@@HenSt-gz7qj oof. btw I'm trying to make a game that has at least 20 endings, but all the paths are cross-linked so there's a few thousand different ways to reach each general ending. since the game state is also affected by the specific path taken its practically impossible to get all the endings.
Counter argument: ASTLIBRA. Every cutscene except the animated ones is characters and a dialogue system on a background, sure its not elegant but its sufficient for some games, like ASTLIBRA.
I absolutely hate when RPGs try to get around this by building the story and quests around their tech frameworks. You can tell when they just made something happen so they could reuse an animation or NPC feature
Why don’t they release parts of the story like they do episodes of a show? I realize it may take longer than a show would but then people could experience the game a little at a time and be excited and full of anticipation for the next part of the story to be released. I don’t know 🤷🏼♂️, just a thought.
Although branching decision trees like Detroit: Become Human, and to a lesser extent Inscryption, get some reuse out of cutscenes because you have to go through some again to get new ones.
Depends of the game, but once you build a good framework, adding more content isnt as time consuming as it seems. Unless you are also the writer of course.
Starfield's new game plus is a huge letdown imo. You go to a different universe, and... EVERYTHING IS THE SAME!!! YAY!!! There's only so many "unique" universes, but they're all gimmicks that don't mean anything to your play style or roleplay. Sarah Morgan is a plant! Yay? The Constellation members are all clones of me!! I should be able to use them as companions, right? Oh what's that? No? Oh well then what's the point?
Well, more like 20 hours of content, of which 10 hours is required to reach the end of the game and the other 10 hours is optional (which is the case for most good RPG's, rarely does an RPG that requires 100% consumption of content equal good). Where the other is making 4 hour of content, but have previously played content that can be replayed simultaneously.
League of legends where they've been reusing more or less the same core map every season with minimal tweaks for years with users playing well over 20,000 half hour matches...
The storyline director for Alpha Protocol had this happen, they had to arrange over 30 hours of cutscenes with alternating dialogue, branches, decisions, consequences that player would only see maybe 12 minutes of. Also the game was just mid and had very little replay value.
True, though what should be kept in mind is that FNV had almost all of its technical work completed already, what with it using the FO3 framework. That saved a HUGE amount of time, that the team could use to tell stories instead of building a program around them.
I mean my friend got it on release and to hear him tell it NV was worse then 76 on release. The bugs would just demolish your game 10 minutes in. It wasn't until they went through several patches that the amazing content in the game was even playable because it was nigh impossible to not have the whole thing spontaneously combust.
@Frustratedartist2 you have to remember that there are still creators working inside that company making art. The company can command them to change certain aspects or add microtransactions, but whats actually making the art is and always will be the human beings you never see behind the dev team. It's not fair to undermine those people's achievements, even if the company itself is shit, especially when they aren't the ones "ruining games" as much as the company and its shareholders are
I agree! A lot of memorable moments in RPGs only repeat once just to be remembered. Other genres tend to overuse and have ideas and characters overstay their welcome
I dont know man i can build an RPG in my machine shop garage in a few hours. Honestly the longest part would be the rocket itself but you can buy off the shelf parts for that from your local hobby store
Bethesda using computer generated landscapes, reversed dungeons, 8 voice actors for 400 characters, 6 death animations, and the same 3 puzzels for 32 dungeons. 👀
Viarmo, Belethor, and Nick Valentine still haunt me to this day, I can't pay attention when they all sound the same (and that's not even getting into unnamed characters yet...)
Starfeild's greatest fault is they built way too much game, a focused approach would be better than everything and the kitchen sink. Any new writing, 3D model, system or voice line, reused or not, is unique content. Bethesda also has a relatively small team for the scale they work at.
Making an RPG is more like writing a novel than making most genres of game. And if you're trying to make an open world RPG with lots of arrive content and freedom of choice, it's more like writing an entire franchise worth of shared universe TV shows for a single project.
