Heres the list of games in the video for anyone wondering. (If I get something wrong someone comment and correct me) 0:06 Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 0:11 Dark Souls (Don't know which one) 0:14 Greedfall 0:16 Witcher 3 0:22 Risen (Don't know which one) 0:26 Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen 0:56 Divinity II (2009) 1:55 Skyrim 3:11 Gothic 3 3:22 (no Idea)
@@RTXWorld-m2h Yeah, I just wish KOA had any challenge at all. Dragon's Dogma was by no means Dark Souls-hard, but it was a lot easier to add challenge to it (in my case I just always played without pawns, but there's other stuff like going directly to BBI). There wasn't really a good way to make KOA have any kind of challenge without also making it nearly unplayable, short of mods maybe. I'm hoping they find a good way to add challenge with this remaster so I can finally enjoy the game.
@@Rubikant well, i played KoA trying to win every fight without taking any damage, and u had to learn each enemy moveset for it. Fun challenge . Unless u keep chugging healing potions like a madman.
for me combat feel is by far the most importent thing about a good action combat, challange is also somewhat important and its always nice when it gets integrated well within the rpg system
The 3 best combat systems in action rpg games or rpg inspired games with combat i played were ovlivion(because as you level skills you get certain perks that show how you get better atc ertain things... Like... Having very hard acrobatics, athleticism, hand to hand and alteration allows you to fight in ways you couldnt with other setups... One of my favorite strategies was to do acrobatic dodges, strike and jump over the oponent to do an attack from above and dodge roll as soon as i land... Use the special power attacks to use the effects they have as a way to have almost as much variation as if i was a magic user, but with pure martial arts... Vanpire the masquerade bloodlines(same reason than oblivion + dice rolls in the background) And mountain blade warband... Because it doesnt change much hownyou fight, just make it easier
Another fun example of extremes would be Nioh. It has a pretty deep combat system that heavily rewards player skill that will allow you decimate things without really touching the RPG Side but it also has the level of RPG stat min/maxing to where you can make your numbers so huge it completely devalues the entire combat system allowing you to nuke things before they can even act
In my opinion: Stat determine roleplay options(hacking doors, speech checks etc.) and Skills you have. Skills never add just "extra damage" and provide new tools to the player. More tools -> more Gameplay options. That way you have progression and you can also have combat thats not a waste of time. Imo when player stats trump over player skill the gameplay is meaningless.
Take , deus ex for example. It is not a fantasy setting rather sci-fi but every praxis point u use massively changes u gameplay approach, making the replayability huge
That was nice of you to include Divinity 2: Ego Draconis footage in your video, it seems like there is some kind of veil on this game that keeps it hidden from gamers eyes.
I think a lot of the problem comes from scaling in rpgs. It's hard to make an entire open world challenging yet fair, when enemies health range from 100- into the 1000s. Even worse when the player scales too far. Hard enemies become a joke, when you're too high level, and when you're too low level you get one shot. That's why I like scaling like outward. You clearly get more skills/armor/ and tools, but you never stop respecting the enemies potential. You can still have rpg elements in it, just less crazy scaling.
I agree that scaling is a terribly hard thing to get right. Dark souls approach isn't too bad where everything is just moderately difficult until you learn the enemies (which heavily relies on player skill level). Some games do an okay job disguising this by locking off certain areas until you meet the criteria to venture there (which then sort of makes it not truly open world). I agree as well that Outward was a very interesting take on the genre. However, I was not a fan of the fact that if you made one small mistake and got killed in the open world then all of the gear (that you most likely worked hard to get and is really your source of power) could potentially be gone. I was not a fan of that aspect. If one or two things had gone missing I would have had a lot less issue with it. Overall though Outward was a solid step in the right direction because I agree that scaling is one of the most difficult things for these games to get right.
Knight-Of-All-Trades that’s true too. The consequence for dying needs to be rough but fair. One of my deaths in outward, my backpack glitched and disappeared. It sucked.
Respect enemy potential? I don't think a wolf should be able to kill a player no matter how hard it tried if a player is high level and has good gear, come on its just not realistic, one of the reasons I don't like souls like that much is because even low level enemies can seriously murder if you aren't paying attention which is unimmerisve imo
Ironvale where’d you see I said a wolf? Lol. Cause I didn’t. No I’m in the same boat, a wolf should never be much of a challenge. I’m talking about other similarly built humans.
@@shun2240 See but that is where I like dark souls, even the enemies you first encounter can kill you in the late game should you stop paying attention. But I agree that not all games need to be that way. Dark souls is just heavily reliant on player skill and I think that is why they chose to go with "everything is just hard" type of gameplay.
I always break distinctions like this down to player motivation ... Dark Souls is actually about hand-eye co-ordination, practice, repitition and adrenaline ... Divinity 2 is about slow careful strategy and management ... I hate the former and love the latter ... some love the former and hate the latter ... I know only a couple people who love both, and they will be the first admit that such games are almost oposities, and they decide which to play based on mood. I think there are lots of ways you could bridge the gap ... but why? Both types of gameplay have their fans, and almost every time we try to cram them together it doesn't go well ... I might rather have my fingernails pulled out while being forced to listen to country music than play Dark Souls, but I can aknowledge that it is great at what it does, that MANY people love it, and maybe it's a good thing just the way it is. Even in Skyrim, my suggestion to improve the combat would be simply to have less of it! ... let Action Fantasy games (can we just go with that as a genre name?) be the brilliant, twitchy, frustration enducing and glorious things they are, and let RPGs be the slow, calculating, boring and glorious things that they are. ... basically ... why don't we just leave well enough alone?
a well balenced in-between works great. why not? there will always be braindead action games and then there will always be rpgs with a more strategic approach anyway.
I agree with the Skyrim/combat argument, when it's not at least decent then why don't keep it out completely? But Skyrim is a game full of combat but doesn't give you a lot out of it. I don't agree with the fast action games aren't tactical, or at least here it is opposed to "careful strategy and management", but that's just not true, fast action games are just as tactical as the slow ones just...faster. You have to make tactical decisions faster and you have to do recourse management while you're fighting in real time, the recources just differs most of the time. The difference is in action games it's up to your skill and in a rpg it's up to the characters skill and more relaxing gameplay for hands and brain.
@@7dayspking I don't know where to start. First of all, what do you think is a tactical game? You have less to memorize and more time to react to it, where you have to recognize a type of attack in a split second in faster games and have more options to react in offense and defense. You don't have to count in the propper input in slow games, you don't need any frame data, nothing about anticipation times, hit frames or recovery, cancels, super armor, positioning ect. and that's just stuff of one category. And about the simple inputs, they are also simpler in the slower games. When you have more time for the inputs, it's mostly simpler and action focused games need more options here. I have some examples in mind. And it has something to do with weather it is a role playing game or not, or to be more precise, if the combat is skill focused, then it's action (game) combat and if it's stat focused. If you can ignore your stats and the game works fine without it, then it's not a rpg but an action game with rpg elements.
Reaction time based combat works against the grain of stat progression. If I can just bloat up my defense and hit points, I reduce the importance of having to avoid a dangerous attack because it doesn't affect me like before. But being able to improve stats in these kinds of games can be frustrating if going in the opposite direction as well. A good example would be Dark Souls 2. I wanted to see what a tanky character build would look like. And I like messing with stat points and distribution. But the defense stat doesn't work. Even after raising it up several hundred points, I found that I would still drop for the same number of hits. In a way, the stats then become meaningless and misleading. I do believe it is possible to have some kind of free flowing combat and stat/skill progression that doesn't rob the game of its other features. This will depend on how careful the designers are. And whether or not they have ways to make your skills feel personalized.
A good balance to the stats vs combat flow would be a Chain of Action type of combat. Think turn based, but instead of picking one option per turn, you're selecting of string of actions to occur and watch it play out on the field. You and enemies react accordingly at the same time after you've made several choices. With this you'll have to plan for several moves ahead and strategize not for single actions, but for waves of them.
