Role playing game

You're finally waking up. Video games are just a distraction to keep you complacent while your race is exterminated

In Guildwars 1 after you left the starting island you were level 20 wich is max level or shortly after it (if you didn't rush through it).
After that you had a whole game ahead and your stats wouldn't increase anymore however, the enemies got way more difficult as you went on. To the point were the final maps were only played by certain cheese builds by most players.

This is a lost art. In my opinion devs are too lazy to actually make a system where your skill and thinking will get you through and not mere numbers.

spoiler Unlike SJW2 (GW2) were all that is lost. spoiler

TOP JEJ

If you weren't a complete faggot you'd understand that the problem is that in any of those genres it's YOUR skills that get better, while in RPGs it's the character's skills that get better. This means that you can have more powerful enemies without making them any harder, because from a player's skill point of view they are exactly the same enemies as before just with bigger numbers for stats.

This is also why in most RPGs you just end up smashing ATTACK or just casting the same few spells every turn. Leveling throws any kind of nuance out of the window in favor of grinding.

An ideal RPG should only use levels to test the managerial skills of the player (his ability to create effective builds) and leave the bulk of the difficulty to enemies which can only be fought and defeated through active strategy.

See

What kind of question is this? You level up for the sole purpose of defeating stronger enemies. If you want to feel 'stronger' you can stick around the same area fighting rats and crabs

Tell me about the cheese builds, because I've been playing and haven't seen shit that would be considered cheesy. The only thing I can think of is 55 monking, and even that's obsolete when the FINAL final maps are painfully thought-out and difficult.

Higher levels generally correspond to more complex gameplay. An early level mob might have a basic attack, a status debuff, and maybe something like poison. A late level mob might have a transformation, a nuke, elemental resistance, self buffing, and low level mob summons.

If the only things that change are the damage and health, you've playing a bad rpg.

I quit after 4 years of none stop playing, and that was now a few years ago. I still play it from time to time but I'm not up to date on the meta nowadays. So things have changed (seemingly even for the better).
55 monk farming is fine IMO since it is extremely limited in its use (or at least used to be).
Back in the day you used to ursa farm (wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ursan_Blessing). A monk or two maybe a binder and everyone else ran that.
I just checked it got nerfed actually (which is a good thing). Compared to what is nowadays called gameplay this still reuired a certain level of groupwork but compared to the other options that was childs play.
Imbagons (gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build:P/W_Imbagon) are still alive I see. This I think is fair however, since it requires a certain level of skill to pull off and only puts the scales slightly in your favour considering the damage that comes in in hardome domain of anguish.
If you really care check out the meta section of the wiki and you should find some.

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Yes that is exactly right. It's why I've been working on designing RPGs in which there is no stat "boost". That progression is from gaining new tools. A common exercise I like to do take an already made RPG and see if, removing all leveling and equipment systems (assuming it's purely "new equipment, larger numbers") and see if the game still works.

Naturally the problem then becomes, how do you make interesting combat? Which I am currently working on. A lot of turn based systems simply do not have very much depth, or any real need to think of the what is going on moment to moment. Bizarrely, a lot of games that are generally held in low regard pass this test much better than other games do (like FF13, to my great surprise). It requires you to make decisions from moment to moment.

The problem is that many people prefer to just sort of "space out" when they play games these days. Common consumers are not interested in making meaningful decisions. They like to go on auto-pilot, listen to a podcast, and play their games. Rather than a game which demands your attention and fully satisfies your attention at the same time.

The dumb thing is that the lv100 rat is stronger than all the bosses you fought during the first half of the game. This isn't so bad if the game has distinct enemies some of which are reasonably stronger than others.

Firstly
In the early days, Dragon Quest creator said the leveling system was there so that none of your hard work is wasted, it all gets turned into power.

So one purpose of the leveling system is that if a boss fight is too hard for you, you can grind like a pleb until you are strong enough.

Secondly
In rpg's your attacks don't only get stronger, but you generally have access to a much wider variety of abilities that can add a larger element of strategy to the game, and enemies naturally have to get stronger to compensate for this.

That is to say, in some rpg's more than others, the game slowly stops being about building raw damage, and more about exploiting enemy weaknesses and patterns, so it makes sense the enemies get stronger.

Thirdly
In some rpg's enemies typically scale faster than you do, so eventually they generally become difficult even after you level up a lot, and by then not even plebs have the patience to grind their way to into power.

Fourthly
Backtracking would be a pain in the dick if enemies were just as hard as always, leveling up makes it so that if you've got to backtrack, you can smash through all the weaklings until you get to somewhere new. If you've already proven yourself and the enemies in the old are have not changed, there's no need to conquer the same challenge twice.

What kind of progress do you want?
To learn actually new ways to fight and overcome challenges you face? That doesn't translate well in classic RPG formula where everything is tied to stats.

