zap someone casting different schools of magic so you could set it to zap evocation to damage enemies using it but you would need to stick to non-evocation in combat), etc
>allow the level design to play more into the combat and AI of enemies, not just acid puddles, but things like elevation, line of sight blocking, more direct interactions with the environment (along the lines of Midnight Suns or similar), etc.
>allow for more thoughtful options, not just blindly bumbling around a dungeon, but making informed decisions of where to go and what to do by taking in the environment
>etc
There's no end to improvements to be made because RPG level design is so far behind.
But RPG design in general has stagnated. Dungeons are done the same, dialogue is done the same, combat is basically done the same, quests are done the same and so on.
Like dialogue is still just basic dialogue trees, with maybe some % check or stat threshhold.
This post sucks because it's loaded with lazy bait like this:
>...RPG levels, because they're bad, archaic and basic.
This is where your asinine claims need to be backed up with evidence and examples for anyone to take you seriously. If you can't do that, nobody is going to care about your asspulled bullet points. The bullet points on their own seem pretty reasonable, so nobody's going to have anything to dispute. Meanwhile it's wrapped in pure idiocy and so you are justifiably shitposted at because of it.
>shitposts, contributing nothing
>hypocritically calls posts worthless
>conveniently ignores posts that elaborate, calling them shit, just so he can keep shitposting and shitting up the thread further
>he's been doing this for an entire thread and thinks people would be inclided to make posts he will once again dismiss just to shitpost and shit up the thread
>keeps doing everything he can to not discuss the topic, but instead focus on shitting up the thread with irrelevant off-topic whining
Can't wait to see you ignore
too or write some dismissive shitpost. Just so you can keep shitposting and contribute 0 to the thread or discussions (you're not partaking in).
>Can't wait to see you ignore
A quick and very basic example could be
L
>the standard type of dungeon structure and combat room layout
>a single main path, with dead ends with some basic loot, with the boss room at the very end
>combat space is just a big open room, maybe if you're lucky there's something that blocks movement, like a hole (but has no special interactions, like being able to knock enemies down it)
R
>structure isn't hallways based (which makes no sense in terms of how something is built), with more connections between rooms and paths
>main path to the "boss" room has them with frontline fighters at the front, with the mage boss and archers more at the back
>the second main path entry on the right makes it easier to flank the fighters or push through, or you could attack from both paths
>2 is a secret path, to allow you to flank it, but requires someone with high perception to see it, maybe it also has poison gas in spots here, so you might need to cure it or take damage passing through
>3 is a locked door, which could be picked with high enough skill, this path leads to a flanking route
>1 is a cave-in, that also has the key to 3, but requires someone with very high strength to move the rocks
>you could combine the approaches for a multi pronged attack
>4 could have wooden defences you either have to break (takes time) or burn (fast) to get to the archers
>5 could have elevated enemies that gain a bonus to attack for being elevated, to reach them easier a character with leap/grapple/teleport skills would work
you could also approach from the front or side path to try and flank some enemies
>6 could be a small hole that fits a dwarf, halfling or gnome character, regardless of class. so a dwarven fighter could sneak in for a flank attack, despite having no stealth
Basically give the player more interesting decisions and roleplaying options, with better structure.
But naturally you want something properly expanded and not limited to this basic example.
Already responded:
You seem really desperate to have your entry-level game design memes fellated by random anons and can't handle even the slightest criticism. The last one wasn't a shitpost at all, I merely suggested you support your bold claims with evidence and you got steaming mad about it.
>Already responded
Oh I could tell it was you, believe me.
You kept replying with dismissive logical fallacies in the form of a shitpost. Including your most recent post.
You actively avoid discussion to focus on insulting people in a lame attempt to stroke your ego while it all comes down to you being upset your favorite dungeon
wasn't called awesome.
You're not here for discussion. You make zero attempts at it.
>you being upset your favorite dungeon
Both CRPGs and JRPGs can have very interesting level design. You just don't listen and only play bad games. wasn't called awesome.
That's not my favorite dungeon. All I did was refute your lame criticism and you've done nothing but cry about it. You haven't even gone back and defended the original criticism, not have you even posted a shred of evidence supporting your ridiculous claim that all RPGs have bad level design.
>refute
All you do is ignore everything in a post and move goalposts while contributing and discussing nothing.
You ignored the entire post here
to say "yeah break down this OTHER dungeon" (not so subtly suggesting the dungeon you most likely posted before and think is amazing).
You re-inforce that is the thing you really want to shitpost about again in the post you just made.
You're a fanboy that wants to do nothing but do a "gotcha" to re-affirm your idea that a dungeon you love is great.
I'm done with treating you like a rational person. I'm done with giving you chances to discuss. You had an entire thread worth of chances yet chose to dismiss what people posted, shitpost and fall back on logical fallacies.
You factually had no interest in discussing how RPG level design could be improved.