Sekiro sorta answers this from the perspective of an action game with rpg leveling “good luck trying to achieve lvl99 damage when you got all these moves and bonus skills to unlock” and them when you finally beat the game “each new game plus is harder than the last”
after having made an attempt at modding skyrim's combat myself i realized that you're right, the combat really isn't that bad. it actually does what it set out to do (a primarily stat based system with some level of player skill involved to keep things interesting) pretty well. there's really just a few things wrong with it that hold it back from realizing its true potential. a lot of those problems have already been fixed by mods pretty easily like: broken weapon ranges hit frames happening way too early enemies able to rotate 360 degrees mid swing to hit you useless stamina system seriously just fixing that makes things so much better. unfortunately there are some areas where modders only have a limited ability to make improvements and these are where the game really suffers: stupid ai lack of depth in the rpg elements lack of variety in vanilla the ai is just garbage. you can just mindlessly left click and as long as you are stronger than the other guy/have enough potions then you are guaranteed to win. yeah theres combat ai overhaul mods out there but they just arent able to fundamentally alter things at the lowest level and so the changes just end up being minor at best i think we all can agree that this is a pretty glaringly obvious flaw of this game as whole. every character can be everything so they all end up being the same. there should have been way more options for developing your character and creating something unique that felt like only YOU made it. if youre playing a melee character you can basically do two things...hit things or block things. thats it. for hundreds of hours. the perks can make you slightly better at hitting or blocking things but most of them provide slight adjustments behind the scenes that dont translate into meaningful gameplay differences. magic can be pretty broken in this game since all you really have to do is dual cast fireball and quick heal every once in a while, but it at least has the POTENTIAL to be way more fun. heck even playing the way i just described requires you to actually think because you have to account for the amount of time its going to take to pull of a quick heal plus you need to be mindful of how much magicka you have. once you add in a spell package mod like apocalypse you're given a staggering array of options to use as a mage. this is exactly what pure melee builds need, a wide variety of skills that give the player options that are useful/not useful depending on the situation. they could cost stamina to use or require a cooldown or whatever but the idea is there needs to be VARIETY. something that requires the player to be mindful of their actions in real time and the requires them to evaluate the risks and rewards of doing it
I'd always liked it more when the skills are gradual but minimal like in scum since it was realistic but the stats gave a good picture about your character's condition and body, I would love a skyrim mixed with scum or tarkov style of stats, would be interesting
As you said it yourself, action with RPG lowers the skill barrier and makes the combat next to menial. That's why as a person who has created and published a RPG, I had problems with this. I didn't feel like my game was action enough. And I've came to the conclusion that RPG and Actions don't really work all that well. I would love if more Action RPGs took the approach some roguelikes/roguelites took, basically progression lies not in unlocking better weapons but unlocking new ways to play you character, i.e. if for the first 10 levels you can only attack with a dagger but after that you open up an ability to throw your dagger so now you can access environmental damage and stuff like that. Hopefully you understand my point.
By unlocking new ways to use your tools (instead of ever stronger versions of the same) you get a lot more variety for a satisfying progression. You are also able to defeat even strong enemies early if you are clever and skilled enough because they don't need bloated health pools or resistances to match the player's abilities that have been scaled into absurdity. This should enable a much stronger feeling of autonomy and immersion that feels less "gamey". It's harder to make than purely numerical stat changes with always the same mechanics though.
@@Stefan-xt5sk back ib the day, in my 2nd playthrough of deus ex:HR , i reached the last mission with firing my pistol only about 7 times at most, the bossfights dont count tho.
@@btchiaintkidding7837 Isn't deus ex more like opening other ways to deal with your opponents without combat(i.e. skill checks, dialogue choices) rather than improving on the combat? Correct me if I'm wrong tho, haven't really played it.
@@Stefan-xt5sk I agree with all your previous points although I don't know really how much harder it is to make that. When you consider how many spells(and their vfx) and items(and their models of course) they have to create in order for the progression to feel great all the way through the leveling process, there isn't that much of a difference imo. Of course something like this requires way more designing effort.
Of all the ARPG's i've played, I would say the games that I felt were best at melding the two genre's would be Kingdom Hearts and Megaman Battle Network. These are both games that lean a lot more on the action side of things but both have an interesting way of progression that still ties into the role playing aspects quite well. Kingdom Hearts (particularly 1 and 2) has an ability system that let's you pick and choose what moves and skills you want to use and (in 2's case) is generally less stat based and more utility/toolset based where you'll just get new actions and abilities that improve certain actions. Megaman Battle Network is interesting because while there is character building in it, the main form of progression is getting new attacks to load into your folder (your combat deck so to speak) that you can freely customize and formalize a LOT of different strategies based on what you go with. It's really cool because your success at the game depends entirely on how well you can work out the different attack and support chips you have at your disposal rather than having buffed up stats and tanking hits and while you can do that to an extent, it is heavily disincentivized due to the ranking system the game has in place so it's equal parts technical skill and how well your chips work in conjunction with each other in fights.
these two problems can be countered by the enemies because believe it or not they make or break the game. skill based combat can be countered by evolving the enemy ai and rpg elements by adding certain resists immunities etc depending on the enemy also enemies to have range of levels(example skeletons 1-50 lvl max range and every 15 lvls they get upgrade to their class, EX: armored skeleton,mage skeleton, big dick skeleton etc) where in each range there is an upgrade to both raw stats and or passive active skills or even uniqueness of elite mobs of the same type as regular ones. you can also have enemies kill people or other enemies for various reasons, (if you have a truly alive world), where they can gain experience and level up and gain skills etc kinda like the nemesis system of shadow of war.
I've been watching a bunch of your videos lately and I've been putting a bunch of game ideas in my head. Ofcourse that doesn't mean I'll make one but I just love going through the thought process.
Might be a bit off-topic here, but I feel like a lot of these problems will start to subside when easily accessible VR with either some great exosuit-like thing or neural interface becomes a thing. I mean, if we're talking exosuit, it will start to guide your body as you gain skills to make it easier if you don't have the skill (and make the correction level an option to be changed and you can get people playing the way they want) in case of neural interface, pretty similar, except maybe also add any kind of lore-like info one in the world with such a skill would have into the chip (that you probably have in your brain by then), thus making you informed about at least how it works in the world, making it much more immersive and would still have the difficulty of facing nrw enemies with movesets you haven't seen before. And we can assume A.I. would have improved by then, too, so it would be really like you're actually there, fighting, thus fulfilling the whole goal of the RPG genre.
This is especially true for traditional jrpgs. Traditional action rpgs like tales and the mana series feel like they don't work because combat in those games are balanced around the group as opposed to the individual. The problem comes in because in those games you're punished for party members getting KO'd because each party member plays an important role in combat, so if someone dies things begin to fall apart. The issue in these games is that you cant control all of your party members and the AI is usually pretty terrible. This leads to the AI getting your team killed and the difficulty feeling artificial because there is no system in place to protect party members like there is in mmo combat. TLDR: I definitely prefer my action games and my rpgs to be a sperate experience. They accomplish so much more by being so.
Not saying it was perfect (or even that it fit's the usual "Skill Matters" of ARPGs), but I liked Gothic 1 & 2's solution pretty much: It relied on player input, but if the namless noob PC didn't know a thing about fighting, the moves would be restricted and look/feel awkward. Once you had a few sessions with a trainer he would begin to get a grip on the thing and your input become greater/smoother. One could argue that this is some kind of artificial injected degree of difficulty, but it did fit the game/setting and I kinda admire that the programmers/artists incorporated different combat animations based on your skill level.
This, I would really love a game that changes weapon animation depending on how skilled you are, this is one of the best ways to show player progression and no game has done it yet
2:56 Please make a video on why you consider action games an action RPG's. I am of an opposing mindset but I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. It might stir a conversation from both sides some will hate it some will love it but you get the comment section involved that means more view for you. Win-win situation. Love your videos. Keep it up. I do not always agree but I love to hear your opinion on games.
Awesome to see KoA: Reckoning get some love! It feels like the forgotten game of its generation. It has my favorite combat in an RPG ever. It has its kinks and flaws for sure but I think that franchise is one of the biggest “what if’s” in gaming. The new re-release is intriguing but I don’t know if I dare get my hopes up about a true sequel ever getting a green light.
I still don't understand why you don't have more subs, man! Love your work. I agree with you that we need more games that at least TRY to mix the two mechanics. There are a LOT of mmorpg/rpg/arpg/action/survial/yaddayaddayadda games coming out in the next year that will be taking a swing at this (Frozen Flames comes to mind, New World...) so I hope we see more and better Soon(tm)!
