Quote:Original post by Way Walker

Quote:Original post by BBHudson
You don't need (and infact shouldn't have) miss chances in an action RPG, as the characters "skill" should by definition be superseded by the players skill.

Yeah, that pissed me right off in Secret of Mana.

Oh I'm not saying action RPGs can't work with random numbers, but that they can work without, like in Oblivion (most of it anyway). I don't want to take anything away from SoM or anything (it's actually one of my favourite games of all time), but it wasn't heavily based on player skill like some more modern games are. I mean you can't block an attack actively, so it makes sense that you get a random chance of blocking/evading etc.

Quote:Original post by Way Walker

Quote:
The other sub-genre that doesn't really need random chances is the strategy RPG. If your game is heavily reliant on strategy then there really is no need for random chances. Which is the better strategy game: Backgammon or Chess? Obviously chess since although backgammon contains many elements of strategy, it also involves a great deal of luck, whereas chess is entirely dependent on the players strategy. I've yet to see a strategy RPG that completely removes random chances though. This is probably due to the inherent progression system that an RPG must have - how does one make a battle balanced if when character is at a higher level than another without random chances?

Final Fantasy Tactics came to mind. They didn't remove random chances, but most of the time your chances to hit were pretty high. The random chance encouraged more strategy (or, tactics, I suppose) because to get this "nearly certain hit" you had to get around behind the enemy.

Rofl, that's another of my all time favourite games :) You must admit FFT was much less dependent on random chances than your average menu based RPG. Since it was half and half with strategy and luck it did work well like you said, but in a system with a greater emphasis on strategy any random elements would become a real annoyance. Just thinking off the top of my head... for instance if moving a unit to a particular position prevents an enemy moving past adjacent squares, then you wouldn't want a random chance that the enemy could slip past, as this negates any plan the player has formulated. Like I said, it's like backgammon vs. chess; in a game where strategy is as key as it is in chess, you wouldn't want for instance a probability that your knight will fail in capturing a pawn. Of course I doubt anybody is ever going to create an RPG battle system as complicated as chess.

Quote:Original post by Way Walker

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In an RPG that has neither a predominant twist towards skill or strategy, the need for randomness is greater. For instance if you can't beat a boss, how are you to win next time you try if there is no alternate strategy or no skill tests you could have done better? In most RPGs you'd basically try the same thing again and hope that luck is on your side this time.

In short: if you want to remove all random chances from the game then you will need to implement the use of skill or strategy from the player in a considerable way. This is of course no bad thing, and should probably be done with all RPGs :)

I disagree. A lot of the fun in focusing on character skill isn't in the actual battles but in setting up your team for the battle. It's a cultivation thing. It's a "get them, my pretties" thing.

I guess I can see that; character customization is one of the few things that modern RPGs do quite well IMO. Particularly in team vs. team settings, designing characters to cancel out the others weakness can get quite strategic, though in reality there is always a set of builds that will strongly counter your own, so really you are just playing a big game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. I'd rather see a system where the players have to outwit each other actually on the battlefield rather than off it - attacking in such a way to strike at your opponents weak spots while covering your own. Well, it's got to be better than *click* *click* *click*...

Is it bad, when you are non dextrous enough, to let the only person that could made the task, character to finish that task?

It's always choice. Would you use brain, or your manual dexterity? Main developer of the Final fantasy decided it would be never about speed and manual dexterity. So any Final fantasy would wait for player with next action, as long as he will be main developer.

For example Dungeon crawl would be unplayable, putting aside if it's unplayable with current system, if they would use some type of real time system.

Quote:Original post by BBHudson

Quote:Original post by Way Walker

Quote:Original post by BBHudson
You don't need (and infact shouldn't have) miss chances in an action RPG, as the characters "skill" should by definition be superseded by the players skill.

Yeah, that pissed me right off in Secret of Mana.

Oh I'm not saying action RPGs can't work with random numbers, but that they can work without, like in Oblivion (most of it anyway). I don't want to take anything away from SoM or anything (it's actually one of my favourite games of all time), but it wasn't heavily based on player skill like some more modern games are. I mean you can't block an attack actively, so it makes sense that you get a random chance of blocking/evading etc.

Oh, I was criticizing Secret of Mana (which was a great game). I would've much rather it didn't have the chance to miss/dodge. The levels were fine, but I would've preferred if that just affected numbers like damage and HP instead of chance to hit. Zelda:LttP had little you could do to actively block, but dodging was a large part of the gameplay.

Quote:
Final Fantasy Tactics came to mind. They didn't remove random chances, but most of the time your chances to hit were pretty high. The random chance encouraged more strategy (or, tactics, I suppose) because to get this "nearly certain hit" you had to get around behind the enemy.

Rofl, that's another of my all time favourite games :) You must admit FFT was much less dependent on random chances than your average menu based RPG. Since it was half and half with strategy and luck it did work well like you said, but in a system with a greater emphasis on strategy any random elements would become a real annoyance. Just thinking off the top of my head... for instance if moving a unit to a particular position prevents an enemy moving past adjacent squares, then you wouldn't want a random chance that the enemy could slip past, as this negates any plan the player has formulated. Like I said, it's like backgammon vs. chess; in a game where strategy is as key as it is in chess, you wouldn't want for instance a probability that your knight will fail in capturing a pawn. Of course I doubt anybody is ever going to create an RPG battle system as complicated as chess.