You hit the Nail on the head with my current personal projects problem and what makes it even worse is that I'm not just writing a game but I've got at least 1-2 movie series and 2 book series in mind due to the story having multiple Protagonists (6 total active protagonists which are each interwoven characters with their own goals and motivations each brought together by 1 thing their Shared trauma at the hands of the order of the rose) (In an earlier draft of the full story the main games protagonist, Iris Blackrose was going to be a serial killer but my best friend convinced me to cut that trait out and To be Entirely honest I've been Stuck in Rewriting Hell for almost a year because that singular change Domino's so much that it risks Completely Changing the Story (and I can't just hand wave it away because even to me it screams plot hole) so I've had to add a new Character to be the serial killer that pushes Crimson (one of the two the planned movie protagonists the other focusing on Akane the Red) to directly meet Iris using his eye powers to see she's connected to the case, whilst Lucius (Books protagonists a pure Private Investigator) gets involved with Akane (an Escaped Test Subject and part of the 2nd generation of experiments that iris, Crimson, Lucius and ash were made for but ended in catastrophic failure so they wipped their memories and them under the captivity of 4 people within the same neighbourhood and drugged those 4 to give them 1 goal Make sure they Never Exit The properties Bounds but don't kill them(it took almost 15 years from this initial imprisonment and that influence poisoned the will of the 4 captors transforming them into horrific abusers (iris's backstory has overt Hints to Child(because she's been here in this house her Entire life as far back as she remembers) $exual abuse as a subject matter based on the dialogue of the "farther" and the player is actually in control of this backstory In a telltale style so must make reactive choices (she points out that she hid a screwdriver underneath the stairs to the basement so plans to kick her "Farther" full force and then run grab the screwdriver and if the back doors locked Pry It open with the Screwdriver as her "farther friends" are waiting for her towards the front door in the living room (soon to be dead room if you miss the Screwdriver (because that unlocks the option to Grab the knife 🔪), And in the present which is 10 years after iris's escape she is still dealing with Frequent Flashbacks along with anxiety and C-PTSD (which in the current rewrite she handles through having 1 close friend but is frequently liable to breakdown, and I plan to reintegrate the original serial Killer Plotline via a specific chain of events in the backstory that lead to iris not having a full support network
Let's not undersell the difficulty of making FPS cutscenes either. I can only imagine how hard it was for the devs to give us the timeless cutscene that allowed us to press F to pay respects.
@@Pokemaster-wg9gxThat would be -CoD: Ghosts- Advanced Warfare. Now as for Metal Gear and what I think the commenter below yours confusing this with Gears of War. They are both mostly third person shooters like Fortnite (Which in addition to being third person shooter is also a battle Royale) Semantics are fun aren't they? :3
I think what he means for FPS the basic format is the same and you reuse alot of assets and animations. I mean unless you're making a stealth shooter there isn't much variation in the animation.
He isn’t saying that cutscenes are harder in RPG games than FPS games. The main draw of RPGs are the cutscenes and story, the gameplay is secondary to a lot of them. In an FPS game the gameplay is the primary draw, with the story being secondary. You can have an FPS game without any real story, cutscenes, or even scenarios. You can’t have an RPG without a story, scenario, or cutscenes in one way or another.
it's beyond just the cutscenes, though; in an FPS you build the gun, the bullets, the enemies, and their interaction. In an RPG you build a quest and that quest is never used again - at best its framework will be. RPGs in general are just more consistent development needs than something like an FPS or platformer.
@@c.f.bellairs1055 This is why I am 100% OK with game frameworks that rely on text narrative to present the quest. It's a lot easier/cheaper/faster to hire a good scriptwriter/new novelist (and some staff/ghost writer assistants) to pump out a lot of fairly unique individual quests/events. Next step up as allowed by budget, hire a couple of artists to do sketches/illustrations to accompany the text. Just some images to highlight key NPCs or key moments in the narrative action, to convey the game world's vibe or emotions of the moment. Same for voice acting and voiced narration. It seems like more people respond positively to voice-acting (well, good voice acting) Though I think illustrations can get more bang for the buck, budget-wise. Consistently good voice acting seems pretty expensive. I'm not a super imaginative guy, but this format in some games has been enough to keep me engaged and fondly remembering some stories long after I finish the game. Fully rendered, voice, animated in-engine cutscenes just seem to take so much more in resources and time, thus budget. I remember I was constantly in awe at how many one-time use in-game voice lines and cut scenes were made for GTA V. The GTA Online missions got repetive recycled framework, assets and animations like crazy, but even they had a ton of unique character model rigging, mocap, etc done when considered in aggregate. Lots of Shark card revenue and lots of players over a decade. :P
@@c.f.bellairs1055 in an fps you build a level and then never use it again, what even is this argument? And the level that is build for the fps game is usually a million times more complicated because of highly complex combat systems and enemy ai (think of doom for example) than a quest in an rpg where you just have to go to some place you already been to 10 times and then the characters uses recycled animations to talk to you. How replayable and open something is is HIGHLY dependant on the type of game and it could be either an fps or an rpg. Besides, a lot of fps games have many rpg features nowadays. The lines are blurry.