Having both is not impossible but it requires to have a good story to progress, so rpg elements to acquire to progress (by different strategies according to the player's class) and limitations, so f.i. advanced movements/magic that are to be unlocked. Also a good rpg should have no-combat situations that can't be progressed with combat. I like the adrenaline combat of action adventures. I was impressed by the combat in Shadow of Mordor, not bc it is original but bc it mixes a lot of elemets from other games. But rpg elements there are only functional to better combat (which is good) and the game has only the adrenalinic fast combat. Some more thinking situations and no combat situations would add variation without spoiling the rest. A balance between both makes a good rpg
Re "fixing" Kingdoms of Amalur difficulty. Putting aside the simple fix of adjusting numbers (for example, a significant contributor to the easy difficulty was how the game managed xp scaling making it all to easy to outscale enemies) like adjusting player damage received, I can think of some ways to do it by changing how some mechanics work, not just in KoA but other similar games as well. One simple fix is adding animations to potion use. Having to actually stop to chug a potion mid combat changes things significantly. In many games, a healer has to stop and use an ability to heal, foregoing other actions while a potion chug is a free action that's available at any time. Add in a Witcher-type potion toxicity thingie (or reduced effectiveness if done again too soon) and you actually have to think not just about when to pop a pot but how often. Another is removing/limiting dodge roll. Dodge rolls, (specially unlimited ones) imho, break combat in many games or at least make them a lot easier. Hit hit hit dodge rinse repeat ad naseaum may be effective but it's also a little boring. In KoA. I think they also limit the number of opponents who can attack you at the same time. Many games do this because it otherwise gets too difficult when facing many enemies which, while more realistic, can also be a source of player frustration specially when playing the already- disadvantaged melee characters. Since KoA's problem is the reverse, making more able to attack the player at once should up the difficulty at least at times, and at least for melee players.
Random games I think had good combat: Trials of Mana (Remake), Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Witcher 3, Monster Hunter World (with Longsword's Foresight Slash = super addictive & fun), Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
Stats shouldn't have a major impact in an action rpg because combat becomes meaningless. E.g Pump up certain stats/ exploits and become unkillable. I'm not saying that you should die often or at all cause I myself treat most rpgs as dead is dead/ironman. But the risk of losing should always be there if you're not careful or bothered to learn the game as required. Skills and perks/abilities however are something else. Add to that character creation, memorable npcs, plus choice/decisions and world-building and you got a successful action rpg.
Hey my friend. Super great subject to touch base on. I'm currently playing Grim Dawn. And am at level 40. I've been doing fairly well up to this point. Making my way through the different areas and keeping my values even. It's been a blast playing this game. And have no intention of quitting it any time soon. What have you been playing yourself lately???
May I add, in *role* playing, story choices or freedom of direction that hence make it playing a role. Generally, most expect a customizable character/role, though a universal starting character can also be a RPG adventure (like the example you gave: Witcher). nb : I understand that skills/progression choice means you are creating your character/role, but I feel something is missing often in the definition. And yes I play on at least normal or challenging difficulties (but never the insane "iron man-one save" option nor "torture me" difficulty). :P
I can agree with that, If gaining skills and progression made a game an RPG, then games like Far Cry would be classified as an RPG. Just about every game now adds some type of skills/perks to unlock as your character progresses. Traditional RPGs have always been about different ways you choose to get through a story and, which direction to go in, which party members you choose, and how you treat them. Lot's of player agency on how you navigate story/class/leveling. A true RPG is the whole works. Nowadays you get maybe one or two RPG elements and people want to call it an RPG. There really should be some label for these sub-category of games that don't fit into a traditional genre. Tthese Borderland/Far Cry/Destiny/Kingdoms of Amular/Dark Souls type of action adventure games with deeper RPG like mechanics.
I feel like the mechanical rpg elements (stats, gear, skill trees,...) defined the genre back when technology to model interactive stories and interpersonal relationships was not developed far enough. Now that more is possible in the realm of narrative role playing, many still cling to the basic elements.
@@Stefan-xt5sk Absolutely, but it really comes down to commitment I think. Baldur's Gate, KOTAR, these games are almost two decades old, and delivered the works. OH Dragon Age, but these weren't considered "action" RPGs I guess. Maybe it's just that when you deliver real-time "action" The devs are trying to cast a wider net, and start going the wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle that developers like Bethesda turned into after Morrowind. Maybe deep traditional RPGs just are considered too niche, to justify big budgets? It's why I adore Outward, that's my kind of RPG too.
@@7dayspking Yes, but can you control your character build? Do your stats matter in separate actions/dialogue. See you disagree bc you think Skyrim is more of an RPG then Morrowind, where as Skyrim is devoid of almost any differentiating character traits/skills. Every player picks nearly the same char with similar stats traversing through all the same linear dungeons, becoming the same leader of all the factions. The only free agency the player is allowed, is to delay a quest for as long as the player wants. Hell, you can't even decide the fate of Parthurnax. Skyrim is an RPG as much as Far Cry, except for the two facts that you have a face creator, and you can go anywhere, and start any faction quest, at any time. However freedom without consequence makes for a very minimalist RPG. The very barest of bones. Just barely enough to classify SKyrim as an RPG over the action title Far Cry 3 when they started with their own perk system.
What if a game had proggression stats but those stats did not directly effect combat but instead effected the systems built around combat such as equipment load, usable skills, what equipment can be used. For example what I mean with the skills instead of a skill tree skills can be found or earned around the world and can be used depending on the stats the player has. While things like health stamina etc stats stagnant
I think the game that managed to combine both perfectly is Monster Hunter. Yes it is a very difficult game, and learning enemy patterns is the main way to improve in the game, but unlike Dark Souls, there is no way you are progressing past a monster without at least decent gear. You will either get 1 shot or have 0 damage.
The combat imo should be hard and complex. A lot of them have tons of moves but they are all so strong that there is no reason to use one over the other, and no reason to think. And I think the loot and abilities should partially make the player better and more suggest and promote the players intended play style
Saw glimpses of Darksiders 2 but I think you never actually talk about it or the franchise itself in general. What do you think of them? Especially the latest game, Darksiders Genesis?
Interesting topic... What I'm curious about, is have you played Nioh, Nioh 2, or Dragons Dogma? IF not, you should really try to check them out. Talk about some great ARPG...ish. In regards to Kingdom of Amalur, I am looking forward to the remake. I played the original, enjoyed it's style of combat & magic a lot. Seems like the UI may have bugged me a little if I remember correctly. Like the map, and locating quest.. ???(I don't remember its been awhile) Never finished the game though. . . My console broke.. disc reader died on me, and I never got around to fixing it. I wish the remake of #KingdomOfAmalur was as good as the #DemonsSouls remake.. by bluepoint studio. Bluepoint studio said they take a lot of pride in their remakes, thats listed on their company page. Then they called everyone else in the industry of remakes scrubs more or less... Which is probably true. Because "just good enough".. and not great.
I was really hoping that Kingdom Come was going to combine a lot of this stuff into a great game. But at the end of the day it hurt my feelings so much because while they got the RPG elements so good, the combat was a tedious mess. The learning curve was really steep at the combat ended up being pretty boring I found. Dragons Dogma hits a lot of the marks for me, it has good fast paced combat that feels very rewarding, but I find that it is one that lacks in the RPG and character building aspects (not asthetically but as far as stats go). Maybe someday we will get a game that combines all of these elements! Great video brother, always good stuff, keep them coming!
KIngdom come combat ended up being fairly meh cause all you had to to is use "perfect blocks" to ensure a parry. Anything else usually wasn't good enough and would result in your attack being parried or blocked. It was fun in the beginning when you realize it is sort of skill based in that you have to pay attention when the enemy will attack, but it gets boring really quick once you realize there is no variety in what you can do, and fighting numerous enemies in usually really, really hard (as it should be in real life). I remember having a lot more fun with the directional combat in Mount and Blade: Warband than KCD.
@@7dayspking Exactly, plus I liked that there was progression and a steep learning curve for the combat. But when you get jumped by like 3 guys and either have to run, or continuously back up and swing for thirty minutes, it is not that fun. It isnt even a lot of fun when you could be stuck fighting just one person for 10 or 15 minutes because, as you said, the dice rolls werent on your side and they block everything you throw at them
In my opinion the combo of action and rpg is nearly perfect in Dark Souls. Nearly, because mages in this game are quite restricted. Yes, the game depends mostly on your mechanical skill altough you totaly feel the difference in gameplay when you mix your stats, which is the most important thing to me when i want to play an RPG game. In this game you are totaly free in terms of choice of youre gear, spells etc. There is no a thing like "only mage can wield that" and so on. You can freely make sorcerer that wields two-handed sword and it will work totaly fine. This is the thing that bothers me the most when it comes to Dragon Age Inqusition for example.
Basically what David says, the only thing levels are good for is increasing your damage output, levelling up simply did not have enough impact in dark souls game
@@davidcoloma6269 Yea, that's not true. In DS1 level and armor made a big difference. With heavy armor I could easily take more hits and the HP and dmg boost from leveling was pretty good too. DS3 sucked in that regard though.
