#75: Are RPGs Even Allowed to Have "Good" Combat?

As I said in last week's post, my free time has been spent playing old PlayStation 2 ATLUS RPGs. Having beaten Devil Summoner, I have been making progress through Digital Devil Saga. However, this is not an Impressions piece on that game as it will take some time to finish, now that college classes are taking up my time again. Worry not, my friends, because playing through this game has given me an interesting idea for a subject of an article. One idea has been clawing at the back of my mind for some time now. This idea is as follows: “Are RPGs even allowed to have 'good' combat?”

This might at first seem like a weird question, but hear me out. Though this is not always the case, most gamers, on some level, associate RPGs with longer playtimes than would typically expected of other games. These lengths usually exceed 30 hours, and it is not uncommon for them to go up to 50 hours or greater. In order to facilitate player engagement for the entire length of one of these games, combat has to fill a very particular niche. Should the fighting be too busy, then players will become fatigued from having to repeatedly consume mental stamina to stay on top. This will result in them either taking long breaks between sessions, or being incapable of playing for more than an hour or so at a time before they need to call it quits.

Kingdoms of Amalur served as a decent example of that. At a minimum, a typical playthrough will take about 50 hours to clear. In order to keep the player's attention throughout this length, the development team went out of their way to try to make the best combat they could. In order to have good fighting in the game, they made players have to watch all of their enemies in order to know when to dodge attacks and counter with their own. It requires observation of the enemy, their patterns, and the properties of their attacks. Further, a sense of timing and, to a lesser extent, rhythm is needed to capitalize on openings and avoid making them yourself. There is quite a lot going on, even in beginning fights. While the game does have a leveling mechanic, so fighting against enemies of lower/higher level will make it easier/harder, the game does a fairly good job of keeping the player at just the right level to get a decent challenge going throughout the experience.

Unfortunately, this style of combat has drawbacks that can only be seen when placed in an RPG and extended for long lengths of time. First, the player's attack properties are always in flux. Different weapon types possess different attack animations, so equipping a new weapon can completely throw off the sense of timing and result in unnecessary grief in a fight. Even when the same type of weapon is equipped, each one has their own properties. This results in dealing different damage and having different ranges. It might not sound like much, but that can have a dramatic impact on overall strategy. While some of this is necessary in order to keep scenarios new and interesting, the nature of the game makes this so regular that players rarely have time to get used to old tactics before new ones are needed. Other issues crop up as well. For example, the mental strain required to keep all of these factors in mind is draining. It results in a feeling of general exhaustion when playing the game. Such feeling are exacerbated when the typical RPG trappings of inventory management and character development are included. The constant need to fiddle with equipment and build setups, while partaking in very active engagements, can reduce even the strongest willpower to nothing.

On the other hand, RPGs cannot make the combat too boring. This opposite problem is what many people who shy away from RPGs typically associate with them. If the game does not make its combat engaging enough, players will still not play it for very long, for surprisingly similar reasons. A boring, monotonous slog can often be exactly as draining as overengagement. As a result, a game that does not bring a proper level of engagement to the forefront will tire out users and get them to stop playing.

Final Fantasy XII had this problem in spades. The combat system, seemingly inspired by MMOs, took place in real-time, with attacks taking a period of time to perform depending on the user's speed stat. The game also had a system called Gambits. Basically, the game allowed players to control the player AI's algorithm, as determined by a series of if-then statements. As a result of this system, most of the game was automated. Tasks like healing, buffing/debuffing, and exploiting enemy weaknesses could simply by handed off to the AI. Theoretically, this could be free the player up to focus more on task at hand, dealing with fighting on the macro level as opposed to the micro level. In execution, most fights could be completed without a single input of the part of the player. All the player really had to do was make sure the party was moving throughout the dungeon, completing the puzzles and getting to the next cutscene. As a result, it gets boring quickly, and finishing the game can be considered a bit of a chore.

In order to keep players interested throughout the length of the game, the combat needs to be just challenging enough so that it draws and holds the player's attention without taxing them too heavily. Heading too far in either direction will just tire the player out, either through exhaustion or boredom. While the player needs to be “going through the motions” to a degree, some variety must come from somewhere in order to keep interest, while still maintaining a structure to the combat. This is ultimately where the crux of my argument comes from. Can this balance really be seen as “good” combat? Is it “fun” in the traditional sense? Or is it merely good enough to hold a typical player's attention throughout the course of the game, without honestly being that entertaining in its own right?

I do not honestly have that answer. As much as I mulled over this point and even after playing countless games in the genre, I cannot reach a satisfactory conclusion. Thus, I would like to hear your input on the matter. Should any of you have an opinion on this subject that you wish to share, please feel free to contact me, either in the comments below or on social media. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

#68: Kingdoms of Amalur vs. Skyrim: The Intimidation Factor

Like many people out there in the gaming space, I like to try to play games to completion. Though I do that with fewer and fewer games as I grow older, those games that particularly interest me still fuel that urge to do everything I can before moving on. Because of this, I am all too familiar with some of the frustrations that come from such a playstyle. Open-world RPGs can be either great or horrible for people like myself. On one hand, we always have something to do, because those kinds of games will almost always have a quest or two hidden away for players to find. However, completions like me are never able to completely move on from them, because those kinds of games will almost always have a quest or two hidden away for players to find. Despite this problem, this genre can be implemented in ways that can either exacerbate this feeling or lessen it in people.