@@Crowbar You're correct. I don't disagree. lmao Also, plenty of FPS games nowadays reuse assets and levels *gladly*. And we're also talking about what we find more personally impressive which is entirely opinion - I'm more impressed by RPG worlds and storylines, you're more impressed by complex FPS maps and levels. Both are valid. I am however sticking to my original claim. It's significantly more challenging to create a convincing RPG world with a myriad of quests and grinds than it is to create an FPS with a myriad of setpieces in which you shoot enemies.
@@Crowbar The combat system isnt recreated for each level/map, you need to build one time and create a self "dependancy" of the level-gameplay making both compatible. Then, with all respect, they can simply mesh stuff intuitively with how you know things behave, and do gameplay test on it if it breaks. Rpgs on the other hand, can get more manual. Positioning objectives and how(IF) they interact with your character/party/choice/wather. Creating an engaging main story decent side quests, with a fun combat system so it doesnt become a burden too fast. A lot of rpg games resort to some tricks to artificially increase its game lenght and reuse assets, being it fetch quest, backtracking, high encounter rates, grind systems... it is hard to manage all that, avoid all of these without creating a "corridor visual novel" where combat is almost a check list. In FPS and other genres if you nail your gameplay you have over 60% done, I have games I wish had more levels just to get different situations to experience that gameplay and keep pushing it.
Not just that, but a full-featured RPG is a crossover of a ton of different little mechanics. It's the final boss for aspiring game devs. In the gamedev circle I come from, it's recommended that you take each piece of your dream RPG and make a small game around one piece at a time. Only once you've mastered all the elements are you recommended to put them together and make your dream RPG. Cutscenes are totally right though, it's a bunch of work for something that gets used a single time. Although, it also cuts down on bugtesting, since the cutscene isn't going to have much variance in the contexts it'll play.
same with R6, only like 12 maps and 30 characters and yet all the data is stored as high-res texture packs for EVERY WEAPON and CHARACTER. 4K fully fledged, or 8K high res possibility that comes at the cost of a whopping 80GB lmfao
@@shyguy85 And then you realize the hardware take 4 frame to read your input, 2 for the game engine to render the picture, 1 for VSynch, 1 for the game code, and 5 because they use a outdated online system. Meanwhile a non esport game on PC is about 36ms (or 2 frame) and a esport one is under 1ms. + 30ms of ping for online
I remember a long time ago someone told me "when you start seeing the RPGs on consoles, that's when you know you are reaching the end of the consoles life. Shooters are the easiest things to make they are simple point and click, that's why they are always the 1st games to come out and always flood the market. RPGs on the other hand take so long that by the time devs figure out how to optimize the hardware enough it's time for the next gen"
2 месяца назад
Yup, it was the end of Switch right after the announcement of Breath of the Wild. /s
This is so true. Back in the day when RPG Maker was all the rage, and they introduced the possibility to hand paint a map instead of using a tile set. I remember arguing with people how even using the tile-set mapping takes so much time then roughly estimated it would take weeks to just create a basic dungeon from FF6. But history proved me right, I can count the number of released RPG-Maker games that were actually any good on one hand (And one of those, One Shot, used a modified open-source version of the engine).
What Thor doesn't acknowledge here is how easy it is to build cutscenes in an RPG compared to other games. The majority of the story content of the RPG, particularly the style he's building, is writing text. Speaking as a specialist in building platforming mechanics, building the mechanics of a platformer require a crazy amount of nuance and detail if you want it to play well. I don't think Thor's being 100% realistic here. Even using his example of bullets, no, good games that don't have simple copy-paste content have unique bullet types with unique programming, and then have additional mechanics that appear slowly as you progress that interconnect with other mechanics. The time cost of writing 5 minutes of slowly read text in the RPG compared with the time cost of building 5 minutes of high quality FPS gameplay is not the same... it's waay quicker to write the RPG text.
in the grand scheme of things those would probably be considered cutscenes - they are one shot "consumable" story elements - the assets and way to trigger them will be reused but the stuff being said will all be unique and cannot be re-used
@@JoelLikesPigs It takes far less work to just do dialogue than to do dialogue, voice acting, animation, camera work, music, sound effects, cinematic direction, etc.
