What is important in an ARPG?

Recently I have been thinking about 3rd / 1st person Action RPGs (ARPGs). There are many games that more or less fall in this category, such as Dark Souls, Gothic, Skyrim, The Witcher, maybe even Mount&Blade or Zelda. So basically anything where you play a single made up character in a made up world that experiences made up adventures, gets stronger during those adventures and you can directly control each of that characters movements, attacks and other actions in real-time.
The more I thought about those things, the less I really understood what is important for an ARPG.

That's why I came up with these 4 questions. They don't refer to any game in particular, just general thoughts about ARPGs. I would be happy if you guys can answer them for me. It's also fine if you just want to answer one out of those 4 questions, though more would be better in this case.



1. Imagine you are playing an ARPG, what kind of thoughts or images do you associate with that in general?

2. According to your own experience, what kind of problems or shortcomings do ARPGs typically have?

3. When you think about buying an ARPG, which features, elements or other game attributes do you think about?

4. What do you expect from ARPGs in the future?



Looking forward to your replies!

I personally need an interesting, large and dangerous world to explore. No level-scaling, so if I wander into some difficult area it will be dangerous. Lots of exploration with nooks and crannies and hidden things to find, preferably hand-placed there by the developers and not randomly generated. Minimal hand-holding, with optional areas to explore just because you felt like it, not because you were forced there or pointed there all the time. Interesting and deep character development with meaningful choices, i.e. you have to make difficult decisions about which skills to use or weapons to specialize in. Large level range so you can start very weak and have a good progression curve over a longer period of time. Overall challenge level based highly on stats and character in-game skills with a touch of stick skills (but not enough that you can solo tough enemies at level 1, etc..) Epic scope and overall sense that the world you're in is a large one that extends in all 4 directions. Surprises in the exploration in that you see things you wouldn't expect, maybe a unique boss monster roaming a certain area, or seeing interesting encounters that you didn't necessarily see coming.

I can think of more but I'll just call it a post.

That was already a great answer.

Keep them coming!

I'm fine with level scaling, personally - as long as it's done well. The thieves of Oblivion were particularly bad because they became ridiculous, wearing armor few kings could afford to buy. If it's done well, though, I can have a believable experience no matter which direction I go, which I definitely like. Otherwise you've just got a linear game where the corridor walls are replaced by an invisible line of appropriate level enemies.

1. It should have some way to progress my character. I don't care if it's actually the character's person, equipment, or whatever - the important thing is that it causes the action to change in a significant way from time to time. It needs to have a good story with good characters.

2. Well most likely it will fail at something I (eventually) list in #3. In a more general sense, ARPGs won't be as fun for me simply because I enjoy overcoming obstacles with thinking more than quick actions.

3. When you think about buying an ARPG, which features, elements or other game attributes do you think about?

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Good, that's in the plural sense. That's important because it's the combination of a lot of things that matter. You can actually do pretty poorly at some things then make up for it in others. Weak graphics but a great story? I'm happy. So-so story and sweet graphics, particularly under 3D Vision? I'm happy. Of course, if you do both I'm even happier and start singing your praises to random passers by. Anyway, to actually answer the question…

• Story.
• An interesting and fun combat system. This one is tricky because I've played decades of interesting and fun combat systems so finding one that I'm not tired of is… non-trivial.
• Graphics. 1st person preferred. 3rd person is OK. I guess I can survive overhead but you better do well on the other points.
• Sound. Really, it's important to get good sound effects and well done music (and plenty of it).
• A well done advancement system. Like I said above, advancement should change up gameplay not just use a different animation to deal more damage.

4. I'm looking forward to more VR games! More refined procedural techniques could provide interesting advances. I really wish AI would advance in more interesting directions - like AI that evolves to counter your tactics.

P.S. Don't forget the sorta-action-RPGs! Final Fantasy 7 was turn based but timed, so picking your actions faster would definitely help. The Shadow Hearts series' judgement ring is another good example.

Combat is usually better if it is quick and visceral and not "floaty". Diablo I&II and Mount & Blade are two examples of the former, I guess. In games with a party consisting of multiple characters you have to rely more on RNG. For instance BG and IWD which were just "passable".

1. Grind.
2. Grind.
3. I wish grind was gone.
4. Remove grind.

Anything but roleplaying.

That was already somewhat enlightening.
I asked those 4 questions in various other places and will see if I can present a consolidation after some time.

Fun. The most important required aspect an ARPG must have is that it be fun.