@@DragaXZ you sure? In full set of upgraded giants I got one shotted by capra demon jumping in ng+ while rolling, and while rolling deals around 50 percent extra damage, it still a ridiculously huge amount of damage which will take away around 2/3rds of my health and I have 1400hp by that point, armor does nothing in ng+ and is only mildly useful in ng
I just don't like spaming 1 skill endgame speed runs while all other attributes buffs that 1 skill.... so boring. I like when combat needs a combination of skills, offence, defence, crowd control, active blocking and dodging dodges etc, but very rare they make action rpg games like that.... they always go for the 1 skill dungeon games.
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If I chose to play the game on "Easy" it's because I've been gaming for 30 years and I'm too old to be frustrated by something I paid for. You should go play Remnant From The Ashes on "Hard" mode and see how much "Fun" you have!
Its not fun on any level. I actually quit playing it. I some how managed to play the game in such a way that it became incredible difficult for me. Like.. my maxed out weapons were not doing much damage at all. I learned that the devs had some system in place, to cause that difficulty spike. It was shit.
If there was a game exactly like Baldurs Gate 3 but instead of turn based combat, it has action combat or real time action combat, i would jizz my pants and lose my mind
While it's mostly down to preference i prefer the zelda formula over most. it just lacks them juicy RPG elements, Darksiders2 almost had a good variation of this. i honestly think simple impact in combat can smooth other a lot of these things. theres nothing worse than playing a game and you and the enemy are just mindlessly whaling on each other and small numbers appearing. one of the main reasons i don't like borderlands. the guns just feel meh aand dont feel impactful. if a game came out with bayonetta's combat and rpg mechanics i'd cream my little jimmies
Left out Path of Exile? It is the most pure ARPG out there. A lot of these games suck and become so repetitive quickly. If you enjoy depth and replayability give it a chance.
I would love to see a rpg with souls like combat mechanics but with extremely deep rpg options, I hope Elden ring can achieve that because tbh dark souls is not "rpg" enough
I think I would say combat is the weakest point of The Witcher 3 simply because of how good the other aspects of this game are(plot, graphics, characters, music). Even though I consider combat to be the weakest point, I still think it is good. It's cinematic, and fun, but at the same time very repetitive, which is annoying in such a long game. Although Geralt being the protagonist instead of one made by the player is surely limiting gameplaywise, they could have put more abilities, signs and tools in the game without messing with the foundations of The Witcher. Examples of such features(these are all from TW books btw): -a silver chain to fight and entangle monsters -omne sign -heliotrope sign -jumping at an enemy from highground and piercing him with a sword
Read (almost) all the books and played all the games. I watched the tv show as well. TW3 is my baby! :) I remember playing a lot of Dragon Age Inquisition and waiting for TW3 to come out. Good times.
the biggest problem about The Witcher games is Geralt as the protagonist. They should have made a brand new character or the choice between a few with their own classes (a witcher, a sorceress, a soldier, etc.) Or even Ciri with the choice of becoming one of these. After all, in the books she has received both training in magic and witcher things. The story would not be the same, of course, but at least the combat would have been good and Geralt did'nt need revive after the end of the books.
I personally hate that type of content. There are no top ARPG. Every game has its audience and followers that will argue that their chosen one is the best
Dares to criticize? There's a lot. The Witcher 3 is totally overrated. It's an ok game but nothing more and one of the many games that throw a lot of different mechanics in there but every one of them is mediocre at best for such an big budget game. Combat beeing bad in a rpg isn't a deal breaker but when you play a well trained monster hunter and your game comes out after Dragon's Dogma it is a problem in terms of immersion and that's what you make most of the time in the game. Elex got a lot of criticism in terms of it's combat and that's probalby fair but that combat system is still a bit better than the one from the Witcher 3 and it doesn't even have to, since it's explained in the narrative why you are weak, you're drained of power. The level up system is boring in the Witcher 3 there's nothing to explore here, nothing you want out of it, since you do the same thing throughout the game, even action games keep you occupied with new combos and weapons to gain through the game, that effect the gameplay and give you something new to learn and to master. In the Witcher 3 there are actually big roads with colliders that stop you in the air or a way you should know and should have taken not long before due to the narrative. And, like with the combat the overall narrative and gameplay contradicts each other, story says your're in a hurry to find Ciri but the gameplay implies and encourages exploring, so a lot of gamers, most of them tell you how important story is for them and that's why they like this game, have the in game story that goes like that: I have to hurry to find Ciri, now let's kill some wolfs for villageX, let's play some Quint in villageY thatg looks like villageZ or P,B every village, then let's do another sidequest, why not. Yes, the world is boring as well, in TW2 they had one village and one forest, but they were atThen the game pretents to give you options, great, but the things the character you play and yourself would do isn't possible, the game doesn't let you attack the person you want and doesn't help/side with the person you and the character would want. The weight system is total bs and a deal breaker for the Witcher, Skyrim and so on. When the way is to play the game is to aim in a general direction, and remember this is intentional design, push the stick forward aaaand watch a movie or series while occationally looking at the screen again, if you might walk into a tree or something or got attacked, great. And why is there so much shit in the world to collect anyway, I don't let potentionally money (in both) just lying somewhere, so of course I take it. When they create a big world it's the developers responsability to make traversal as fun as possible and not put additional stones in your path. And why do you find better gear for the job you should be trained and equipped the best somewhere in the world or even just lying around somewhere? This also breaks the immersion, so The Witcher 3 shouldn't be a rpg in the first place, all these elements again contradict the narrative and it's distracting as hell. That doesn't make a bad game, just not the masterpiece some people claim it to be, in masterpiece games gameplay reflects the narrative, in masterpieces they have a core gameplay everything else surounds and not just random mechanics put into it and yes, even games with a lot of stuff in it can manage that. And since this is about the combat, if you have combat in your game and this makes up the most you do in it, it should have the highest priority, just take a look at Dragon's Dogma which came out before that. That game keeps you entertained from start to end because everything just works in there, the rpg mechanics are good as well and the story.
I have the feeling that Gothic ( Risen and Elex) are the pinnacle of action RPG, may be I am right or it is just nostalgia talking, I am 80s kid who played Baldurs gate on a 486 DX2 66 MHz and bought the CDs so I am one of those biased old man who thinks PeT is the best RPG ever and Gothic the best action-RPG ever.
Dragon's Dogma combat and monsters are the only good thing about that game. Quests and characters may as well not be there, they are just s##t. Gear variety is lackluster to say the least and i hate the class system.
@@forestflood5338 I finished the game twice because I really do like the combat and I can't remember any quests and interesting characters 🤷. The game fails miserably in that department.
Kingdoms of Amalur had very trivial and uninspiring story, hard to roleplay when you're not invested in the world and events. Also the region level lock is what ultimately killed that game
Heres the list of games in the video for anyone wondering. (If I get something wrong someone comment and correct me)
0:06 Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
0:11 Dark Souls (Don't know which one)
0:14 Greedfall
0:16 Witcher 3
0:22 Risen (Don't know which one)
0:26 Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
0:56 Divinity II (2009)
1:55 Skyrim
3:11 Gothic 3
3:22 (no Idea)
0:11 Dark Souls 3
0:18 Bleak Faith: Forsaken
3:22 Darksiders 2
@@click4gameplay thanks
Dark Souls was Dark Souls 3, and Risen was Risen 1.
What game is at 1:22? Thanks
Clip Jumper Greedfall
KOA imo was 2nd best combat in rpg'ish game just behind Dragon's Dogma.....both games are awesome cant wait for that remaster coming next month
It comes out on August
@@RTXWorld-m2h Yeah, I just wish KOA had any challenge at all. Dragon's Dogma was by no means Dark Souls-hard, but it was a lot easier to add challenge to it (in my case I just always played without pawns, but there's other stuff like going directly to BBI). There wasn't really a good way to make KOA have any kind of challenge without also making it nearly unplayable, short of mods maybe. I'm hoping they find a good way to add challenge with this remaster so I can finally enjoy the game.
@@Rubikant well, i played KoA trying to win every fight without taking any damage, and u had to learn each enemy moveset for it. Fun challenge . Unless u keep chugging healing potions like a madman.
for me combat feel is by far the most importent thing about a good action combat, challange is also somewhat important and its always nice when it gets integrated well within the rpg system
The 3 best combat systems in action rpg games or rpg inspired games with combat i played were ovlivion(because as you level skills you get certain perks that show how you get better atc ertain things... Like... Having very hard acrobatics, athleticism, hand to hand and alteration allows you to fight in ways you couldnt with other setups... One of my favorite strategies was to do acrobatic dodges, strike and jump over the oponent to do an attack from above and dodge roll as soon as i land... Use the special power attacks to use the effects they have as a way to have almost as much variation as if i was a magic user, but with pure martial arts...