Doesn't sound like that's so much an RPG issue, as it is a "game with a plot" issue. If I put a cutscene in an FPS, it's also going to get thrown away in the same way.
Yeah I don't get it, he may be right but the points weren't great. I've known of platformers, and honestly probably more than rpgs, that are in development hell for so long, over 3 years. I know of platformers that will take longer than deltarune to come out (assuming we follow deltarune development). It's all about the amount of detail and effort and RPGs that lack it are usually seen as very lame because of reused assets so the standard is higher, I feel, and that they just tend to be longer. Doesn't really have to do with the one time experience or reusability, imo, that's something rpgs can go for too if they want to, which makes me feel I'm missing conext about the kins of rpgs he's talking about.
The point isn't that those game genres don't have cutscenes or anything it's that they do not require it to be released as a game of that genre. Story is integral to RPGs because that is part and parcel what the genre was birthed from. RPGs are always trying to emulate a tabletop experience similar to Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. A key part to those games is a Dungeon Master or Game Master leading the plot for the players meaning there is somebody who is creating the environment and reasons for your character to go through. Even in the most story devoid campaigns there is still going to be a description of the scenery and a reason for the player to be going through the game whereas something like a platformer can just drop you in a world and say go right/left and start jumping. Would it be fun and engaging? Maybe. Would it be a platformer? Yes.
in concept yes. but cutscenes/story and actual gameplay are totally different things. the meat of an RPG's gameplay is pretty much just the scenes you build. other genres can rely a lot more on their core gameplay concepts so that everything is reusable and recyclable... can't really do the same with RPGs where the moment to moment gameplay heavily requires you build totally unique scenes. even a battle system isn't enough to subside that
@@m8rs558He gave a bad example of what he's trying to say. It's not so much about cutscenes specifically, but rather about the scope of the experience. RPGs have to account for player choice, so they have a ton of tiny details in them that may only be relevant one time or a handful of times, or may not even be seen at all if the player never finds or interacts with them. Most other genres, though, such as FPSs, are much more guided experiences and so have a smaller pool of things that need to be created. And because the devs can guarantee so much of what you'll be doing, they can reuse individual details over and over again as needed.
That's why Final Fantasy XIV is so wild. they actually allow you to relive the entire story and the game is actually designed around you building new jobs to go back and help out less experienced players. with one option checked you can actually watch all the cutscenes again with the new players and experience the story over and over again. The reusing of the story is built into veteran players helping out new players in a mmo. It's brilliant
The way SE keeps their content relevant and enjoyable more than once is extremely clever. The entire ecosystem of that game is pretty underrated, imo, and handles things rather elegantly.
I agree with him, but the reasonings he gave was very, very odd. Like FPS games can have cutscenes too and they would function the exact same as they would in an RPG. Nothing about the framework in an RPG makes cutscenes operate in an exclusive way compared to other games
@@andrewgreeb916 I do understand to a degree where he was going since he mentioned how a lot of things had to be thrown away immediately. He just used cutscenes as an example. My point was how that’s a really bad example. It doesn’t properly illustrate the difference between an RPG and an FPS. Now additionally, I also think the main point he was trying to make is similarly a poor point. For example he says an FPS needs a framework to shoot things, and that never needs to change. Yet he says the framework for an RPG would always need to change, but I just think that’s blatantly false. Try playing FF14 and the framework stays the same for the entire game. The only thing that truly changes is the margin for error you have within that framework, but that works for damn near 1000 hours because it’s a really well laid framework
@@gypsyofthebardthat’s an on rails campaign, not an open world RPG or even on rails RPG, you can’t take stuff back with you or have any different choices
This feels generalizing and reductive. A lot of games besides RPGs have impactful cutscenes? Is the argument that RPGs are hard because they have cutscenes? Am I hearing that right? Aren't most cutscenes across all genres oneshots?? Yeah you can reuse bullet framework whatever, and you can reuse whatever battle mechanic your rpg has. I think a far better argument would be pointing out the relative _density_ of cutscenes. In terms of both the number of cutscenes, and the density of information they contain. RPG cutscenes tend to be longer and more story-dense, and tend to happen far more frequently than in games like call of duty or whatever. Overall though, my point would be that the genre shouldn't be a metric for how difficult a game was to create. The difficulty comes as a result of the care and dedication of the developers, and how much effort they put forth into the project. Some genres set a higher bar for effort, but none of them have a ceiling.