Amalur tried to do that as you learned brand new abilities when leveling up, but overall game wasn't very good.

You probably should pay attention to action games like DMC, where progression mostly means new moves and abilities, and even then it has RPG elements such as HP and attack stat growth.

Or just play Guildwars 1.
It is exactly what everybody describes here, yet nobody seems to mention.
Practically no gear progression (you get max gear before you finish 1/10th of the game and it's dirt cheap and freely available) you hit max level before 1/10th and no stat progression from there.
Only your wits and ability to form strategies/builds that can help you fend of the increasingly stronger enemies. You stay the same, yet they increase in level and skill.

What the fuck are you talking about? Enemies in DDDA doesnt level up with you. You can go to BBI with level 1 and get your shit stomp if you like

My people have pretty much already been exterminated though. The only joy left in my life is watching our exterminators get exterminated themselves.

progress isn't enemies leveling up to you, it's the opposite.
An area is mixed with rats, wolves, and bears. Rats are weak, wolves are dangerous, and bears are nearly impossible to kill. You kill enough rats until you can kill a wolf, then you kill enough wolves until you can kill a bear.

Guild Wars was mentioned early on in the thread and if you're going to list Guild Wars as an example of this you might point to which specific campaign you're referring to. Factions was super speedy in regards to gear and levelling, but in Prophecies it's much slower and you're going to be through 75% of the game before you get your basic max armour set.

A lot of it revolves around using Heroes, not just cheese builds for your one character but cheese builds for your WHOLE TEAM. The AI is able to execute with perfect precision and timing to interrupt enemies and spam ridiculous armor-ignoring damage while at the same time managing their energy and spamming ridiculous party-wide heals constantly.

Basically it got to the point where you could just walk through any area and the Heroes would do it for you. The player character became…unnecessary.

Because you are fucking retarded, if you think leveling up doesnt serve a purpose, how about you stop grinding and go straight to the boss fight with a level 1 character. Stop playing shit game with level scaling

I wouldn't say the player character wasn't needed. Somebody has the lead the team of murderbots around.

I miss Build Wars something fierce though. I never really paid much attention to it until Winds of Change because you could mostly just wander through most content with anything vaguely competent until then. But the Guild Wars skill system was wonderful.

I'm interested in the build that kills mallyx where the hero is unnecessary.
I have tried several of the hero ways build yet never found one that's decent or remotely close to me being unnecessary.

Sounds like traditional leveling system tbh.

What kind of combat does it have? Isn't it one of those endless WoW/L2 clones?

I like classic rpgs where you're surrounded by powerful enemies and stuff if you go the wrong way, that way leveling up feels like progression.

Here's a high level GvG match from late in the game. Most of the earlier footage isn't on youtube and trying to find footage that isn't GW2 is fucking disgusting.

Guild Wars was in development at the same time as WoW. They released within like five months of each other. So, to call it a clone is misguided at best.

As for combat, if you're looking for anything passibly modern then you're shit out of luck. It's an 11 year old game. You can't even move and attack at the same time. With that being said, it's still fucking baller. Combat relies heavily on positioning and team synergy. You have access to shitload of skills and from those you can dump eight on your skillbar to take with you. If you like crafting builds then you'll love it.

Man I forgot how cancerous the meta was by this point.

Think in terms of DnD. In DnD level 1 adventurers can only handle very small fry. Maybe a small goblin camp, a little mob of single action undead. Interesting things like dungeon spelunking, urban adventures, planar exploring are completely off limits. As you gain power, you can start doing more interesting quests. You can try to sneak around garrisons, you can actually travel the desert/glaciar, you can explore actual dangerous dungeons. As you gain more power still, you can take on whole armies, facing mastermind like opponents, run cities or even challenging the gods.

It is just too bad that RPGs in general have a very poor mechanical engine, boiling down to fighting mobs and even thoughter mobs with very boring quests.

The name of the game is making a build.
There are an incredible ammount of skills which have very different functions and finding synergies is the name of the game.
That is what kept me playing for ages.
There was always some new trick coming around the corner of some strange combination of skills nobody had thought before despite the game being out for ages.
You can off class as well to even get more combinations possible.
To get an idea of the sheer amount of skills look at this list:
wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_all_skills

I'm just amazed that I can watch that and see what's happening. Which immediately makes it better than the clusterfuck that is GW2 PvP.

wow this is fucking bullshit

Don't play RPGs if you don't like how they work you fucking retard

It's typically not quite as clear cut as this. Character progression can be in the form of having their existing abilities improved, gaining new abilities, or some combination of the two. Meanwhile, challenges in the game such as combat become more difficult not simply by bloating enemy numbers, but also by giving them new abilties that could exploit weaknesses in poor character builds, forcing the player to focus on making effective builds in order to further exploit weaknesses in these enemies and preparing for possible threats future enemies will present. One of the reasons why classes and parties of characters were the standard in RPGs was to highlight this - weaknesses in classes became more pronounced as the game progresses, so the player(s) are meant manage their characters to cover their weaknesses while still keeping their strengths.