Vanpire the masquerade bloodlines(same reason than oblivion + dice rolls in the background)
And mountain blade warband... Because it doesnt change much hownyou fight, just make it easier
Another fun example of extremes would be Nioh. It has a pretty deep combat system that heavily rewards player skill that will allow you decimate things without really touching the RPG Side but it also has the level of RPG stat min/maxing to where you can make your numbers so huge it completely devalues the entire combat system allowing you to nuke things before they can even act
intriguing, maybe I should try Nioh
In my opinion: Stat determine roleplay options(hacking doors, speech checks etc.) and Skills you have.
Skills never add just "extra damage" and provide new tools to the player.
More tools -> more Gameplay options.
That way you have progression and you can also have combat thats not a waste of time.
Imo when player stats trump over player skill the gameplay is meaningless.
Totally agree.
Good call, I think that is a pretty good solution to combine RPG elements and good skill-based action combat.
Take , deus ex for example. It is not a fantasy setting rather sci-fi but every praxis point u use massively changes u gameplay approach, making the replayability huge
i agree, but i wonder which one batween stats or skill at skyrim's stealth archery
If that's the case then you'd hate classic RPG, since your stats matters a lot into what your character can or cannot do.
That was nice of you to include Divinity 2: Ego Draconis footage in your video, it seems like there is some kind of veil on this game that keeps it hidden from gamers eyes.
I loved that game. Turning into a dragon, creating a necromantic ally from gathered bodyparts,...
Divinity 2 Ego Draconis had many fun ideas.
And now people refers to the second Original Sin when they talk about Divinity 2 ...
I think a lot of the problem comes from scaling in rpgs. It's hard to make an entire open world challenging yet fair, when enemies health range from 100- into the 1000s. Even worse when the player scales too far. Hard enemies become a joke, when you're too high level, and when you're too low level you get one shot. That's why I like scaling like outward. You clearly get more skills/armor/ and tools, but you never stop respecting the enemies potential. You can still have rpg elements in it, just less crazy scaling.
I agree that scaling is a terribly hard thing to get right. Dark souls approach isn't too bad where everything is just moderately difficult until you learn the enemies (which heavily relies on player skill level). Some games do an okay job disguising this by locking off certain areas until you meet the criteria to venture there (which then sort of makes it not truly open world).
I agree as well that Outward was a very interesting take on the genre. However, I was not a fan of the fact that if you made one small mistake and got killed in the open world then all of the gear (that you most likely worked hard to get and is really your source of power) could potentially be gone. I was not a fan of that aspect. If one or two things had gone missing I would have had a lot less issue with it.
Overall though Outward was a solid step in the right direction because I agree that scaling is one of the most difficult things for these games to get right.
Knight-Of-All-Trades that’s true too. The consequence for dying needs to be rough but fair. One of my deaths in outward, my backpack glitched and disappeared. It sucked.
Respect enemy potential? I don't think a wolf should be able to kill a player no matter how hard it tried if a player is high level and has good gear, come on its just not realistic, one of the reasons I don't like souls like that much is because even low level enemies can seriously murder if you aren't paying attention which is unimmerisve imo
Ironvale where’d you see I said a wolf? Lol. Cause I didn’t. No I’m in the same boat, a wolf should never be much of a challenge. I’m talking about other similarly built humans.
@@shun2240 See but that is where I like dark souls, even the enemies you first encounter can kill you in the late game should you stop paying attention. But I agree that not all games need to be that way. Dark souls is just heavily reliant on player skill and I think that is why they chose to go with "everything is just hard" type of gameplay.
I always break distinctions like this down to player motivation ... Dark Souls is actually about hand-eye co-ordination, practice, repitition and adrenaline ... Divinity 2 is about slow careful strategy and management ... I hate the former and love the latter ... some love the former and hate the latter ... I know only a couple people who love both, and they will be the first admit that such games are almost oposities, and they decide which to play based on mood.
I think there are lots of ways you could bridge the gap ... but why? Both types of gameplay have their fans, and almost every time we try to cram them together it doesn't go well ... I might rather have my fingernails pulled out while being forced to listen to country music than play Dark Souls, but I can aknowledge that it is great at what it does, that MANY people love it, and maybe it's a good thing just the way it is. Even in Skyrim, my suggestion to improve the combat would be simply to have less of it! ... let Action Fantasy games (can we just go with that as a genre name?) be the brilliant, twitchy, frustration enducing and glorious things they are, and let RPGs be the slow, calculating, boring and glorious things that they are.
... basically ... why don't we just leave well enough alone?
Action-adventure game is a genre. Also , i love both.
a well balenced in-between works great. why not? there will always be braindead action games and then there will always be rpgs with a more strategic approach anyway.
But sir, a game that can satiate both moods is extra glorious.
I agree with the Skyrim/combat argument, when it's not at least decent then why don't keep it out completely? But Skyrim is a game full of combat but doesn't give you a lot out of it.
I don't agree with the fast action games aren't tactical, or at least here it is opposed to "careful strategy and management", but that's just not true, fast action games are just as tactical as the slow ones just...faster. You have to make tactical decisions faster and you have to do recourse management while you're fighting in real time, the recources just differs most of the time. The difference is in action games it's up to your skill and in a rpg it's up to the characters skill and more relaxing gameplay for hands and brain.
@@7dayspking I don't know where to start. First of all, what do you think is a tactical game? You have less to memorize and more time to react to it, where you have to recognize a type of attack in a split second in faster games and have more options to react in offense and defense. You don't have to count in the propper input in slow games, you don't need any frame data, nothing about anticipation times, hit frames or recovery, cancels, super armor, positioning ect. and that's just stuff of one category. And about the simple inputs, they are also simpler in the slower games. When you have more time for the inputs, it's mostly simpler and action focused games need more options here. I have some examples in mind.
And it has something to do with weather it is a role playing game or not, or to be more precise, if the combat is skill focused, then it's action (game) combat and if it's stat focused. If you can ignore your stats and the game works fine without it, then it's not a rpg but an action game with rpg elements.
Reaction time based combat works against the grain of stat progression. If I can just bloat up my defense and hit points, I reduce the importance of having to avoid a dangerous attack because it doesn't affect me like before.
But being able to improve stats in these kinds of games can be frustrating if going in the opposite direction as well.
A good example would be Dark Souls 2. I wanted to see what a tanky character build would look like. And I like messing with stat points and distribution. But the defense stat doesn't work. Even after raising it up several hundred points, I found that I would still drop for the same number of hits. In a way, the stats then become meaningless and misleading.
I do believe it is possible to have some kind of free flowing combat and stat/skill progression that doesn't rob the game of its other features. This will depend on how careful the designers are. And whether or not they have ways to make your skills feel personalized.
A good balance to the stats vs combat flow would be a Chain of Action type of combat.
Think turn based, but instead of picking one option per turn, you're selecting of string of actions to occur and watch it play out on the field. You and enemies react accordingly at the same time after you've made several choices. With this you'll have to plan for several moves ahead and strategize not for single actions, but for waves of them.