RPG’s (mainly JRPGs) are some of my favorite games. It’s insane how much effort it takes to make one, and that effort shows. I’ve put over 100 hours into both Persona 5 Royal, and Octopath Traveler 2, and those games blew me away with details. Both games are amazing, and I can only imagine how long they took to make.
Hire better writers then instead of the industry standard of dogshit writers straight out of college with their fresh creative writing degree that taught them nothing.
@@cattysplatspeed runners at least have seen the content often several times. Story skippers are really weird though why buy a story driven game just to not interact with the story and if the individual has brain damage on top might even say the game has no story.
Cutscenes are cool and all, but my favorite rpgs are still like golden sun and the gameboy advance final fantasies, most of those didn't have a cutscene that brought you into a entirely different scene, it just used the same sprites on the same field but with scripted more emotive animations, I'd assume golden sun style dialog/cutscenes are so much easier to do and i fkn loved them
The only other genre that's as hard is fighting games, for the complete opposite reason. You have very few assets, comparatively, but each asset and its myriad possible interactions has to be utterly immaculate because that's the entire experience, and it needs to stand up to the highest possible scrutiny under fire.
I’ve been seeing these shorts for about a week now.. I’m not a dev but you really make me think about trying to pick it up and give it a go.. you sir. Deserve all the subs.
Normally I like this guy's stuff, but this feels like such a strange take. He is trying to relate creating a story-progressing cutscene with creating gameplay elements. Like, my guy, if you're making an RPG, you're likely going to create a mob of some kind - maybe a bat or a slime - that is going to be reused in half or more of the dungeons in your game, and the other half will have a pallet-swapped version! There are plenty of elements in an RPG that can be made and reused throughout that game, just as any element you create for a cutscene, whether it's an RPG, an FPS, or whatever is more than likely going to be single-use.
It is notable that you can avoid these issues by being economic with your time. In-game cutscenes are hard, but if you make a Visual Novel style framework they become easy even if they look less impressive. Prerender cutscenes from an animation program, etc. if youre worried about any individual features there may be crafty wats to achieve the same goal
"economic with your time" also known as "cutting corners" :'> at least if it is about lowering cut scene quality to save time, if you originally wanted a certain style and are now compromising for time. But even then, the games he brought up aren't exactly cinematic masterpieces, Undertale "cutscenes" are either slideshows of still images or sprites moving across the screen, it does not get more "economical". It still takes many years to make a game like that, due to the sheer amount of writing, branching paths and dialog options, insane amounts of npc-s and content variety. Versus if it was some sort of roguelike dungeon crawler with the same assets and style, where rooms were random generated, with very little dialog or story, and it is all about the bullet hell mini game. It could have been a 1 month pet project. Of course, it would probably not see the success it did, but it would have been quick to make.
@@aki-senkinn I think from this it's pretty clear you don't have much experience programming and that's fine, I just feel like this response comes from a place of not having the requisite experience. Every single game released has made dozens if not hundreds of compromises, doesn't matter if it has 1 or 1000 developers, compromising and "cutting corners" is not inherently a bad thing. Its most important to be able to recognize where you can cut corners and what is scope-creep. Look at a cutscene in undertale and compare it to a visual novel. A visual novel is just a few systems, you have some basic input, a dialogue system (which can be quite complex), and some sort of basic animation system that can apply animations to a sprite (plus swap them out). Now compare that to undertale where you entirely rewrite character controllers, build a basic custom scripting system to script movements and animations, animate every single action scene, time dialogue and have actions progress based on that, and so on. If you want to make an RPG, the visual novel style might be more practical. it's less work, easily scales with the available art budget, and avoids a lot of complex programming problems you may run into but obviously it's just a different way of accomplishing a similar goal. It's important as a developer to be able to recognize how key this feature is to your game, the specific impacts of it, and determine if it fits into the scope of your project. People incapable of doing this are often incapable of releasing games, code complexity is exponential and scope creep is terminal.