The primary challenge for the player in an RPG should how well they manage their character, with the interactions they make with the world (combat, NPC dialogue, exploring, etc) being tests for this, and further challenges should be scrutinizing the effectiveness of their builds even more.

Of course, most of this is just speaking "ideally". There's no shortage of RPGs that fail in this regard and turn into mindless grindfests - Sturgeon's law and whatnot.

This is probably the reason why Skyrim and games like it are so empty in true content.

This "spacing out" is also perfect for implanting programming into the minds of the audience, similar to how watching TV makes people drowsy, sleepy and can often result in a TV blasting commercials while the audience literally is asleep, absorbing the information in the subconcious/unconcious.

You're either grinding too much, playing shallow RPGs, or playing easy RPGs. Most of which aren't hard these days but people still think they are grind to win. When you get stronger, what's more important than numbers are the abilities you get which can give you more advantages and strategies in and sometimes out of combat. Know why so many casuals thought Matador was so hard in SMT Nocturne? Because they thought the game was all numbers and just tried constantly healing and attacking to win. Not realizing you need to use buffs and debuffs to win. Seymour 3 in FFX is easy as fuck once you notice he is simply using 4-5 moves in a pattern. Even if you are immune to zombie, he won't change his pattern. Many people even go into this fight not knowing you can defend. It's a easy fight that blows people up because they don't bother buffing or seeing his pattern. His dispel is pointless as long as you can live his heavy damage AOE attacks by defending.

Saying enemies "get stronger" by simply getting bigger numbers is wrong. They also get new abilities to wipe you out. By end game you have bosses that have multiple parts, AOE status effect attacks, team wipe attacks, regen, and buff removal. In many RPGs you can use items if you don't have spells to counter some of the bullshit enemies throw at you. People who aren't good at RPGs ignore these too besides the healing and revive items. And as the games go on you get a larger variety of items. Essentially numbers stop meaning shit and tools are what become important. Which is why RPGs reward good strategy, resource management, and pattern recognition. You can be underleveled in most RPGs and still keep winning if you play smartly AMD know how the game works. While it's true the character gets stronger, they are still limited to how well the player can take advantage of their tools.

If you want more control of your characters, then play action RPGs. I suggest Tales of Eternia.

The best way to describe it is by showing you how flexible the system is.
Any character can use any weapon and any skill no matter the class.
By off classing you get all the traits you can put your skillpoints into but one that is unique in the sense that only the main class has it. So you can make a meele necromancer (which can work) with the axe skills of a warrior, however it is more difficult since it will lack the main trait (strength) which among other things increases damage done in melee. But again it opens options from the necromancer where a lot of synergies for using melee can be found.
The only limit is your imagination and ability to find synergies that work.
An example of a build that showcases that.
A "toucher" was a staff wielding hunter that used necromancer skills.
Necromancers have two skills that without going into detail take some of the HP from your enemy and transerf it to you but only in melee range.
Now the problem is they cost a lot of mana to cast, to the point where even a necromancer (who has increased mana regeneration compared to a hunter) can not use them efficiently.
A hunters main trait is however that he can cast skills (only a certain type so no spells and the like) way cheaper to account for the low mana regeneration (among other things). The vampiric touch was influeenced by this skill, making it rather cheap.
Now there were other hunter skills (throwing dirt, really annoying block stances and the like) that made him rather sturdy in melee range.
So you would see hunters running around with staffs using necro skills in melee while blinding warriors.
This is of course more of a gimicky fun build, and ca be countered easily, however it nicely shows what level of customization we are talking about here.

I know a few RPGs tend to rationalize it as evil getting stronger. The ancient evil is awakening and the monsters invading the land are getting more powerful.

Unfortunately, the limited technology of the time meant that they couldn't just change all the random encounters in the entire game the further you got, so the weaker enemies in early areas hang around.

What truly killed Amalur is 2 things
1. No difficulty, even on the hardest setting it was a breeze to fight in areas 10 levels above yours.
2. An RPG system with few skills and non-combat skills having their own section.
If they had more abilities or were more challenging, maybe it wouldn't be so shit.
Also a fate mode that wasn't an "I win" button that also grants extra exp.

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Can you tell me how I can stop getting 1-shot on the hard mode? I'm a ranger so it's not like I wear too much heavy armour but I seriously cannot take one hit from anything other than goblins.

Stop being in Hard-mode unless it's new game plus.

at this point its become a walking simulator

not only that but they want as many subscribers as possible
guild wars didnt have subs

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