Sekiro sorta answers this from the perspective of an action game with rpg leveling “good luck trying to achieve lvl99 damage when you got all these moves and bonus skills to unlock” and them when you finally beat the game “each new game plus is harder than the last”
after having made an attempt at modding skyrim's combat myself i realized that you're right, the combat really isn't that bad. it actually does what it set out to do (a primarily stat based system with some level of player skill involved to keep things interesting) pretty well. there's really just a few things wrong with it that hold it back from realizing its true potential. a lot of those problems have already been fixed by mods pretty easily like:
broken weapon ranges
hit frames happening way too early
enemies able to rotate 360 degrees mid swing to hit you
useless stamina system
seriously just fixing that makes things so much better. unfortunately there are some areas where modders only have a limited ability to make improvements and these are where the game really suffers:
stupid ai
lack of depth in the rpg elements
lack of variety
in vanilla the ai is just garbage. you can just mindlessly left click and as long as you are stronger than the other guy/have enough potions then you are guaranteed to win. yeah theres combat ai overhaul mods out there but they just arent able to fundamentally alter things at the lowest level and so the changes just end up being minor at best
i think we all can agree that this is a pretty glaringly obvious flaw of this game as whole. every character can be everything so they all end up being the same. there should have been way more options for developing your character and creating something unique that felt like only YOU made it.
if youre playing a melee character you can basically do two things...hit things or block things. thats it. for hundreds of hours. the perks can make you slightly better at hitting or blocking things but most of them provide slight adjustments behind the scenes that dont translate into meaningful gameplay differences. magic can be pretty broken in this game since all you really have to do is dual cast fireball and quick heal every once in a while, but it at least has the POTENTIAL to be way more fun. heck even playing the way i just described requires you to actually think because you have to account for the amount of time its going to take to pull of a quick heal plus you need to be mindful of how much magicka you have. once you add in a spell package mod like apocalypse you're given a staggering array of options to use as a mage. this is exactly what pure melee builds need, a wide variety of skills that give the player options that are useful/not useful depending on the situation. they could cost stamina to use or require a cooldown or whatever but the idea is there needs to be VARIETY. something that requires the player to be mindful of their actions in real time and the requires them to evaluate the risks and rewards of doing it
dragon's dogma can be very good in both aspects, maybe it needs a little bit more of the rpg side
I'd always liked it more when the skills are gradual but minimal like in scum since it was realistic but the stats gave a good picture about your character's condition and body, I would love a skyrim mixed with scum or tarkov style of stats, would be interesting
As you said it yourself, action with RPG lowers the skill barrier and makes the combat next to menial. That's why as a person who has created and published a RPG, I had problems with this. I didn't feel like my game was action enough. And I've came to the conclusion that RPG and Actions don't really work all that well.
I would love if more Action RPGs took the approach some roguelikes/roguelites took, basically progression lies not in unlocking better weapons but unlocking new ways to play you character, i.e. if for the first 10 levels you can only attack with a dagger but after that you open up an ability to throw your dagger so now you can access environmental damage and stuff like that. Hopefully you understand my point.
Deus ex
By unlocking new ways to use your tools (instead of ever stronger versions of the same) you get a lot more variety for a satisfying progression. You are also able to defeat even strong enemies early if you are clever and skilled enough because they don't need bloated health pools or resistances to match the player's abilities that have been scaled into absurdity. This should enable a much stronger feeling of autonomy and immersion that feels less "gamey". It's harder to make than purely numerical stat changes with always the same mechanics though.
@@Stefan-xt5sk back ib the day, in my 2nd playthrough of deus ex:HR , i reached the last mission with firing my pistol only about 7 times at most, the bossfights dont count tho.
@@btchiaintkidding7837 Isn't deus ex more like opening other ways to deal with your opponents without combat(i.e. skill checks, dialogue choices) rather than improving on the combat? Correct me if I'm wrong tho, haven't really played it.
@@Stefan-xt5sk I agree with all your previous points although I don't know really how much harder it is to make that. When you consider how many spells(and their vfx) and items(and their models of course) they have to create in order for the progression to feel great all the way through the leveling process, there isn't that much of a difference imo. Of course something like this requires way more designing effort.
oh yeah it is offical kingdom of amalur remaster is coming!!!!!!!!!
Of all the ARPG's i've played, I would say the games that I felt were best at melding the two genre's would be Kingdom Hearts and Megaman Battle Network. These are both games that lean a lot more on the action side of things but both have an interesting way of progression that still ties into the role playing aspects quite well. Kingdom Hearts (particularly 1 and 2) has an ability system that let's you pick and choose what moves and skills you want to use and (in 2's case) is generally less stat based and more utility/toolset based where you'll just get new actions and abilities that improve certain actions.
Megaman Battle Network is interesting because while there is character building in it, the main form of progression is getting new attacks to load into your folder (your combat deck so to speak) that you can freely customize and formalize a LOT of different strategies based on what you go with. It's really cool because your success at the game depends entirely on how well you can work out the different attack and support chips you have at your disposal rather than having buffed up stats and tanking hits and while you can do that to an extent, it is heavily disincentivized due to the ranking system the game has in place so it's equal parts technical skill and how well your chips work in conjunction with each other in fights.
these two problems can be countered by the enemies because believe it or not they make or break the game. skill based combat can be countered by evolving the enemy ai and rpg elements by adding certain resists immunities etc depending on the enemy also enemies to have range of levels(example skeletons 1-50 lvl max range and every 15 lvls they get upgrade to their class, EX: armored skeleton,mage skeleton, big dick skeleton etc) where in each range there is an upgrade to both raw stats and or passive active skills or even uniqueness of elite mobs of the same type as regular ones. you can also have enemies kill people or other enemies for various reasons, (if you have a truly alive world), where they can gain experience and level up and gain skills etc kinda like the nemesis system of shadow of war.
I've been watching a bunch of your videos lately and I've been putting a bunch of game ideas in my head. Ofcourse that doesn't mean I'll make one but I just love going through the thought process.
Might be a bit off-topic here, but I feel like a lot of these problems will start to subside when easily accessible VR with either some great exosuit-like thing or neural interface becomes a thing. I mean, if we're talking exosuit, it will start to guide your body as you gain skills to make it easier if you don't have the skill (and make the correction level an option to be changed and you can get people playing the way they want) in case of neural interface, pretty similar, except maybe also add any kind of lore-like info one in the world with such a skill would have into the chip (that you probably have in your brain by then), thus making you informed about at least how it works in the world, making it much more immersive and would still have the difficulty of facing nrw enemies with movesets you haven't seen before. And we can assume A.I. would have improved by then, too, so it would be really like you're actually there, fighting, thus fulfilling the whole goal of the RPG genre.
This is especially true for traditional jrpgs. Traditional action rpgs like tales and the mana series feel like they don't work because combat in those games are balanced around the group as opposed to the individual. The problem comes in because in those games you're punished for party members getting KO'd because each party member plays an important role in combat, so if someone dies things begin to fall apart. The issue in these games is that you cant control all of your party members and the AI is usually pretty terrible. This leads to the AI getting your team killed and the difficulty feeling artificial because there is no system in place to protect party members like there is in mmo combat. TLDR: I definitely prefer my action games and my rpgs to be a sperate experience. They accomplish so much more by being so.
Not saying it was perfect (or even that it fit's the usual "Skill Matters" of ARPGs), but I liked Gothic 1 & 2's solution pretty much: It relied on player input, but if the namless noob PC didn't know a thing about fighting, the moves would be restricted and look/feel awkward. Once you had a few sessions with a trainer he would begin to get a grip on the thing and your input become greater/smoother.
One could argue that this is some kind of artificial injected degree of difficulty, but it did fit the game/setting and I kinda admire that the programmers/artists incorporated different combat animations based on your skill level.
This, I would really love a game that changes weapon animation depending on how skilled you are, this is one of the best ways to show player progression and no game has done it yet
2:56 Please make a video on why you consider action games an action RPG's. I am of an opposing mindset but I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. It might stir a conversation from both sides some will hate it some will love it but you get the comment section involved that means more view for you. Win-win situation.
Love your videos. Keep it up. I do not always agree but I love to hear your opinion on games.
Awesome to see KoA: Reckoning get some love! It feels like the forgotten game of its generation. It has my favorite combat in an RPG ever. It has its kinks and flaws for sure but I think that franchise is one of the biggest “what if’s” in gaming. The new re-release is intriguing but I don’t know if I dare get my hopes up about a true sequel ever getting a green light.
I still don't understand why you don't have more subs, man!
Love your work.
I agree with you that we need more games that at least TRY to mix the two mechanics. There are a LOT of mmorpg/rpg/arpg/action/survial/yaddayaddayadda games coming out in the next year that will be taking a swing at this (Frozen Flames comes to mind, New World...) so I hope we see more and better Soon(tm)!
Having both is not impossible but it requires to have a good story to progress, so rpg elements to acquire to progress (by different strategies according to the player's class) and limitations, so f.i. advanced movements/magic that are to be unlocked. Also a good rpg should have no-combat situations that can't be progressed with combat. I like the adrenaline combat of action adventures. I was impressed by the combat in Shadow of Mordor, not bc it is original but bc it mixes a lot of elemets from other games. But rpg elements there are only functional to better combat (which is good) and the game has only the adrenalinic fast combat. Some more thinking situations and no combat situations would add variation without spoiling the rest. A balance between both makes a good rpg
Re "fixing" Kingdoms of Amalur difficulty. Putting aside the simple fix of adjusting numbers (for example, a significant contributor to the easy difficulty was how the game managed xp scaling making it all to easy to outscale enemies) like adjusting player damage received, I can think of some ways to do it by changing how some mechanics work, not just in KoA but other similar games as well.