What's even more insane is that you actually believe I would respond to your goalpost moving after you've done nothing but ignored entire posts I've made. Like you just did, again. All you do is goad people into writing stuff you will ignore while pretending you would engage in discussion.
You have no more chances. No more goodwill. The only thing I hope is that you were trolling and you're not as legitimately irrational and close-minded as your posts suggest.
There is no fighting, I was just naive enough to believe deep down actually wanted to discuss and wasn't just shitposting.
But after an entire thread of attempts I can safely say that he well and truly just wanted to shitpost.
The sad part is that this shitposter will treat this as his "win" so he will keep doing this exact behaviour in other threads to shit them up in the future.
Oh and to add. It's very obvious what you want.
You want someone to analyze said dungeon you think is amazing, so you can ignore everything you can't counter to try and find one small 'gotcha', which in your mind would disprove all criticism and problems with said dungeon. This you would just to re-affirm your close-minded idea.
Oh and to add, since I know you're already typing up another shitpost.
When I try to elaborate and discuss things, you or that other shitposter outright ignores those posts, like
, over discussing things of what could be improved or whatever.
You instead resort to nothing but shitposting while typing hypocritical stuff like "uh, you're not discussing anything".
Funny how a thread with hundred replies and lengthy posts doesn't have a single worthwhile insight into level design. Mostly pointless arguing and anons trying to appear knowledgeable and failing.
A thread not worth reading
I made the thread but the janny deleted all my posts to shill his agenda and correct the record. Havent posted in it since. Welcome to /vrpg/.
>It's the janny sperging out again
Well that explains a lot.
>Funny how a thread with hundred replies and lengthy posts doesn't have a single worthwhile insight into level design
What's your thoughts on level design?
Take a look at this thread and maybe you can gather that this place isn't for discussion. If you can't, have fun posting
No matter how bad you think this thread is, you are worse. You are dumber than anyone else who has posted in this thread and that's saying something.
Kek sorry I hurt your feelings dude
You had 3 options:
(a) leave, because the thread is not worth your time
(b) make a good post to improve the thread
(c) leap at the opportunity to shitpost and spread cancer
You had options too, didn't amount to anything lmao
>still here shitting up the thread
You wouldn't be able to tell either way what I've gotten out of this.
There is nothing insightful to say about current RPG levels, because they're bad, archaic and basic.
The way they could be improved would be standard level design stuff, such as
>not just make dungeons a bunch of long hallways and a few rooms, with a structure that makes no contextual sense and plays poorly
>allow for more proper roleplaying support, like stealth being more than just used for backstabbing, there are more switches that change the environment (not just opening a bridge, but maybe changing the state of a crystal so it would zap someone casting different schools of magic so you could set it to zap evocation to damage enemies using it but you would need to stick to non-evocation in combat), etc
>allow the level design to play more into the combat and AI of enemies, not just acid puddles, but things like elevation, line of sight blocking, more direct interactions with the environment (along the lines of Midnight Suns or similar), etc.
>allow for more thoughtful options, not just blindly bumbling around a dungeon, but making informed decisions of where to go and what to do by taking in the environment
>etc
There's no end to improvements to be made because RPG level design is so far behind.
But RPG design in general has stagnated. Dungeons are done the same, dialogue is done the same, combat is basically done the same, quests are done the same and so on.
Like dialogue is still just basic dialogue trees, with maybe some % check or stat threshhold.
What an insane thread. You losers need to get a grip
Ok friends, no need to fight, why dont we all tell each other what our favorite dungeons are?
Me first: Mirror marsh from Elminage original and every Zelda 1 dungeon
Munkharama in Wizardry 7.
Goblinwatch in Might and Magic 6
>the correct password to the vauilt is goblin
There are two things that kill the fun of exploring a level. One of them hurts a lot, but is survivable. Both of them together ruin everything. They are:
>1: Step-based random encounters instead of monsters that you can actively avoid/dodge/chase. The former punishes you heavily for exploring and backtracking while the later doesn't, and also adds an extra level of engagement with exploration.
>2: Top-down perspective. This makes it so you never have to actually look around, and vastly limits the fun things that people can do to hide things and make exploring something that takes some real attention instead of scrolling the map around.
There is no game that has both of these things where the map exploration is fun. Prove me wrong.
>There is no game that has both of these things where the map exploration is fun
Wild Arms
I wonder what this type of "person" would prefer? If having to figure out a maze is a waste of your time, how would you design a dungeon? Just a short, straight corridor with a cutscene "reward" at the end?
A maze is something you aimessly walk around in, with no relevant decisions or observations being made.
Should a castle be a maze or a structure that makes sense, has areas with purpose and lots of interconnectivity.
>A maze is something you aimessly walk around in, with no relevant decisions or observations being made.
Wrong.
A maze is basically any puzzle in the form of a path, for which the goal is to find the end of the path (which is often, but not necessarily, the exit to the maze). Even in its simplest form (i.e. a path with intentionally confusing dead-end branches) it's never about walking around aimlessly. Every maze can be solved even if the easiest solution is rarely the fastest one.