There's so many kinds of games calling themselves "action RPGs" that those questions are too generalistic.

Diablo/PoE style? loot-oriented progression
Skyrim? exploration and playing with your imaginary friends in a dollhouse
Thief/Prey? character progression and exploration sacrificed somewhat for story

Drithius said:

There's so many kinds of games calling themselves "action RPGs" that those questions are too generalistic.

Diablo/PoE style? loot-oriented progression
Skyrim? exploration and playing with your imaginary friends in a dollhouse
Thief/Prey? character progression and exploration sacrificed somewhat for story

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I think I was pretty specific when I gave a couple of similar example games plus a technical description.
Direct character control already eliminates most hack 'n slay games like Diablo since you point and click an enemy and then watch your character attack, so you are not directly controlling the attack, while in an ARPG you only click and your character swings his weapon.
Thief misses the typical rpg features of character progression and abstract representation of character attributes, which I summarized under "getting stronger".

The no scaling thing is a non sense in open world games. Im' bored of facing too easy combats with crap difficulty design, just because of this non scaling stupid idea. A basic scaling is plain stupid, but no scaling with open world is as stupid. Well that raging certainly excessive is coming from number of recent games largely spoiled by the bad idea of no scaling.

1. Repetitive, action games use action to fill, but RPG don't have the time to put much design in action so there's a lot of repetition and it works for most player because of the fun of the adrenalin coming from fast real time action. Fine but alas I don't fall into the illusion and just get bored by the repetition.

2.
- Boredom repetitive combats, I can't count the failures, it's pathetic.
- Real time put an excessive focus on action and pure adrenalin. No time to solve any puzzling, most players will rush to next action combat that is the only source of adrenalin.

3. Im' so much bored by the Skyrim/The Witcher combats types that ELEX will most probably be my last attempt ever, anything else will most probably be only a very late and very cheap sale. Fine for Diablo like, shooters or party and real time with pause.

4. Nothing, turn based or nothing.

By eliminating subsets of the genre depending on what YOU like, what you're really asking is some affirmation of what you like. As Chienboyer'esque as that sounds, it's the reality of your question and its stipulations.

Cepheiden said:

Thief misses the typical rpg features of character progression and abstract representation of character attributes, which I summarized under "getting stronger".

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Getting stronger means a lot to many different people. Skyrim, for example, has plenty of attributes, yet your character remains fairly static in terms of power due to world scaling. Its characterization as a hiking simulator reflects that. Given all this, you're entering the realm of what defines an RPG, which is a murky mess just because of how subjective it can be.

To answer you vague questions that sound like a half-hearted attempt at research for some undergrad project:

1) I associate fast-paced, visceral combat with an aRPG.
2) aRPGs tend to be very linear, either in terms of world or character progression.
3) When I research an aRPG for purchase, I want a fun experience with choice & consequence.
4) Going forward, I want more world reactivity in all games.

Drithius said:

By eliminating subsets of the genre depending on what YOU like, what you're really asking is some affirmation of what you like. As Chienboyer'esque as that sounds, it's the reality of your question and its stipulations.



Getting stronger means a lot to many different people.

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I can understand why you get this impression, still I really just want to know opinions about that kind of games like Skyrim, Witcher, Dark Souls, Gothic etc.

For me Diablo and similar games don't even qualify as a subset of the genre because they are significantly different, so I would call them (loot based) hack 'n slay. They are controlled indirectly by clicking to move (most of the time) and clicking enemies to attack. In fact, the same input has different outputs depending on the context in the main game window (so where you play in, not the inventory or game menu), i.e. click enemy to attack, click chest to open, click NPC to talk etc. In the type of ARPG I am talking about, one input always has the same effect (attack is always attack) in the main game window (might be used for something else in inventory), regardless of context. Also all the actions are controlled directly. Not to mention that those hack 'n slay arguably depend less on the players ability to control the character but more on having the right amount of stats to ultimately kill the enemies faster than they can kill you while trading hits.

Obviously the lines between these two types can be blurry at times, but in general most people I asked these questions to and gave them the short technical description plus game examples rarely ever mentioned games like diablo and if they did they always added about not being sure if that even counts.
So ultimately it's not because I don't like this type of game, I just don't want to know about that type.


I used "getting stronger" to keep it simple. The longer explaination would have been "attributes of the game character being expressed by numerical values or other abstract methods and the ability to improve them over the course of the game".


Also obviously the questions are supposed to be vague because the goal is to get general and broad associations with the term ARPG, while only providing small enough guidance to eliminate games like Diablo.