One simple fix is adding animations to potion use. Having to actually stop to chug a potion mid combat changes things significantly. In many games, a healer has to stop and use an ability to heal, foregoing other actions while a potion chug is a free action that's available at any time. Add in a Witcher-type potion toxicity thingie (or reduced effectiveness if done again too soon) and you actually have to think not just about when to pop a pot but how often.
Another is removing/limiting dodge roll. Dodge rolls, (specially unlimited ones) imho, break combat in many games or at least make them a lot easier. Hit hit hit dodge rinse repeat ad naseaum may be effective but it's also a little boring.
In KoA. I think they also limit the number of opponents who can attack you at the same time. Many games do this because it otherwise gets too difficult when facing many enemies which, while more realistic, can also be a source of player frustration specially when playing the already- disadvantaged melee characters. Since KoA's problem is the reverse, making more able to attack the player at once should up the difficulty at least at times, and at least for melee players.
Easy fix - add option "enemy scale with player level", remaster completed.
Random games I think had good combat: Trials of Mana (Remake), Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Witcher 3, Monster Hunter World (with Longsword's Foresight Slash = super addictive & fun), Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
I can't wait for KoA to come out. I still have the thick as f guide book by future press 😁
Stats shouldn't have a major impact in an action rpg because combat becomes meaningless. E.g Pump up certain stats/ exploits and become unkillable. I'm not saying that you should die often or at all cause I myself treat most rpgs as dead is dead/ironman. But the risk of losing should always be there if you're not careful or bothered to learn the game as required.
Skills and perks/abilities however are something else. Add to that character creation, memorable npcs, plus choice/decisions and world-building and you got a successful action rpg.
RPG Elements when used properly can make the game more tactical.
It's like using the right weapon for the right job in Classic Doom.
Hey my friend. Super great subject to touch base on. I'm currently playing Grim Dawn. And am at level 40. I've been doing fairly well up to this point. Making my way through the different areas and keeping my values even. It's been a blast playing this game. And have no intention of quitting it any time soon. What have you been playing yourself lately???
Grim Dawn is a ton of fun, even the Crucible is really cool and you get nice loot. :)
May I add, in *role* playing, story choices or freedom of direction that hence make it playing a role. Generally, most expect a customizable character/role, though a universal starting character can also be a RPG adventure (like the example you gave: Witcher).
nb : I understand that skills/progression choice means you are creating your character/role, but I feel something is missing often in the definition. And yes I play on at least normal or challenging difficulties (but never the insane "iron man-one save" option nor "torture me" difficulty). :P
RPGs: Character Stats & choice-driven Roleplaying
I can agree with that, If gaining skills and progression made a game an RPG, then games like Far Cry would be classified as an RPG. Just about every game now adds some type of skills/perks to unlock as your character progresses. Traditional RPGs have always been about different ways you choose to get through a story and, which direction to go in, which party members you choose, and how you treat them. Lot's of player agency on how you navigate story/class/leveling. A true RPG is the whole works. Nowadays you get maybe one or two RPG elements and people want to call it an RPG. There really should be some label for these sub-category of games that don't fit into a traditional genre. Tthese Borderland/Far Cry/Destiny/Kingdoms of Amular/Dark Souls type of action adventure games with deeper RPG like mechanics.
I feel like the mechanical rpg elements (stats, gear, skill trees,...) defined the genre back when technology to model interactive stories and interpersonal relationships was not developed far enough. Now that more is possible in the realm of narrative role playing, many still cling to the basic elements.
@@Stefan-xt5sk Absolutely, but it really comes down to commitment I think. Baldur's Gate, KOTAR, these games are almost two decades old, and delivered the works. OH Dragon Age, but these weren't considered "action" RPGs I guess. Maybe it's just that when you deliver real-time "action" The devs are trying to cast a wider net, and start going the wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle that developers like Bethesda turned into after Morrowind. Maybe deep traditional RPGs just are considered too niche, to justify big budgets? It's why I adore Outward, that's my kind of RPG too.
@@7dayspking Yes, but can you control your character build? Do your stats matter in separate actions/dialogue. See you disagree bc you think Skyrim is more of an RPG then Morrowind, where as Skyrim is devoid of almost any differentiating character traits/skills. Every player picks nearly the same char with similar stats traversing through all the same linear dungeons, becoming the same leader of all the factions. The only free agency the player is allowed, is to delay a quest for as long as the player wants. Hell, you can't even decide the fate of Parthurnax. Skyrim is an RPG as much as Far Cry, except for the two facts that you have a face creator, and you can go anywhere, and start any faction quest, at any time. However freedom without consequence makes for a very minimalist RPG. The very barest of bones. Just barely enough to classify SKyrim as an RPG over the action title Far Cry 3 when they started with their own perk system.
What if a game had proggression stats but those stats did not directly effect combat but instead effected the systems built around combat such as equipment load, usable skills, what equipment can be used. For example what I mean with the skills instead of a skill tree skills can be found or earned around the world and can be used depending on the stats the player has. While things like health stamina etc stats stagnant
I think the game that managed to combine both perfectly is Monster Hunter. Yes it is a very difficult game, and learning enemy patterns is the main way to improve in the game, but unlike Dark Souls, there is no way you are progressing past a monster without at least decent gear. You will either get 1 shot or have 0 damage.
The combat imo should be hard and complex. A lot of them have tons of moves but they are all so strong that there is no reason to use one over the other, and no reason to think. And I think the loot and abilities should partially make the player better and more suggest and promote the players intended play style
1:26 😂😂
Saw glimpses of Darksiders 2 but I think you never actually talk about it or the franchise itself in general. What do you think of them? Especially the latest game, Darksiders Genesis?
Interesting topic...
What I'm curious about, is have you played
Nioh, Nioh 2, or Dragons Dogma?
IF not, you should really try to check them out.
Talk about some great ARPG...ish.
In regards to Kingdom of Amalur, I am looking forward to the remake. I played the original, enjoyed it's style of combat & magic a lot.
Seems like the UI may have bugged me a little if I remember correctly. Like the map, and locating quest.. ???(I don't remember its been awhile)
Never finished the game though. . . My console broke.. disc reader died on me, and I never got around to fixing it.
I wish the remake of #KingdomOfAmalur was as good as the #DemonsSouls remake.. by bluepoint studio.
Bluepoint studio said they take a lot of pride in their remakes, thats listed on their company page. Then they called
everyone else in the industry of remakes scrubs more or less... Which is probably true. Because "just good enough".. and not great.
great video, you are so right man
I was really hoping that Kingdom Come was going to combine a lot of this stuff into a great game. But at the end of the day it hurt my feelings so much because while they got the RPG elements so good, the combat was a tedious mess. The learning curve was really steep at the combat ended up being pretty boring I found. Dragons Dogma hits a lot of the marks for me, it has good fast paced combat that feels very rewarding, but I find that it is one that lacks in the RPG and character building aspects (not asthetically but as far as stats go). Maybe someday we will get a game that combines all of these elements!
Great video brother, always good stuff, keep them coming!
KIngdom come combat ended up being fairly meh cause all you had to to is use "perfect blocks" to ensure a parry. Anything else usually wasn't good enough and would result in your attack being parried or blocked. It was fun in the beginning when you realize it is sort of skill based in that you have to pay attention when the enemy will attack, but it gets boring really quick once you realize there is no variety in what you can do, and fighting numerous enemies in usually really, really hard (as it should be in real life). I remember having a lot more fun with the directional combat in Mount and Blade: Warband than KCD.
@@7dayspking Exactly, plus I liked that there was progression and a steep learning curve for the combat. But when you get jumped by like 3 guys and either have to run, or continuously back up and swing for thirty minutes, it is not that fun. It isnt even a lot of fun when you could be stuck fighting just one person for 10 or 15 minutes because, as you said, the dice rolls werent on your side and they block everything you throw at them
Does anyone have experience/thoughts on Black Desert Online on this subject?
In my opinion the combo of action and rpg is nearly perfect in Dark Souls. Nearly, because mages in this game are quite restricted. Yes, the game depends mostly on your mechanical skill altough you totaly feel the difference in gameplay when you mix your stats, which is the most important thing to me when i want to play an RPG game. In this game you are totaly free in terms of choice of youre gear, spells etc. There is no a thing like "only mage can wield that" and so on. You can freely make sorcerer that wields two-handed sword and it will work totaly fine. This is the thing that bothers me the most when it comes to Dragon Age Inqusition for example.
In my opinion is not an rpg. Levels dosent matter, bosses kills you with max 3 hits no matter level or armor.
