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Non-Combat Character Development In RPGs?
Thanks to Tleaves.com for their article discussing RPGs that tinker with the basic hack n' slash formula to "try to provide incentives for non-combat development." The author comments on combat-heavy RPGs: "Sometimes my best friend sees me playing Angband and asks me what I'm doing. 'Knitting,' I say, and this is pretty accurate - it's repetitive, mindless, and somehow comforting." But he suggests that, while levelling up via combat is great fun, "...there is room (and indeed desire among players) for higher aspirations as well", referencing Ultima IV ("most of the interesting parts of the game were actually unlocked by ethical development") and The Witch's Wake module for Neverwinter Nights ("Experience is meted out specifically for reaching various narrative goals. Combat yields no experience whatsoever.")
If you want to see a well done game such as this, check out "A tale in the desert" ( www.atitd.com )
;) But the idea of a political game was interesting to me.
Its a MMORPG that has no combat in it whatsoever, its more politcs than fighting. (heh).
Very interesting concept, has a lot of neat ideas too like the players get to vote on what features the game devs work on next.
The pricing model is interesting for a MMORPG style game as well. You download the client for free and only pay the monthly ($14 I believe) subscription fee.
I haven't played since beta closed because I personally like combat, especially the kind where you kill other players.
In computer RPG's I almost always choose charaters who are physically weaker, but more intelligent.
... if you could find them.
Problem is most games really penalise you if you do this. Even the ones that do allow you to finish some quests without combat, usually don't award the same XP as for the violent solution.
Example : You have to find some kind of treasure, you play sweet talk a guard to let you in and sneak past all the other enemies. You finish the quest and get 1000XP. The brute force player kills the guard and everything/one else. He also gets 1000XP for the quest, but he also gets another 1000 form combat.
Hadly seems fair, and it makes the game so much more difficult for non fighting characters.
A few games have been better than the rest. Fallout I & II stand out. A big portion of quests had non/minimal fighing solutions
I also liked Morrowind leveling up mechanism - instead of having on big pool of XP you develop skills individually. If you use a skill (like sneak, security of speechcraft) successfully, it improves. But at the end of the day you still had to do quite a bit of fighting.
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I was playing Gauntlet Legends for Dreamcast and realizing that I did everything possible to destroy generators before tackling the enemies. This minimizes the # of enemies I killed, but minimized the amount of experience I gained. The game encourages stupidly shooting as many enemies as possible, rather than finding intelligent solutions.
RPGs should try to recognize intelligent behavior patterns. Experience should be gained for rapidly defeating an area, finding secrets, and making efficient use of ammo and special items. I know some action games offer bonus points for defeating enemies in a cool way (Ex: IF the last hit is a jumping melee attack, rather than just hiding and shooting from a corner). This would work with experience as well.
Two examples: on SHENMUE, there is not much combat, and when it happens, it plays like Virtua Fighter. All ZELDA games have levels with action and puzzles. Still, they are as story-driven as any stat-driven RPG.
I like the way these games play: no hours planning your battle strategy, no menu-based combat, but still as much story developement as regular RPGs.
Circumcision is child abuse.