What is important in an Action RPG?

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

This is for all the ARPG players here.

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

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



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

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

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

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



Looking forward to your replies!

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

Short but useful answer. Thanks.

Keep em coming!

[Ⓥenom Ⓢnake 🐍]

1. I usually associate ARPG's with time sinks. What immediately comes to mind, given how varied a lot of these games can look and play, is menu screens full of stats, zp, skill trees, and loot to sort.
2. Usually too heavy a focus on either the Action or the RPG elements leaving the other half fairly weak. The action is either clunky or unfun, or the plot or character elements are weak, which can turn a game from 40+ hours of fun into a few hours and find something more entertaining to do.
3. Strong story elements, reasonable character options, and the action needs to be solid and fun. Something with replay value to see other options from stories or character builds, or tons of side content to drag me back to check out all the nooks and crannies.
4. Honestly, Overloads of DLC, single player microtransactions, and too many sequels. What I would hope for, is expanded interactivity through character selection and choices, as well as interactions with the environment. Plus a little more immersion. Let me scan my ugly mug into the game ala Rainbow Six.

[Polverrati]

1. Thoughts tend to go to the world design, and the combat as that's a big thing that sets ARPGs apart from others.

2.Builds and leveling. Some get it right, like Dark Souls, Dragons Dogma, or Oblivion, some do the bare minimum like Skyrim, or some just make it too easy to create broken demigod like characters, like Fallout 4.

3.I pretty much just look into a few things, I don't really have a check list before buying a game, I'll watch some trailers and if it looks good I'll pick it up.

4. I expect them to degrade in quality. What I want though, is less dumbing down, less hand holding, and no more glorifying everything we do. I don't need to be patted on the back for opening a door, looking at you Legate Rikke (Skyrim)

[TwinEdgedBastard]

1. Good combat.
2. Bad combat.
3. Is its combat just as good as Diablo 2s combat?
4. Good combat.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

There's sort of two lineages of ARPGs (correct me or comment if you have a different perspective, because I'm not too well-versed in this genre): the "AJRPG" and the "AWRPG". The action JRPG is more likely to have you controlling your character directly and examples include the Ys games, Secret of Mana, Terranigma, Fortune Summoners, and so on. (And then there's the Tales and Summon Night Swordcraft Story games that use action combat, but have dedicated battle screens; I'm not really sure what to consider them but they're much closer to the traditionally-turn-based JRPG.) The action WRPG is more likely to have you controlling your character indirectly, and examples include Diablo and Torchlight. Also there's less distinction between non-action WRPG and action WRPG because WRPGs in general don't use turn-based combat as much. FWIW I've played fewer AWRPGs (basically just Torchlight), so I don't know it as well. My comments will, of course, be drawn from my own experiences.

I haven't really thought of this distinction too well, so I'm actually not really sure where to place games like Gauntlet and the SoulsBorne games.

(Also the Zelda games are basically things that look like RPGs but are more like metroidvanias in their ability advancement. Just a thought. For similar reasons, I'm hesitant to consider Gurumin an RPG.)

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

Fast-paced real-time combat. Mobility. Exploration, with good sense of atmosphere.

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

I can't say I've played enough, but I can address some criticisms I have of specific games.
* Secret of Mana - has weird hitboxes, and also requires the weapon swing to be 'recharged' before dealing significant damage (compare the 2D Zelda games).
* Torchlight - I understand that part of the point of this game is the massive amounts of loot, but I don't think that that's something I personally enjoy. I'd rather have more exploration and combat and less loot. Also I prefer direct control of my player character.
* Fortune Summoners - this game has excellent atmosphere and music, but its gameplay is just really unforgiving. I get that that's the point, and props on making a game that actually rewards learning the movesets and punishes button-mashing, but that's not really my thing -- I would have preferred a simpler combat system, based on positioning and movement, rather than having a variety of button combos that do a variety of moves.

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

* I want the controls to be really tight and responsive. Preferably fast-paced. I also typically go for faster-attacking weapons, over ones that do input delay, though I can deal if need be.
* I'd also prefer for the visuals to be really clear about the action -- no "there's smoke and explosions everywhere and I can't see anything".
* I'd like to see that there's many areas to explore and lots to see.
* I can't really check this when buying an ARPG, but when I do play one, I often get to feel whether and when a game becomes "tedious", such as with lots of repetitive quests or grinding or having to slog through some rooms full of enemies again that just serves to slow me down. Keeping the gameplay speedy and smooth is probably a good priority. May I suggest combining mobility moves and attacks?

