Rampant Games - Are RPGs Too Long?

[ishuman]

Why is finishing sooner than 7 months appealing? The journey should be the reward, otherwise you're playing a shitty game. If I had a game that lasted 7 months and I enjoyed it, I would think gaming zen had been achieved.

It may have- but there are SO many games out there that I want to try…

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Adventures ? well yes adventures are really short but how many play adventures?

Then you are playing different Adventure games then I do - or are much better in solving riddles than I am ...

 

[ChienAboyeur]

A game of EU3 can take months to finish, but you can leave it and retake it 6 months later and it doesn't matter because there is not much to remember. If you stopped at 1593, when you continue it later you don't have to remember what happened in 1450 or 1499 or 1550.

Cant tell for this game but for same type of games like CK2, it is the opposite.

The board configuration, the flow of events, the thread of the game represent a large set of information.

I often take several months, or years to complete a game. I write down bits for this type of games because it is very easy to forget some essential bits on the game configuration to connect when I resume it.

You can indeed restart without remembering the next moves you planned a few months ago but you then start a new game, no longer sticking to the initial plan.
All these games allows long term planning and when restarting, it is very easy to have forgotten about vital opportunities you were eagerly waiting for a few months ago.

I seldom write down notes for RPGs though.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Why is finishing sooner than 7 months appealing? The journey should be the reward, otherwise you're playing a shitty game. If I had a game that lasted 7 months and I enjoyed it, I would think gaming zen had been achieved.

That is the point.

There is no hurry in finishing a game. Actually, there is one, when the game is poor, the sooner it is finished, the better it is.

 

[JDR13]

If I stop playing an RPG for more than a few months, I almost never continue the same playthrough. I don't why, but I just can't seem to get back into a game after that long of a break. That's why I normally play only 1 RPG at a time.

 

[GothicGothicness]

An RPG with great gameplay you can play through a lot of times, also if it is long you'll keep enjoying the ride. However very few modern RPG's have good gameplay, in fact most modern games ( especially RPG's ) are mostly interactive story-telling.

I can't think of a single modern RPG combining good gameplay and story. Kings Bounty has great gameplay, but the story sucks. TW2 has a great story but the gameplay sucks…. and so on.

If you can combine both, I doubt anyone would complain even if the RPG lasted for years….. of course none would have resources to make that kind of game.

 

[JDR13]

I can't think of a single modern RPG combining good gameplay and story. Kings Bounty has great gameplay, but the story sucks. TW2 has a great story but the gameplay sucks…. and so on.

I don't think many would agree that the gameplay in The Witcher 2 "sucks". It does have a few issues, but overall it was pretty good.

 

[Asdraguuhl]

TW2 has a great story but the gameplay sucks

I don't agree. Sure, the gameplay mechanics are not perfect and I would have done certain things differently myself. But saying that it sucks is just being irrationally radical.

 

[sakichop]

Bad ones are, good ones aren't. Don't let dev's here this we will have call of duty length rpg's for $60.00.

 

[darkling]

The Witcher 2 *does* suck though. Nothing irrational about it.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I don't think many would agree that the gameplay in The Witcher 2 "sucks". It does have a few issues, but overall it was pretty good.

That's probably because you compare it to other modern RPG's which has even worse gameplay.

Character development - Not that many options, completely unbalanced.
Crafting - Broken and almost useless.
Combat - Fun and good in beginning, lackluster and broken towards the end, quen, quen, quen, roll roll roll or just click click click.
Hard Difficulty - Extremly easy.
Quen sign - Completely overpowered.
Timed click events - Does anyone likes those?

Arm wrestling - Ok for a mini-game but also really easy.
Dice Poker - Only luck.
Boxing - Really easy and more or less same thing as timed click events.

Third Chapter - Broken and almost no meaningful combat. ( Haven't tried enhanced edition yet this might change my opinion regarding that )

Monsters - There is only really few different kind of monsters and you quickly learn how to fight them. ( Because the cost per monster is so high when the graphics is so great )

Human vs Human combat - Better, but still flawed, and there is too little of this.

There are a lot more issues this is just a scrap on the surface.

 

[DArtagnan]

Isn't GG the one who thinks Skyrim looks really bad?

 

[Asdraguuhl]

That's probably because you compare it to other modern RPG's which has even worse gameplay.

Character development - Not that many options, completely unbalanced.
Crafting - Broken and almost useless.
Combat - Fun and good in beginning, lackluster and broken towards the end, quen, quen, quen, roll roll roll or just click click click.
Hard Difficulty - Extremly easy.
Quen sign - Completely overpowered.
Timed click events - Does anyone likes those?

Arm wrestling - Ok for a mini-game but also really easy.
Dice Poker - Only luck.
Boxing - Really easy and more or less same thing as timed click events.

Third Chapter - Broken and almost no meaningful combat. ( Haven't tried enhanced edition yet this might change my opinion regarding that )

Monsters - There is only really few different kind of monsters and you quickly learn how to fight them. ( Because the cost per monster is so high when the graphics is so great )

Human vs Human combat - Better, but still flawed, and there is too little of this.

There are a lot more issues this is just a scrap on the surface.

