Think about your favorite rpg
Now think if you would still call it an rpg if you were always stuck at level 50 facing level 50 enemies.
You can change your attack skills and armor but there isn't really a progression from worse to best, they are just different and all have the same level of usefulness and are viable.
Would you still call it an rpg?
i'd just call it bad.
So FF8?
FFVIII has scaling enemies but only to a point. The most basic enemy in the game doesn't become just as much of a threat at lvl 50 as it is at lvl 1, he has at best maybe 200 more hp at 50 because every enemy has specific stat caps that it simply won't go higher than even if you keep leveling up.
In FF8 enemies get harder as you level. I’m talking before lvl 50 at least. The only advantage the player gets from leveling is enemies get more-powerful magic to draw, but the junction benefits from magic don’t scale with level and most character upgradability comes from junctions - so you’re strongest at lowest levels with the best magic (which your can draw from the world map toward the end).
No, it's a strategy game unless you must spend time building the pokemon and movesets you think may be good strategies yourself, in which case it is rpg. If you just inject or use a website where you get tailor made mons, it is strategy only.
The guy you are replying to understands FFVIII better than you do. Do not presume to lecture him and instead be humble and listen.
>The guy you are replying to understands FFVIII better than you do.
IDK man, I've played it since '01. I'm not going to pull up the scaling tables, but it seems enemies scale more than the player (all else being equal), or else they scale the same and higher-lvl battles just last longer.
Last time I played I went all-in on the low level method, all of my characters were lvl 11-14 at the end and it was much easier than being in the 40s.
Yes I would still call it a RPG
nope. swapping weapons does not an rpg make or Fire Emblem would be an rpg.
Yes, because Alpha Protocol still has the dialogue options. And being at level 50 would be fun as frick, because you'd have all the best skills. AP has lots of role playing options, even without levels.
Dialogue options don't make an rpg, otherwise visual novels would be rpgs.
Yes, it would have to be short though because most rpg systems are shallow even when you do add variety through progression
Make it 60 and that would probably be the optimal way to play Troubleshooter, I think
That’s just WoW at the end of every tier when you’re decked out in the best gear. And yeah, it’s fun.
I mean, a lot of traditional roguelikes ditch the concept of character levels, but even there you level up your equipment.
Is there's any other progression system in place? Progression and gradual building your character's toolkit is at least in my opinion an obligatory element of rpgs.If nothing in game demands from you upgrading your options in any way then it's not only an rpg, it's a very pointless game.
Would a one shot campaign be a RPG?
If there is no stat progress in any form then its not an rpg. You are describing a strategy game if its turn based, or an action game if its not.
if you play a one-shot session of tabletop D&D and don't level up, it's still an rpg.
my favorite rpg doesn't have levels in it, nice try plebeian moron
Not a rpg
I remember the Shadowrun table top had really slow advancement. In a multi-year campaign, a dude increasing a main attribute by 1 point was a big deal. Most would pick up small utility skills rather than boosting their raw power.
Characters pretty much started with a fully fleshed out build so levelling up wasn't a huge draw.
Instead it was all about building a network of contacts, getting cool gear or advancing some personal goal.
We had a samurai who took over a dojo and started a conga Kai thing. He lost both his arms to a rival and had them replaced.
The shaman spent the game arranging a mass human sacrifice to appease an ancient spirit and Akira'd himself.
The rigger got in with a mafia milf and the local biker gang to save her family's business.
The only one really thinking about getting stronger was the shaman he wound up in 16 desperate pieces spread across the greater bay area.
honestly I think pokemon VGC is a very interesting game. The overall production quality should be much higher and there's things I'd change (for example the end-of-turn processing is way too fricking slow if you have like 1 field, 1 weather, a status effect, leftovers, etc) but it's the only PVP RPG I can think of that holds up at all.
Stadium is missing quite a few things that typically define an RPG, but to get the most out of it you connect it with another game that definitely is one.
It barely counts as an RPG by itself, but it can be treated as a supplement to another one.
When you look at Stadium this way, it really is a rather strange game.