Dasale said:

Im' so much bored by the Skyrim/The Witcher combats types that ELEX will most probably be my last attempt ever, anything else will most probably be only a very late and very cheap sale. Fine for Diablo like, shooters or party and real time with pause.

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Thank you for your honest answers.
A quick personal remark:
If you are disappointed with the repetitive combat and lack of puzzles in ARPGs, Elex will certainly not help you get a better opinion of that. On the 11th of November Nioh will be released for PC, it doesn't really require much thinking, but the combat is varied and fun for a long time, so you might want to get that one instead if you can.

For me Diablo and similar games don't even qualify as a subset of the genre…

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You do realize that Diablo practically coined the term aRPG, right? Before 1996, it was mostly a moniker reserved for niche console titles.

I think what you're actually looking for are the facets of any modern, first-person [self-titled] RPG. That self-titled part is important.

Drithius said:

You do realize that Diablo practically coined the term aRPG, right? Before 1996, it was mostly a moniker reserved for niche console titles.

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Sure, and that is a problem since it makes it so hard to ask about the type of games that I want to know about.
I suppose that, regardless of the term used to describe them, you do agree, that Diablo and its clones are distinctively different from the newer type of ARPG?
My goal is just to ask about the latter type while ignoring the Diablo type. So ARPG being a term to describe 2 different types of games makes this quite difficult.
Do you have any ideas what would be a better term for it? It has to be something that is somewhere between 1 to 3 words or otherwise it will be so long that people don't read it or get even more confused.

edit:
So I read what you edited and I think the word modern RPG is actually a pretty good description. Though maybe I should go for modern ARPG, depending on what people associate with those words.
The "self-titled" would be too confusing to most people.

aRPGs of the modern era of the type you're looking for are Prince of Persia games with stats. Ie: Action-Adventure with some RPG elements. The extent of the RPG elements is what normally gets games of that nature discussed here. As the years pass and more games stick an RPG label on themselves in this genre, the more diluted the label becomes.

For many, the original aRPGs were Zelda and Diablo as the two primary examples: Single character, real-time combat, and those two criteria are still the usual primary benchmarks of an aRPG.

ELEX is interesting, I'd say that anybody planing to do an open world ARPG should also play it and analyze it in deep (others are more obvious I'll skip quote them).

For now I'm not totally convinced by the combats, but during a play phase heavy on learning it's hard to evaluate well. Otherwise it's surprising, it is much better than I would have guess. Beside combats and after less than 10H played, perhaps about 7H, it's the best wide open world CRPG I ever played. But it's just a first feeling. And it clearly give up on many details plenty players can't bear like ton of anonymous NPC and for them almost no variations of vocals and probably even for NPC 3D models too.

First feeling is beside combats it's Gothic 2 quite better and quite wider.

lackblogger said:

aRPGs of the modern era of the type you're looking for are Prince of Persia games with stats. Ie: Action-Adventure with some RPG elements. The extent of the RPG elements is what normally gets games of that nature discussed here. As the years pass and more games stick an RPG label on themselves in this genre, the more diluted the label becomes.

For many, the original aRPGs were Zelda and Diablo as the two primary examples: Single character, real-time combat, and those two criteria are still the usual primary benchmarks of an aRPG.

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Ha the infamous ARPG tag, I haven't even realized. I read ARPG as RPG with action, translated in RPG with real time action.

So ARPG, what's that? Beside Diablo like I don't play much of them, last non Diablo like attempt, first mordor, almost killed me by boredom.

Cepheiden said:

If you are disappointed with the repetitive combat and lack of puzzles in ARPGs, Elex will certainly not help you get a better opinion of that. On the 11th of November Nioh will be released for PC, it doesn't really require much thinking, but the combat is varied and fun for a long time, so you might want to get that one instead if you can.

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ELEX isn't an ARPG at all, for me this tag is a counter sense, so I didn't read it well at all.

Thinking? Puzzling? The exploring in ELEX is a funny little puzzling by itself. I was doing the find healing herbs quest and it was no way a rush to markers, nor even a series of combats. It was how reach the dam herbs without to die. Some death, some sneak, few rush flee, and a few combats later, I had a lot of fun, on the road I found multiple other things including an element of another quest, and I found all plants but one I gave up pick, but a lot of fun anyway, a lot of good exploring, and no way the typical ARPG gameplay, ARPG should be named real time combats RPG as a parallel to tactics RPG.