You can dissect any RPG, including the good ones, and make an endless list of faults.

In any case, regarding TW2:

Arm wrestling/Dice Poker/Boxing: Those are optional minigames that are there to add some flavour. They are indeed too easy though and perhaps some bigger challenges might be beneficial. But a game doesn't suck because of optional minigames.

QTE: I agree that they are unnecessary and do not add anything to the gameplay. But outside of the optional boxing minigames, there are only a few instances where QTE's are employed so they cannot be considered part of the core gameplay.

Quen spamming: This is one of the biggest general complaints. In my first playthrough I didn't rely on Quen since I chose a different build and experimented with different tactics. So a simple solution would be to not use Quen at all .
Also, as a response to this criticism, they have reduced the Quen effectiveness in the EE version.

Hard difficulty setting: I found this setting to be easy too. But don't forget that many other players complained about the difficulty and were very vocal about it. Perhaps you are just too experienced and too good as a gamer .
I played the EE version at the Dark difficulty setting and that was considerably better than hard. (I'll admit that I don't have what it takes to go for Insane difficulty )

Rolling/blocking:: For me personally, what bugs me the most is the mandatory reliance on rolling and the fact that you cannot walk while blocking.

IMO, a simple solution would be to make blocking a toggle with the E key where you could walk during the blocking stance. In that case you would have the option to walk away instead of having to roll away. Also, the stamina mechanics should be revised IMO to include rolling as well to avoid roll spamming.

I think that there is indeed room for improvement in combat but something that "sucks" would be beyond solution or simply broken/unfinished.

Crafting: What is wrong with crafting? I crafted some good armours so I don't see how it is useless. In any case, as opposed to some players, I don't care at all about crafting mechanics so I might be immune to crafting flaws.

 

[kalniel]

Do you know what the shortest RPG I've played was?

Planescape: Torment.

I finished it in 19 hours, and didn't replay it all that much.

But it's still a great RPG. The Witcher 2 is probably my next shortest, but it's likewise a fantastic RPG.

I still rate Daggerfall as better than either though, and that's probably my longest RPG.

 

[CountChocula]

Why is finishing sooner than 7 months appealing? The journey should be the reward, otherwise you're playing a shitty game. If I had a game that lasted 7 months and I enjoyed it, I would think gaming zen had been achieved.

If you can combine both, I doubt anyone would complain even if the RPG lasted for years….. of course none would have resources to make that kind of game.

I think I did an Oblivion playthrough that lasted a couple of years and never finished the MQ. Certainly it was at least more than one year, playing often on the weekends. I had a lot of mods installed, so combat was very challenging and it would take hours to complete even the smallest dungeons.

 

[crpgnut]

I've logged over 200 hours in several games:

Fallout 3, FNV, Oblivion, Morrowind, Skyrim, Two Worlds 1 and 2, etc. Open world games are just a lot of fun to spend time in, at least for me. I wish I could have gotten into the Gothics because I probably would have several more games added to the list. I did put at least 50 into Gothic 3.

 

[BillSeurer]

Reading discussions like this is like listening to a baseball fan, basketball fan, hockey fan, and two football fans (one of American-style football and one of the most-of-the-rest-of-the-world style) argue. The hockey guy keeps saying something without ice and sticks and pucks cannot possible be an actual sport and the two football guys get into a fistfight over which football is really football and the baseball fan dismisses all the basketball guy's arguments because it has "timed event sequences" and ...

 

[Bedwyr]

That is the point.

Correction: it's your point, not *the* point. It's your taste and you enjoy things like that. I'm very with you and honor the preference. I don't have the time or the inclination to enjoy things that long anymore. There's nothing that makes or breaks a quality RPG on length alone, just taste and circumstances.

 

[wolfing]

Reading discussions like this is like listening to a baseball fan, basketball fan, hockey fan, and two football fans (one of American-style football and one of the most-of-the-rest-of-the-world style) argue. The hockey guy keeps saying something without ice and sticks and pucks cannot possible be an actual sport and the two football guys get into a fistfight over which football is really football and the baseball fan dismisses all the basketball guy's arguments because it has "timed event sequences" and …

and we all know american football is the best, seriously

 

[Moriendor]

I do find most RPGs to be too long for my taste. It doesn't happen with every RPG luckily but there are (too) many RPGs where I reach a point like "OK, guys, time to wrap things up" but instead the game keeps on going and going...
It very much depends on the type of RPG though.
In open world games I'm more likely to reach that point after dozens of hours into the game since a lot of time is consumed by traveling, exploring and getting sidetracked while in story-driven RPGs it sometimes only takes me a single dozen of hours to reach the "wrap up" point.
Also, I'm getting old and with ~30 years of gaming experience under my belt it has become very easy to identify certain patterns and structures within a game. Saving a damsel in distress is only fun that many times and the less effort the game is making to mask a quest of that nature creatively, the greater the chance that boredom will set in. I hate predictable filler content.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of game designers seem to be following the same book so it is nearly inevitable to run into the same ol' crap filler content in many RPGs (e.g. if there is a city then just about every RPG will have the usual predictable sewer dungeon for the player to clear).