Off topic: How are games failing you?

[NKIcan]

Before I begin: can we have a prefix Off Topic tag?

The topic says it all. What are PC games and video games in general NOT doing that you wish they would do. How is the video game market not fulfilling your needs?

I ask this for two reasons: Curiosity and Im doing a bit of research as to what strategy game enthusiasts would like to see in video games.

Any type of game failing will be helpful of course, but I would like a focus on RPG's and Strategy Games. Stories not up to snuff? Combat system just isn't doing it for you? Suggestions on how to succeed where current games fail is also helpful, as is specifics as to WHY you find that they fail.

For me:

I think that one thing no video game has ever struck me as successfully doing is making a Character/Unit creation system that is balanced, creates REAL diversity, and fun. Whether it be class or classless, really most character creation systems have maybe 6-10 REAL choices (crappy choices arent really choices people...as no one who has any interest in being competitive would choose them).

As an example, look up almost every MMORPG out there, ever...as well as the Diablo series. Want to be a rogue? better put your points into 1 or 2 stats and pick the same 10 talents/skills if you want to be effective.

Maybe I can sum it up better this way: I want REAL diversity. I want choice! I want to be able to customize a character or choose from more than the same 3 units in a strategy game without being nearly crippled in viability.

/rant off.

Lets hear your opinions

[llamabeast]

Well you certainly have a lot of choices in Dom3 at least.

[Tifone]

Interesting point. Well I think Dom3 offers real diversity, expecially with CBM (EDIT: llama ninjaed me this )

Also there is a world of indie RPGs (like Avernum) to discover. They will not have the best graphics but often their devs put the souls in those so they often offer much more than the usual Oblivion-kind's choice between big armoured guy or slim magic guy (but hey, with shiny graphics )

If I would love to see something in the PC gaming world, would be more team tactical games. While I enjoy many kinds of games, to me the *real* computer gaming is in games like Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm (which had a lot of potential but such poor design choices), and the UFO series (now Sombre will skin me alive but at least they offer something this way). Little teams with specialized members, and turns to organize better ("the guy with the shotgun in the front; the sniper on top of the building; ok now the guy with the explosives blow that wall with dynamite and throw a mustard gas grenade in; you with the machinegun keep ready!" etc.).
But unfortunately really there isn't much of games like these

[Sombre]

CBM (Conceptual Balance Mod) does a lot to introduce variety through balance. In basegame the early and late games particularly in vanilla dom3 tend to dominated by certain strategies.

For example 90% of the pretenders in the basegame are simply worse than the standout 10% so if you pick them for the sake of variety, it's a handicap. But in CBM I don't think this is true.

[NKIcan]

I agree Dom 3 offers more than the usual diversity, hence why I like the game very much! But even with CBM...your choices are expanded but only by a bit.

Also, your choices are VERY much constricted based on the nation you play. If you pick Mictlan, for example, you are almost forced to play a Bless Strategy if you want to be competitive. Yes you may suprise someone with an Awake SC pick but once the shock wears off you quickly find out why it was a sub-optimal pick.

Again, Dom 3 does diversity the BEST but I still feel there is vast room for improvement. Thanks for the comments so far

[Aezeal]

hmmm personally I think Oblivion has better character creation system than most games certainly including Avernum. Fall-out 3 is good too.. but the effect of your choices is somewhat limited pretty soon in the game.
Baldurs gate and neverwinter night.. basicly everything based on DnD certainly has a good character building system.

Personally I'm mostly missing MORE RPG's (I dislike MMORPG where I have to pay everymonth and where I need to invest more time than I have to be competative.. in SP games I'm always the most important person and THA MASTA in the end as it should be. And more good strategy games too though I admit I've not looked very much into them for when I want to play a game I can always do dominions which is just very good.

I'd like to see starcraft 2 though.

back on choices.. I think you shouldn't want for much more options than in dominions.. you have a lot of races.. and between the races you can use a lot of strategies.. sure not each fits each race but that wouldn't be good..

example: if you have an unlimited range of GOOD choices that means that every choice is good.. which means whatever you choose is good.. which means there is basicly no real strategy anymore. (I'm exaggerating of course but it core of it is true.) While most games could use more diversity in the end it's more important that between the best choices for each character there is a good balance than having more choices. (I'm not playing the game but I imagine that going to the highest level in WoW for exmaple, will take quite an effort for most pplz so just having made a decent choice you'll be busy for a while anyway, no need for more choices then.)

[Tifone]

There will always be an "optimal" strategy, in every kind of game you play. Devs are humans, and even through all the balancing, there will always be in every game the most cost-efficient way of spending points, even by a 1%. If you always go for the optimal strategy only, of course you'll have problems finding variety
Often a big part of the fun will be finding ways of playing a game which aren't the most efficient or perfect ones, but make you enjoy and still are somewhat competitive.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by NKIcan

I think that one thing no video game has ever struck me as successfully doing is making a Character/Unit creation system that is balanced, creates REAL diversity, and fun. Whether it be class or classless, really most character creation systems have maybe 6-10 REAL choices (crappy choices arent really choices people...as no one who has any interest in being competitive would choose them).