@@christophernoneya4635 I am a programmer, and while it's not my career anymore I have some smaller released hobby projects with small to moderate success. I understand the importance of compromises to be able to actually release something in less than a human lifetime. In my experience, while scope creep is a frequent issue, sanding a project down until barely anything is left is just as bad; either out of impatience, loss of drive, deadlines, lack of resources, or plain laziness just giving up on once cool features. I used to work in an environment with strict deadlines and having to cut the project to size, and back then I used to agree to your sentiments; but then it was also where i always got burnt out from every project very fast and i was mentally checked out by the end every time; and I just couldn't take any pride in anything ever that got released. I personally just think by now, if I cannot do a project properly and to it's fullest, then I will do a smaller project, that was always designed to be smaller in scope; instead of just cutting a bigger idea down until it is a bundle of wasted potential. Cutting small corners is one thing; lots of small things can add up to save tons of time; but if I'm at the point of changing genres then it's not that, at that point it's an entirely different game. In case of Undertale, turning it into a visual novel would completely miss the core idea of it being a subversion on classical RPG combat, and giving the option to befriend monsters; it would not be the same game, and probably not worth the time to make it at all.
I hear you, and was immediately reminded of Final Fantasy 7, how they had the arcade at the end that you could go to so you could replay all the minigames. THAT is a way to reuse content in an RPG. Edit : 3 words at the end.
Cutscenes? Really? I'd assume that the most time-consuming thing about RPGs is inventing skill trees and then balancing them, writing quests, dialogues, lore, etc., building the maps and so on. Fallout New Vegas, the best RPG of the last decade used almost no cutscenes.
He’s mostly stating things confidently. A lot of the shorts I’ve seen he makes absolute statements about some subject without much or any nuance. RPGs can definitely reuse content and ideas. You just have to be smart about how you do it. Statements like ”All of it is a one shot consumable. All of it” sound smart but it’s not true
I think he means that conversations/dialog or events can't be repeated (or at least shouldn't be, with the exception of anything time related). Arcade games as an example are mostly variations of the same idea with increasing complexity or novelty, anything with narrative woven into it will likely be lengthier to make.
But to your point, it's not absolute but a general majority. Your FPS could have every enemy be unique, but that's overkill and content reuse is acceptable in that genre. Repeating a quest? Less acceptable, it's done sometimes but when it is, it's typically critized.
Well, that was misleading. No, it’s not the cutscenes that make RPGs hard - you can outsource cutscenes, work on multiple at the same time, make them light etc etc. The hardest, though not necessarily the most time consuming, part are the intertwined systems and balance. All of these things you can make really hard - or relatively easy - for yourself. Then again, what are we even talking about here - RPG has become a catch all-term for games with some stats and an inventory. I used to play a golf MMORPG - guess how many cutscenes the game had? :)
The cutscenes point is rock solid, but you are also effectively making a world, even if you make a point of keeping conversations down to a paragraph for your first rpg meant for practice, you still are generally wanting to put sooo many details to make the world feel alive.
@@trash-heap3989yep! In a shooter game you can just say it takes place during the Cold War and then boom. Decades of interesting stuff to use! But an RPG? Man, even a boring “typical” high fantasy RPG still needs all this new information to make its game world unique
Yeah its basicly like creating story, world, and so on, but other type of games tend to be creating just addictive gameplay that basicly repeats itself, and has high replay. Playing through rpg is like watching movie or reading book you are less likely to pickup those medias immediately again, but you have to create them in way the media is encaging that whole time during that experience. Basicly like his example of cutscenes in rpg everything is one time consumable even though takes longer to create like cutscenes you watch usually that one time then just dont care about seen that scene anymore
I mean kinda fair but cutscenes are the worst part of RPGs. It's unplayable content. Why would I buy a game to watch a cutscene when I can just watch a movie? EDIT: all the fun parts of RPGs are just as recyclable as FPS games. All the combat, textures, models, enemies, themes, level designs, etc. just need to be tweaked as it progresses.
This relies on the assumption that every RPG requires cutscenes. Every traditional RL completely defecates on the idea that nothing is reusable. Sure, if FNAF Security Breach is an RPG and Daggerfall isn't, then this works. My man, you've been in games long enough to know that RPG is the worst "genre" to generalise because three's pretty much no other term that means more different things depending on who you ask.
I believe he is talking about just a completely different mindset of what kind of game you are making. Most RPGs are designed story first and gameplay second, with most stories being completely linear experiences with no replay value, so you have to be happy that cutscenes will features lots of hard work that will never be used in gameplay. Indie genres like roguelikes function more like arcade games, where almost everything will be seen and used more than once intentionally, often using it as much as possible to avoid having to add more assets and work to the project.