One fun feature of Ys I and Ys II, which I've not yet seen in any other game, is its "bump system". Earlier versions of Ys I don't do it well but the version on PC does it excellently -- it makes combat really really fast, simple, and all about movement and movement tactics. That said, a more typical system -- where you press a button to swing your sword (see Zelda for an obvious example, again) isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course.

(In general I'm very satisfied with the Ys games I've played.)

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

I don't know.

[King Of Nothing]

The combat must be interesting and the game has to offer the possibility of switching weapons and offering various combat styles.

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

Interesting answers so far.
Maybe I can make a small summary if more people answer.

Originally posted by Quint, Queen of the Giant Rabbit:

There's sort of two lineages of ARPGs (correct me or comment if you have a different perspective, because I'm not too well-versed in this genre): the "AJRPG" and the "AWRPG".

There definitely are those 2 types, regardless of what you call them.
Regarding games like Dark Souls and Witcher:
I would differentiate between Hack 'n Slay ARPGs, like Diablo etc. and what I would just call standard ARPG which includes japanese games and western games, both old and new. Those can either be WRPG or JRPG, but that basically just means where they are from in my opinion.

To be really specific, I don't even consider Diablo or Torchlight to be ARPGs. Those games are mostly about stats and less about player skill and also the controls aren't really that direct, they are more like real-time turn based rpgs if that makes sense.

Also thank you for your detailed answer.

[Mossy Snake]

Originally posted by Bolts_Of_Steel:

This is for all the ARPG players here.

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

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

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

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



Looking forward to your replies!

1. Large open world; Deep, semi-strategy based gameplay; Narrative-Based progression

2. They are usually either too simple, too complex, or extremely clunky

3. Gameplay, Environment (world), Music, Lore.

I really want more ARPGs (Action-RPGs, correct?) similar to Xenoblade 1...

[Brick]

1. Large open world

Open world are MUSTS for ARPGS these days. The people who run gaming blogs praise Open Worlds and little hidden areas and easter eggs, etc.
I haven't bought Skyrim, but open world is one of the reasons why it is popular.

[edger]

Lootboxes

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by Bolts_Of_Steel:

Interesting answers so far.
Maybe I can make a small summary if more people answer.

Originally posted by Quint, Queen of the Giant Rabbit:

There's sort of two lineages of ARPGs (correct me or comment if you have a different perspective, because I'm not too well-versed in this genre): the "AJRPG" and the "AWRPG".

There definitely are those 2 types, regardless of what you call them.
Regarding games like Dark Souls and Witcher:
I would differentiate between Hack 'n Slay ARPGs, like Diablo etc. and what I would just call standard ARPG which includes japanese games and western games, both old and new. Those can either be WRPG or JRPG, but that basically just means where they are from in my opinion.

To be really specific, I don't even consider Diablo or Torchlight to be ARPGs. Those games are mostly about stats and less about player skill and also the controls aren't really that direct, they are more like real-time turn based rpgs if that makes sense.

Also thank you for your detailed answer.

So how would you classify them? Like this?

* hack-and-slash/dungeon diving ARPGs, e.g. Diablo, Torchlight
* standard ARPG, e.g. Secret of Mana, Terranigma, SoulsBorne, Gauntlet, (Witcher?)

[edger]

Originally posted by Spoopy Toast:

Originally posted by Bastion:

Lootboxes

no.

in-game loot obtained from chests and enemies = good.

paid loot = bad.

Hmm it's almost like I wasn't serious

[Thop]

I feel like a lot of games don't balance out the RPG and game play to well. Sometimes there's to much grind for an action game, some games let you look in you inventory mid fight and eat twenty healing items, the plot is almost always an autitic mess, and the difficulty ramps up and down like a roller coaster.

Aside from the stuff above, ARPGs are my favorite genre, and theres usually some way to tweak the stuff above to be ok.

[Bolts_Of_Steel]

Originally posted by Quint, Queen of the Giant Rabbit:

So how would you classify them? Like this?

* hack-and-slash/dungeon diving ARPGs, e.g. Diablo, Torchlight
* standard ARPG, e.g. Secret of Mana, Terranigma, SoulsBorne, Gauntlet, (Witcher?)

Yes, great summary of what I wrote. Sorry for not making that so clear.

I find those 2 types to be significantly different.
The first one is more about having good enough stats, the right build and most of all the right items to kill your enemies faster than they kill you while you trade hits. Also you don't really have to aim at enemies, just pointing is enough. So the main challenge here is to cleverly optimize the stats of your character one way or another.
The latter one, regardless of where the game is from, requires the player to control their character in a way that allows them to actually hit the enemies and also trying to evade the attacks of the enemies. So the main challenge here is to optimize your ability to control that character.

[Frezmo]

Mechanics