Roguelikes!

Roguelikes are ALL about learning to survive, and the more ways there are to survive, the more people like to play it. I think most roguelikes have pretty free class system. Here are my two favourites:

ADOM: 8 races, several classes. Perhaps 15 or so, varying from barbarian to archer to fighter to monk; from wizard to priest to paladin to elementalist, thief, merchant, farmer, bard etc etc.
It also has a good manual that explains the mechanics. It's worth checking out just for that.


Dungeon Crawl: lots. There are too many to count, but I attached an image.

Crawl is ingenious.
Races are different: different food consumption rates (with unique cases: ghouls eat rotten meat, vampires drink blood), different speeds (spriggans are fast, centaurs run fast, nagas slither slowly), different item slots (human vs minotaur vs naga), some have special abilities (spriggan see invisible, demonspawn mutate, draconians will get more and more powers as they level up) and, most importantly, different skill aptitudes make mountain dwarves and hill dwarves different (melee and casting, or just melee?).

Classes are another layer of skill aptitudes. At first, this seems like it's too little, but it's actually a major choice. Some classes also pre-define the god you worship and starting equipment matters a lot: wizard's first spellbook, good weapon for warrior-types, blood god for a barbarian, etc.

Then you start the game. Skills only increase if you use them and have unused experience. The pool of unused experience increases when you do stuff, mostly kill monsters. To become better at what you do, just keep doing it and it will go up. Learning something new is more difficult. You can learn a low-level spell if you find a book and are lucky and/or high aptitudes, even if you have no skills. Failing to cast a spell will also increase the skill (if you had exp in pool), but can cause magical overload, which makes you glow, which mutates you and isn't good. Similarly, you can go to melee to learn Fighting and to use Axes, but that means you're in melee and you're not good at it.

If you move around in armor, you'll learn Armor skill. If you fight without armor, you'll learn dodging. If you walk around without armor, you'll learn Stealth.
Once you have at least level 1 in a skill, you can turn it "off", so that it will only increase very slowly and as a consequence will leave more experience for your other skills, so your mage won't be good at stealth just because he doesn't wear armor.


In crawl, your skills define you, not race/class. Spellcasting gives more mana and and fighting gives more hp, but you also need spesific skills that concern casting fire spells or fighting with spears. A spell can require more than one magical skill, like Fire and Transmutation for a spell that makes a potion explode, or Necromancy and Transmutation for a spell that turns a corpse into potion of poison.

Transmuters are fun, because they can hurl clouds of steam and poison and confusion everywhere, but hard, because that means their experience is going to be drawn between Spellcasting, Transmutation, Fire and Necromancy they won't have much free experience, and they won't have enough mana to survive without Fighting, Dodging and perhaps some poisoned darts and stealth as well. However, it also means that a transmuter who finds an artifact trident might be able to confuse a group of opponents and then quickly kill several of them before they recover; or a transmuter who finds a Book of Greater Burnination might change gears and focus more on direct damage. Even without such luck, though, the starting Book of Transmutations also lets you change into fast and poisonous Spider form, tougher Ice Beast form, or change your hands into blades that boost your unarmed combat off the scales - but then you'll have to learn Ice or Poison or be good at melee! Devilish!

P.S.
Of course, ANYONE could find a Book of Transmutations.

[Tifone]

Of course, Endo, you don't have such an informative and passionate post even for my desire of more tactical team games, yeah?

[Agema]

RPGs and strategy games however have always been minority interests to the big beast of action/arcade gaming. When we think of big RPG and strategy games, what has often made them successful is that they have had more and more to do with action gaming. For instance, Starcraft and other RTSs are often not so much about tactics, as just knowing the optimum build queue at the beginning and then clicking your mouse like crazy when the action heats up. At the RPG end it's Diablo, which trades more on its relation to 80s arcade hit Gauntlet than it does on the RPG element from Nethack/Rogue etc.

In major industry terms, with the exception of Bethesda Studios, no-one is making decent RPGs for PC. In terms of strategy, I might have given Creative Associates a nod for Total War, except that as their games get better in graphics and AI, they get worse in design, heart and soul. Possibly the Civ series and related games are still going okay and fairly strategy purist.

Both RPGs and strategy really exist and thrive in the realm of independent publishers and internet retail. There you can really find the sorts of things you are looking for, where teams with more limited means craft what are often unpolished diamonds rather than the polished turds available from major development studios. However, I find it is often much harder to gauge whether the game is actually good, bug-free, and much more, as they attract much less in the way of good critical reviews.