@@cattysplat Nah, this is untrue. Designing a game story first, gameplay second just doesn't work. In practice, you're constantly making concessions to the systems for the game to not just be fun, but even **playable**. Most RPGs are designed *with narrative systems* in mind, this is true, but the story itself, aside from maybe a high-concept outline, is usually a pretty late addition. Heck, even the high-concept outline often gets chucked in the trash. Being a videogame writer is a super tough job because of this -- they're usually brought in too late, with too few tools, and expected to work miracles in the first draft. There's a game called "The Writer Will Do Something" that is very famous within gamedev circles that I recommend playing. Every games writer I know swears by it.
Another part he didn't mention are dialog trees. Not only do you have to make unique lines when talking to a character, but pretty much every option you make, you need like 3 more for that single option, then 3 more, then 3 more, and on and on. Then you'll have to make sure all the lines match with the story and don't conflict each other, then for larger games like Fallout, you'll need to voice each and every one of those lines. And I'm fairly sure there's some RPGs where you can change your character's voice with like 8 different options, so you'll need 7 more va's to do them. Sticking to Fallout, FNV cut down a lot of the va work by not voicing any of the Courier's lines, but Fo4 had 2 possible characters that actually spoke, and the way they dealt with that is by dramatically reducing the amount of branches you could take in dialogue.
There's also the part where it was announced Prior to the entire world having to change in order to deal and handle Basically everything that has been happening since then That's also caused a huge shift in things and altered time frames
@@NoName...... To be fair, it might be for the better they're trying not to build too much hype, especially when they're trying to basically make something better than hollow knight, as No Man's Sky can attest took them Years to finally deliver on the hype and promises made
I mean Hollow knight took three years to develop even more if you consider the fact that concept started further bacm. So it's pretty much in line with it's development time so far.
I will say, making loads of balanced, fun, and unique weapons for a (good) multiplayer shooter (think tf2 if they never stopped updating it) isn’t easy. But yeah, easier that constantly designing/creating new quests, dungeons, npcs, lines of dialogue, etc, etc, etc
I would venture to say that RPG's are not the most difficult thing to make, for example a fps needs all kinds of systems in place for things like hit registration, and require a 3d environment, even if it's like Doom, and platformers need physics systems. RPGs don't require any of that, just a text system, sprites and button mapping at minimum, the real programming challenge of RPGs is just how MUCH you have to make
So you're saying that Witcher 3, rdr2, bg3, and Many more open world rpg games don't need hit reg( when they slash their sword or shoot guns or arrow), 3d environment (are you saying these open world games are 2d?), and physics where u literally ride horses and get dragged when you fall due to inertia?
@@bhandos9062 You missed the point completely and ended up just strawmmaning the OP entirely. Picking RPG's that have components the OP said aren't nessecary doesn't make them nessecary for RPG's. Its nessecary for those games in particular but not for RPG's as a whole. You can make an rpg in 2d, with turn based combat using no physics at all. (Early JRPG's do this or even stuff like Fallout 1/2 do most of these). So no these are not nessecary components to make an RPG they are optional and their inclusion depends on the game.
So, as someone who regularly plays around with old-school style text-based/turn-based RPGs and modding things: You are either not knowing enough about the subject, or not being honest in your assessments. RPGs aren't 'just a text system, sprites, and button mapping'. To make that claim overlooks basically any and all interaction mechanics and the balancing thereof. Which takes a LOT of time to do, and a lot of pre-planning to have a hope of not having to go back to the drawing board on something every few weeks. You also vastly overrate how hard it is to set up a 3D environment while actively pretending sprites aren't far more dfficult/time-consuming to work with. A 3d model can, once made, be animated to do just about anything. You can get away with using a single person model for DOZENS of unique entities by slapping different heads or prefab clothes on it while re-using extant animations. Sprites on the other hand, require not only an extra level of artistic coherency, but also CAN'T really be reused in the same way 3d models can, especially in animation. You are limited to palette-swapping for that, at best. A cutscene in a 3d game might be made with pre-existing models, simply animated and framed in different ways by the camera. A cutscene for a sprite-based game that doesn't involve characters 'wiggling' at each other, involves redrawing the entire sprite from the idle pose through every frame of animation, for EACH AND EVERY new movement you want them to do. The higher you go in resolution, the more WORK involved in that, assuming you aren't 'faking' the sprites by using 3D models and some filters to create the sprites. There is, to my knowledge, no IK or procgen for sprites, with even motion tweening requiring a lot more work to make it look okay than what modern 3D requires.
