I think the solution to this problem is clear. Some of us like to see our characters become the ulitmate power house, and then we can go out and destroy the weakling monsters with a nice 9999 hit. However, some of us see sitting around for a few hours holding the button down so we can make numbers dance around so we can finally progress in the story boring.

What game designers should do is incorporate strategy into the fights. And I don't mean a simple if you stand on higher ground, you do more damage or if you attack from the back or whatever like in Tactics Ogre or FF Tactics.

There are a few solutions to such a problem. First of all, don't make a command based game. Doing so limits the player's movement, and can get rather complex menu systems if the player is allowed to do a lot of stuff. Incorporate a system where the player actually controls the character. Like Zelda, or Secret of Mana. Sure these systems aren't perfect, but in Zelda, I never left a dungeon to look for more heart pieces when I couldn't beat an end guy. I would rethink my strategy, and eventually I could beat the guy. The fact is that Zelda is also a pretty basic game when it comes to strategy. You use an item in a certain way to do something to the end guy, revealing his weakness and so on. There could be a lot more strategy to end guys, and with direct control, the possibilities are endless.

Another option that I have yet to see incorporated is more involved spells. I'm going to use some of the folder Final Fantasies as an example, since I am familiar with them. When it came to end guys, none of the effect spells did anything. YOu couldn't blind the guy, couldn't slow him usually, couldn't stop him, and so on. When you fought an end guy, your only option for a wizard was to do a spell that did the most damage. Fire, Lit, Ice, so on. Well, I think this is dumb for two reasons. Of course, it encourages players to go out and level up until they can just tank through all monsters, end guys included. It also makes a large part of the wizard's arsenal useless. What would be interesting to see is a situation where all spells have a certain effect, and a wizard can develop a strategy of combination of spells to use. An example I would give for this is Magic. Sure the card game is dead, but it had an interesting aspect that I have never seen in a video game. The point in that game was to make a deck of cards where all of your cards complemented eachother. If you had a creature that needed a lot of weak creatures as upkeep, you would have tons of weak creatures in your deck as well, or maybe something that would produce weak creatures every turn.

I would like to see a game where wizards can combine spells, or cast them in a particuar order to create interesting effects on the monsters. Not only would this introduce more strategy to the fighting, but I'm sure players would love to combine spells, or cast them in different orders to see what does what.

A final thing would be to introuce spells and techinques where more than one person is invovled. FF2 had this with Palom and Porom, and Chrono Trigger had this with the dual and triple techniques, but again, these just did more damage. I'd like to see them do things that affect the monsters in various ways.

Edit: I'm sorry, Taiyou, but I think your suggestion of increasing the difficulty of monsters as players increase levels is horrible to say the least, at least if you are talking about the same monsters.. The idea of level ups is so that a player can actually see advancement. It's the carrot that intices a lot of players to play the game. So they can get their character powerful, and eventually be able to beat monsters that at one time they couldn't.

Hehehehe, this is just one thing that strikes me as a very poor idea. You got me thinking, what would weight lifting be like if the 45 lb. weight just kept getting heaver as I got stronger, or if things got more and more expensive at exactly the same rate as me getting raises or saving my money. People like advancement, and that's one of the main defining aspects of an RPG.

--Vic--

[edited by - Roof Top Pew Wee on November 29, 2002 3:49:43 PM]

quote:Original post by Taiyou
Final Fantasy 8 used the type of system you are describing, it it turned out that a lot of gamers found it to be a better strategy to NOT level up that to actually play the game the way it was meant, so I think there should be a minimum level for the bosses, but level should be adjusted automatically to challenge the player''s who do extra leveling.

I agree with this post and I think there should be an upper limit for the bosses too, so that people who actually spend the extra time training their characters have at least SOME reward.


My Stuff : [ Whispers in Akarra (online rpg) || L33T WAR (multiplayer game) || The Asteroid Menace (another game) ]

ennemy strength = party level * difficulty, capped to MAX.

With that your ennemy won''t be too difficult to beat, and with the MAX setting you make sure weak monster stay weak and don''t become too powerfull.

It''s simple to do, especially for games using level systems, for games using skills only, you''ll need to take total skill points into account instead of level, which is pretty similar.



-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

quote:Original post by Taiyou Enemies never use items either. They always have an inventory you can steal from or acquire after a fight, but they never use anything they have. To add some extra difficulty, enemies could make use of this.

I would like to add that the above suggestions could be put in a game in place of the standard "cheat ai". In most games, the enemies are substantially stronger than the player with outrageously large amounts of HP, MP, and immunity to status effects. If the enemies were able to do everything that a player could do, then these things would not be required to keep the enemy at an appropriate difficulty level.

I absolutely agree with you here. Players get more powerful not merely by increasing in hitpoints and so forth, but also by gaining special items and abilities and making use of them. Enemies should have the same advantages.

Oh, and I also agree with your statement above that designers should allow players to strategize a lot more, and even to control their character directly in order to realistically dodge and attack and so on. Defense and attack ratings, etc. are ported directly from paper & dice games, where there's no way to directly control your character, because he's a figment of the group's imaginations -- CRPGs could allow for a more realistic combat experience in this particular area (although it would also rely more on the player's own reflexes, etc, thus defeating the fantasy of controlling an incredibly nimble character, especially when you're a bit clumsy, like me).

[edited by - irbrian on November 30, 2002 6:32:33 PM]

one idea is to make the game''s story progress based on how
much effort you''ve put into the game.
if you skip most fights and face all your bosses with minimal
strength, you''ll get a crappier ending than what you would have
gotten.

i dunno.. seems like if you make the game too easy, people
would just play through it just to see the ending and your
play-time is shot to hell.
and for those of you who think play-time is overrated, remember
this: the quicker you finish a game, the quicker you forget
about it (and if you''ve forgotten about it how can you recommend
it to your friends? )

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!