Age of Wonders actually did this quite well. If you try to walk past another unit, they get a free swing at you. There's a chance your guy will dodge, but there's a chance he won't. I'd say that so far from removing strategy, it made you think deeper because you had more options that were more complex. And not just more complex, but more complex in interesting ways.

Or, like in FFT, the only way to be almost certain to hit was to get them fom behind, but that didn't mean you were invincible from the front. Yes, it'd've been much more like chess if everything was 100% certain, but it would've lost a lot of its nuance (not that chess doesn't have nuance, it's just a different nuance).

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I guess I can see that; character customization is one of the few things that modern RPGs do quite well IMO. Particularly in team vs. team settings, designing characters to cancel out the others weakness can get quite strategic, though in reality there is always a set of builds that will strongly counter your own, so really you are just playing a big game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. I'd rather see a system where the players have to outwit each other actually on the battlefield rather than off it - attacking in such a way to strike at your opponents weak spots while covering your own. Well, it's got to be better than *click* *click* *click*...

Well, even in games where most of the strategy is in the planning stages, you usually have some influence on the battle itself. Think like Magic the Gathering. A lot of that game is proper deck design, but that's not enough to win a tournament. Even in the FF series, where most of the combat decisions were in designing your team, you still couldn't just mash the fight button and expect to win (unless you were over levelled). I don't think your rock/paper/scissors comparison applies nearly so broadly as you think, because where setup rules, there's usually more than one way to skin a cat.

"Imitating or estimating how events might occur in a real situation. It can involve complex mathematical modeling, role playing without the aid of technology, or combinations. The value lies in the placing you under realistic conditions, that change as a result of behavior of others involved so you cannot anticipate the sequence of events or the final outcome."

The above is a definition of "simulation" given by the University of Arizona.

The important part is that you cannot predict what is going to happen. I think that this applies to video games as well (they are, after all, simulations). If you don't use randomness, you need to have some other form of chaos in the game (eg: forcing the timing and position of mouse clicks to be *just* right to get a head shot).

And I think this goes beyond mere definition pickyness; its no fun when you *know* what's going to happen. And besides, if it came out the same every time, there'd be no point in trying to beat that boss again (or, for that matter, the game).

So, I guess it comes down to a preference as to how you achieve unpredictability (the "others involved" in the definition) and how much unpredictability you want. To me, randomness is a fine way, as long as there are other forms, too.

Edit: Bad html skills

Quote:Original post by stenny

Quote:Please, get rid of it. While you're at it, get rid of randomness altogether and make a game that actually requires some skill. Please for the love of god abolish yourself from all of the wrongdoings that D&D and Final Fantasy have done to games.

Sorry to say this, and my rating may drop extremely, but I think that is just plain stupid. Without games like FF and D&D we wouldn't even have RPG's and this topic wouldn't even exist...and before anyone says...yes, I am aware of dragonquest, but I don't think DQ alone would've made RPG's great. And if it did, I still think JBourrie's comment is stupid, because games don't have mistakes (up to a certain level). Final Fantasy and D&D were intented this way by their creators, so how can they have mistakes. And if you don't like these games, don't play them!

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I don't know man, will I be making the biggest mistake of my life by not having tohit% chances?

First of all: Do whatever yóu want. I've told this a lot already and each time it makes sence:

How can the player like a game if the creator doesn't even like it?

If yóu want to scrap hit%, do as you want! And if you don't, dón't! And by any means, don't listen to anyone here. Not the guys who say to scrap it, nor the guys who say not to scrap it, and not to me.

I don't care if you take out the miss, as long as the game is fun. And you can only accomplish that if you find it fun yourself...

-Stenny

You forgot in which Forum we are here. Its a Forum about gamedesign, that means we talk about game design. Which features are good, which are bad. (Always from the view point of the poster)

You can not say that every RPG has to implement some features, because the first games had these features. Even if some games were the first of their genre and helped the genre to become that "great", they are not a ruleset for future games.

In game design you want to design a game which is fun to play, not to copy an old milestone.
If someone says that a game has mistakes then he usually means that the game design at this part could have been better. Just in his opinion!
And thats not "stupid". That are productive posts in a discussion thread.

As I've seen a lot say, it depends on how you handle the "miss" there should be a chance to fail but but how it's done depends of the game itself. If it's a sword hack fest I would think a miss would be rare while a hit that dose little damage would be more common.

Pick up a stick and swing it at something how many times do you miss? now if the thing is defending then your hits may be ineffective. Now if it's a shooter, the "miss" may very well be a miss as any hit will do damage. So first I would clarify the terminology then work on how you want it to feel to the players.

Now then that brings up another question, what happens when you miss? If I swing a sword at you and do so badly that I completely miss you I'm going to be wide open to you counter attack, a miss should not be just a lack of damage but should also cost you in defense. Make it rare but make it a penalty that has meaning. Then you also move away from the button masher fight, as a swing and a miss leads to "Oh shit!" I got to move now or get clobbered and not to oh well just mash attack button again.

Then you come to what happens to that missile attack that missed? was there something down range that got hit by mistake that could have consequences?