I think you're all underestimating each others genre and a lot of cherry picking. Like wtf rpg game are you playing in 2024 that it's all text based and it's sprite???? Rpg maker games??? Or games dedicated to bring back old school rpgs like say octopath traveler? And even then there's a lot of effort still involve in that.
I completely see your point you're making, and I do agree. But that is a crap example. Think of all the spells, attacks, whatever thematically fits into your RPG and that's what gets used 'millions' of times. You are right, but poor example.
Adventure games (or action-adventures) tend to have a lot of cutscenes, too. And FPS tend to be a lot like action-adventures these days Cutscenes aren't usually the primary gameplay loop of RPGs, it's mostly still combat and dialogues - the video isn't being entirely honest. One could argue that dialogues are effectively like cutscenes in presentation in triple-A RPGs nowadays, but modern games have automated solutions for non-major conversations. No one hand-crafts a conversation with generic NPC#874
Wait I don't understand. You can build a cutscene in any genre of game even FPS, platformer or arcade and it will be a one time use. Similarly, you can build the way bullets work in RPG games and it will be reusable. I don't think your examples make any sense.
Building an RPG is harder for many reasons. I feel like cutscenes is one of the weakest of those reasons. Idk, maybe the fact that many RPGs have highly sophisticated worlds and lore with many different paths that could each be made into a linear game on their own is harder than cutscenes? That’s just me though.
Yeah im not entirely sure about that one. Those games took so long mostly because they were VERY small teams. The whole "building a cutscene and throwing it away" just doesnt make sense. Why go through the hassle of building something for so long just to scrap it but keep the framework? Make the framework first, THEN experiment. Dont just go hog wild and create a cutscene from scratch and complete it down to the last detail if you know you're going to throw it away. That's just bad strategy, and a poor management of your time and resources.
Why would you make a short and just say "helldivers 2" over and over again? Fine ill use some sick time to spread democracy, just get off my back about it.
This isn't computing for me. I thought the thing that took long in an RPG was skill trees, items, levelling mechanics, etc. But cutscenes? You can have cutscenes in FPS too I don't see how that's specific to RPGs?
It goes beyond just throwing it away. Because you knowingly put your passion into something you know for a fact that some people are going to skip and ignore. An RPG is a labor of love to an audience that will never find everything you make.
Amen to that. Never take a good RPG for granted, even if it's a shorter experience from 3 to 8 hours long. Because the reason what they have is good is because each memorable sequence likely has as much condensed effort poured in it as you would put in an entire stage in some other genres.
I don't understand this. Most RPGs have extremely rigid animations when characters are talking to each other because they have some kind of system where they have a pool of animations that are randomly chosen or whatever for each dialogue. There are lots of non-rpg games which have cutscenes with high production quality and unique animations for each. Like, isn't a call of duty cutscene where every characters is using high quality motion captured animation way more complicated than making an RPG cutscene where characters are just standing in front of each other and moving their mouths a bit.
Comparing a cut scene to shooting bullets seems like an odd comparison. An fps can have cut scenes too (they usually do). Shooting bullets is the (combat-) game play of the fps But instead of just getting dropped in another tube formed shooting stand, In an RPG you've got to make a whole connected world where you can go anywhere at anytime and get side tracked anytime all the while this whole mess of blood sweat and duct tape needs to hold up will enough to keep up the illusion of a consistent world.
and and, also, fps games have a ton of replayability due to more freedom in gameolay, making you remember the game in a bigger picture more effectively.
has this guy ever made a video where he says anything that is actually true? this guy is just one big pseudo intellectual who dabbled in some things and now thinks he knows everything. but almost everything he says is only partially true or just flat out wrong.
As someone who's getting into development and chose my first game as an RPG, it's most tempting to release it as an Early Access game. I damn well know it'll take 10 years to get done, and most companies do not hire off of unshipped games
While all the said about RPGs is true, it's false to assume other genres don't have this issue. I mean, sure, brainless rogue lite wave shooters may not have cutscenes, but every story driven shooter does!