Basically what David says, the only thing levels are good for is increasing your damage output, levelling up simply did not have enough impact in dark souls game
@@davidcoloma6269 Yea, that's not true. In DS1 level and armor made a big difference. With heavy armor I could easily take more hits and the HP and dmg boost from leveling was pretty good too. DS3 sucked in that regard though.
@@DragaXZ you sure? In full set of upgraded giants I got one shotted by capra demon jumping in ng+ while rolling, and while rolling deals around 50 percent extra damage, it still a ridiculously huge amount of damage which will take away around 2/3rds of my health and I have 1400hp by that point, armor does nothing in ng+ and is only mildly useful in ng
I just don't like spaming 1 skill endgame speed runs while all other attributes buffs that 1 skill.... so boring. I like when combat needs a combination of skills, offence, defence, crowd control, active blocking and dodging dodges etc, but very rare they make action rpg games like that.... they always go for the 1 skill dungeon games.
If I chose to play the game on "Easy" it's because I've been gaming for 30 years and I'm too old to be frustrated by something I paid for. You should go play Remnant From The Ashes on "Hard" mode and see how much "Fun" you have!
Its not fun on any level. I actually quit playing it. I some how managed to play the game in such a
way that it became incredible difficult for me. Like.. my maxed out weapons were not doing much damage
at all. I learned that the devs had some system in place, to cause that difficulty spike. It was shit.
Instant like after 1:23 lol
Souls character levels are decoration.
The levels may be deco (which I'm glad for, back then so much emphasis was out on levels in RPG), but the stats numbers don't.
Absolutely, the character gain so little power that levelling up is not rewarding
GREAT VIDEO
:o remastered KoA?! I need dis.
If there was a game exactly like Baldurs Gate 3 but instead of turn based combat, it has action combat or real time action combat, i would jizz my pants and lose my mind
While it's mostly down to preference i prefer the zelda formula over most. it just lacks them juicy RPG elements, Darksiders2 almost had a good variation of this. i honestly think simple impact in combat can smooth other a lot of these things. theres nothing worse than playing a game and you and the enemy are just mindlessly whaling on each other and small numbers appearing. one of the main reasons i don't like borderlands. the guns just feel meh aand dont feel impactful. if a game came out with bayonetta's combat and rpg mechanics i'd cream my little jimmies
Left out Path of Exile?
It is the most pure ARPG out there.
A lot of these games suck and become so repetitive quickly.
If you enjoy depth and replayability give it a chance.
O yea. Kingdof amalur is a gem that has been under appreciated for ages.
Amalur and dragon's dogma have the best combat
what games were shown in this video?
Look at the pinned comment.
I would love to see a rpg with souls like combat mechanics but with extremely deep rpg options, I hope Elden ring can achieve that because tbh dark souls is not "rpg" enough
Alaloth and Godfall are probably the closest things to that coming out
Sounds like description of a Nioh 2
I think I would say combat is the weakest point of The Witcher 3 simply because of how good the other aspects of this game are(plot, graphics, characters, music). Even though I consider combat to be the weakest point, I still think it is good. It's cinematic, and fun, but at the same time very repetitive, which is annoying in such a long game. Although Geralt being the protagonist instead of one made by the player is surely limiting gameplaywise, they could have put more abilities, signs and tools in the game without messing with the foundations of The Witcher. Examples of such features(these are all from TW books btw):
-a silver chain to fight and entangle monsters
-omne sign
-heliotrope sign
-jumping at an enemy from highground and piercing him with a sword
Have you ever finished TW3?
Read (almost) all the books and played all the games. I watched the tv show as well. TW3 is my baby! :) I remember playing a lot of Dragon Age Inquisition and waiting for TW3 to come out. Good times.
@@click4gameplay
Good to hear. I also played, read and watched everything Witcher related.
Start playing DA inquisition recently, very similar to Witcher series. Probably the last good Bioware game ever.
Because people that tend to like RPGs are not good with frame data.
the biggest problem about The Witcher games is Geralt as the protagonist. They should have made a brand new character or the choice between a few with their own classes (a witcher, a sorceress, a soldier, etc.) Or even Ciri with the choice of becoming one of these. After all, in the books she has received both training in magic and witcher things. The story would not be the same, of course, but at least the combat would have been good and Geralt did'nt need revive after the end of the books.
But RPG elements aren't just levels and loot.
Of course. But other rpg elements that I didn't mention are not affecting the combat. Not directly at least.
@@click4gameplay I see. Well, gotta say you're opening a discussion the gaming community doesn't realize that it needs. Great work 👊
do somthing like top 20 rpg game video
I personally hate that type of content. There are no top ARPG. Every game has its audience and followers that will argue that their chosen one is the best
Dares to criticize? There's a lot. The Witcher 3 is totally overrated. It's an ok game but nothing more and one of the many games that throw a lot of different mechanics in there but every one of them is mediocre at best for such an big budget game.
Combat beeing bad in a rpg isn't a deal breaker but when you play a well trained monster hunter and your game comes out after Dragon's Dogma it is a problem in terms of immersion and that's what you make most of the time in the game. Elex got a lot of criticism in terms of it's combat and that's probalby fair but that combat system is still a bit better than the one from the Witcher 3 and it doesn't even have to, since it's explained in the narrative why you are weak, you're drained of power. The level up system is boring in the Witcher 3 there's nothing to explore here, nothing you want out of it, since you do the same thing throughout the game, even action games keep you occupied with new combos and weapons to gain through the game, that effect the gameplay and give you something new to learn and to master. In the Witcher 3 there are actually big roads with colliders that stop you in the air or a way you should know and should have taken not long before due to the narrative. And, like with the combat the overall narrative and gameplay contradicts each other, story says your're in a hurry to find Ciri but the gameplay implies and encourages exploring, so a lot of gamers, most of them tell you how important story is for them and that's why they like this game, have the in game story that goes like that: I have to hurry to find Ciri, now let's kill some wolfs for villageX, let's play some Quint in villageY thatg looks like villageZ or P,B every village, then let's do another sidequest, why not. Yes, the world is boring as well, in TW2 they had one village and one forest, but they were atThen the game pretents to give you options, great, but the things the character you play and yourself would do isn't possible, the game doesn't let you attack the person you want and doesn't help/side with the person you and the character would want. The weight system is total bs and a deal breaker for the Witcher, Skyrim and so on. When the way is to play the game is to aim in a general direction, and remember this is intentional design, push the stick forward aaaand watch a movie or series while occationally looking at the screen again, if you might walk into a tree or something or got attacked, great. And why is there so much shit in the world to collect anyway, I don't let potentionally money (in both) just lying somewhere, so of course I take it. When they create a big world it's the developers responsability to make traversal as fun as possible and not put additional stones in your path. And why do you find better gear for the job you should be trained and equipped the best somewhere in the world or even just lying around somewhere? This also breaks the immersion, so The Witcher 3 shouldn't be a rpg in the first place, all these elements again contradict the narrative and it's distracting as hell.
That doesn't make a bad game, just not the masterpiece some people claim it to be, in masterpiece games gameplay reflects the narrative, in masterpieces they have a core gameplay everything else surounds and not just random mechanics put into it and yes, even games with a lot of stuff in it can manage that.
And since this is about the combat, if you have combat in your game and this makes up the most you do in it, it should have the highest priority, just take a look at Dragon's Dogma which came out before that. That game keeps you entertained from start to end because everything just works in there, the rpg mechanics are good as well and the story.
Nah all devs are able to, only you just think is too hard.
Fable 1 best combat system hands down
I have the feeling that Gothic ( Risen and Elex) are the pinnacle of action RPG, may be I am right or it is just nostalgia talking, I am 80s kid who played Baldurs gate on a 486 DX2 66 MHz and bought the CDs so I am one of those biased old man who thinks PeT is the best RPG ever and Gothic the best action-RPG ever.
Anyone here play Dota?
You havent answered the question.Just gave a bunch of examples of diferent games.👎
Dragon's Dogma combat and monsters are the only good thing about that game. Quests and characters may as well not be there, they are just s##t. Gear variety is lackluster to say the least and i hate the class system.
Gameplay is king. Also the game had some good quests , good music, good post game challenge. Its just a good game.
@@forestflood5338 I finished the game twice because I really do like the combat and I can't remember any quests and interesting characters 🤷. The game fails miserably in that department.
Kingdoms of Amalur had very trivial and uninspiring story, hard to roleplay when you're not invested in the world and events. Also the region level lock is what ultimately killed that game
Games like path of exile eewwww. No parry system disgusting