Two open-world RPGs in particular are the subjects of this weeks article: Kingdoms of Amalur, which I recently got finished playing, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the most successful games in the Elder Scrolls franchise. I want to talk about these two games in particular for a very special reason. Both games have tons of content. So much so that players could spend hundreds of hours playing either game and still never be able to complete it all. However, when I think of trying to do everything in Kingdoms of Amalur, I can't help but be intimidated by the thought. Not because any one piece of content is particularly overwhelming, but because I feel that it will take so much time, become so boring, and progress will be so slow that I just lose any desire to keep playing the game. At the same time, the thought of exploring the land of Skyrim, despite all the criticisms I have levied at that game over its lifespan, fills me with delight. Just writing about it now makes me want to go back, reload my save, and keep exploring the land to look for all the things I undoubtedly missed. At this realization, I sat down and thought for a bit as to why that might be.

The first explanation I came to for this is that Kingdoms of Amalur makes the sheer wealth of content available much more obvious than Skyrim does. When traveling through a given area in Kingdoms of Amalur, players will often come across bright yellow question marks on the map. Each of those symbols represents a quest which the players can stop to complete. This means that a player can gauge exactly how many quests are in given area by just filling out the map and counting how many yellow question marks show up. This is in fairly stark contrast to Skyrim. In the latest installment to the Elder Scrolls series, players are not explicitly told where or how to find quests. Players need to talk with people in towns or settlements in order to obtain quests. While sometimes NPCs in the game world will come up and petition the player character for assistance, the player themselves will generally be the one who has to begin interactions in order to discover new content.

Though these two systems lead to the same end, in which the player discovers quests and content to do, they accomplish different things in the mind of the player. In the case of Kingdoms of Amalur, all the content is made readily apparent to the player. In Skyrim, the exact amount of content is obfuscated. So when I go into an new area in Kingdoms of Amalur, I think to myself that this could be a potential 6-7 hours sitting right here just doing missions completely unrelated to anything else in the game. Entering a new town in Skryim, I can complete whatever errands I need to run and talk to a few villagers to find some quests I need to do. Without the constant reminder that there is a new thing to do in the city, it is easier for me to trick myself into thinking that I have “completed” all the quests in town, when in truth I have barely scratched the surface. Nonetheless, I walk away with a feeling like I accomplished much. In Kingdoms of Amalur, when I finish a quest, I feel like it is just a drop in bucket because I can see another 3-4 quests just in this one grassy plane. It is a subtle shift in the way it makes players think, but a key one that affects the perception of the whole game.

Another contributing factor to the difference in feeling of intimidation in one of these games, but not the other is that contrast in how combat works in each of them. In Kingdoms of Amalur, the combat is very visceral. There is a surprising amount of depth to it. Players need to stay aware of their surroundings in order to dodge enemy attacks, while trying to create an opening to stagger the enemy. If they are not careful, then they themselves will be knocked down and on the defensive. Each weapon type has its own combo chain, with strength and speed unique to that type of weapon. Though not difficult, timing and planning are quite important, and even enemies of equal level can wear down the unprepared (especially when there are mages in the enemy formation). On the flip side, Skyrim's combat is quite bare bones. It is quite trivial to button mash one's way through most encounters the game will throw at the player. Magic and stealth characters can use spells and backstab to change things up, but the mechanics are fairly simple and do not need much knowledge to fully grasp.

Let me preface my next statement by saying that I enjoy the combat in Kingdoms of Amalur. In fact, the combat was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. However, that kind of combat against dozens and dozens of encounters has a way of gradually draining the player's mental stamina and enthusiasm for playing. As fun and fairly easy as it is, the sheer number of enemies the game throws at the player are not quite compatible with the type of combat. Also, the foes in Kingdoms of Amalur are quite durable, so taking them down can be fairly time consuming. While Skyrim also tends to have a lot of enemies come the player's way, the simpler mechanics lend themselves to that more readily. Enemies tend to fall fast and easy. It is not as mentally draining to play through waves of enemies in Skyrim than it in Kingdoms of Amalur, so playing through it is more bearable, despite its combat being worse overall. As a result, it is much easier to play hours and hours of Skyrim than in is to do the same in Kingdoms of Amalur. I can also play the latter for an hour or two before I feel the need to save and shut it off.

I find it interesting to compare and contrast similar games, because there is much to learn from such analysis. Both games are likely in many ways, but the way they implement their systems can leave completely different impressions of the audience. What is even more interesting is that I know there will be people who disagree for many different reasons. I am sad that Kingdoms of Amalur did not do so well, because I think they could do so much better if given a second chance. Hopefully, people will be able to learn from what went wrong with the game in time. Until then, there will be guys like me out there to over-analyze games like it in the vain hopes that others will listen.