Combat in RPG's

Let's talk about combat in RPG's and how devs can best handle it.

Does fast paced hack and slash kind of combat like in the Witcher, TES or Dark Souls (yes i know it's not an RPG) have a place in an RPG without being bland and boring? I know bethesda is terrible at making a working combat model, however other devs seem to have been more successful in implementing it.
Is a turn based combat system boring by default? If a turn based system is implemented, would it be better if it's a gridless jrpg style, with party members and enemies all being within reach of each other, or a wrpg style, where characters have to maneuver on a grid?
Or maybe a compromise between the 2 with a real-time turn based system is the best, like in KotOR, WoW and Pillars of Eternity?

Other urls found in this thread:

archive.is/ttEUN
archive.is/JDcUC
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

this is an abstract kind of shitposting

The best thing for combat interactions to do in RPGs in general is that they should be like all other interactions - subservient and informed by the player's character building and choices in their progression. If the choices in combat take greater precedence than the choices made in making and progressing your characters, than the game undermines itself as an RPG. If the combat interactions use action-based mechanics (based on reflexes, reaction-speed for success), the previously mentioned undermining would make the game more of an action game and less of an RPG. If those combat mechanics were more based on strategic and tactical choices, it would be more of a strategy game.

Now, if the devs are trying to make something more like a strategy game or action game than an action game, than that design isn't bad at all. However, if they're attempting to make an actual RPG, the devs need to make sure that its design reflects that in all of its interactions, combat included.

So you mean that combat should be all about stats, rather than reflexes or strategic thinking?

There have been mods for Oblivion and Skyrim that drastically improve the combat. Any damage a shield/parry doesn't block gets rereouted to fatigue, weapons do a lot more damage, and moves like kicks, shield bashes, and charges. It's not even hard to do, Bethesda just sucks ass at making fun combat systems.

If it isn't turn based, it's shit.

turn based combat > everything else

Not necessarily all about it, just like how Action games typically aren't all about just testing your reflexes (unless they're Rhythm games). I mean that interactions in an RPG should emphasize RPG mechanics rather than those of other genres. All games contain other sorts of mechanics that aren't focused on their genre's design (action games with some character progression, etc), but the key to including them is to make sure they don't take precedence over your game's core mechanics.

What do you think would classify as RPG mechanics? Character progression? Interactive storyline?

They all work to an extent - it's just that you have to pick and choose which system works to which situation. E.g. Icewind Dale would benefit from ToEE's combat system, Witcher 3's combat system being a miss is tradition in CDPR games, so on and so forth.

That depends very much on where you're coming from. Progression of character through stats or otherwise, and its effect on the world is a must. Ideally the player should have a degree of choice in this process - from full-on blank slates such as in Icewind Dale to predefined characters like the Nameless One and Geralt. Note, I am using predefined to mean that the player is deliberately excluded from the continuity that defines these characters - defines being the key word here.

RPG is just a term to categorize games. It makes no sense to base your concept on an abstract of what most closely resembles what you're trying to make, instead of just making it the way you want.

This certainly isn't a question already been done to death.
In short, it's anything to do with character building, abstraction between player input and character actions, and making meaningful choices in character progression - in various contexts such as attributes, gear, NPC interactions, story, etc. For more, see some threads like these
archive.is/ttEUN
archive.is/JDcUC
Note that what I'm describing is the design of the mechanics, not necessarily their individual implementations. That varies on a game-to-game basis.

This drives home a point for me.

RPG's are ideally story driven turn-based single player or team/co-op vs. non-player enemies. No different than pen and paper RPG.

PvP in RPG's always seem to motivate people to add more skill based elements but that's not what the genre is designed for. It's not a shooter or fighting game.

I'm actually not a big fan of RPG's now that I really think about it.

roflcofl

Pen and paper RPG's are purely story driven. The combat is purely a dice roll. Combat isn't a selling point at all. It's just a story that has branching events.

A "combat role-playing game" is dumb and shows that we've been playing telephone and the original meaning has been lost down the line.

what?
Worst RPG series out there, assuming action-based combat is a different genre than turn based. Literally just repeatedly press attack repeatedly to win, and the combat is somehow worse than skyrim.
What fucking TES? I'm going to assume skyrim. and just the fucking mention of the game is a big NO to any game design cue. all others have either turn based or really slow combat, although i don't know what oblivion is like since it's the game in the franchise i haven't touched.
At least it was good at some point unlike witcher, but combat in today's dark souls is an example of how NOT to do shit. I mean even the good dark souls games had issues with hitboxes.
I personally think so, it was acceptable when you couldn't do better (for instance during the days of the first final fantasy)
Nope, that's just always objectively shit.
Overall OP is a homo and made a post about things anyone should be able to know with common sense.

There are people who play P&P RPGs like some some sort of Diablo, in that they come with a stack of character sheets, they venture in impossibly hard dungeons, fight lots and lots of enemies, and when one of the player's character dies, at the end of the battle, he picks the next hero from his stack of character sheets. Only when the entire party dies in battle, do they loose. Whether or not you think this is fun or not, doesn't matter since THEY do, and is why they play the game the way they do. Thus P&P RPGs aren't necessarily story driven.

Severance is the only ARPG that does combat right, even though the RPG aspect is only a side dish.

Dumbass.

After thinking about it, maybe not. The RPG aspect is quite prevalent, but once you picked a class in the menu screen there's no way to deviate to another class inside the game. The skill points are distributed linearly. I think I like it better that way, there's a clear sense of balance and diversity in all the classes.

This meme needs to die.
RPGs, especially the tabletop ones that vidya RPGs are still trying to capture the essence of, are about decisions, whether you're sitting at a table full of munchkins doing their best to emulate Punpun, putting character sheets together with a Shakespeare company, or playing a vidya RPG.
The reason RPGs are not a well-liked genre of vidya is because the people who make RPG vidya are fucking terrible DMs who either weld the car to the rails, glue you to the seat, and tell you to keep your hands in the ride at all times because "this is our story, not yours," or never write anything beyond what your character does.