Combat
To use Bioware as my example again, the developer is well know for offering pausable real-time combat. The first example of this was in their first RPG, Baldur's Gate (PC), and before Mass Effect 2, the only game that didn't offer it was Jade Empire (Xbox, PC). All other Bioware RPGs have used this combat system.
What pausable real-time combat offers is an interesting, strategic experience. It allows you to pause game play and then change weapons, drink healing potions, give specific combat orders to other party members, and more. It lets you think about the situation, look over the various options, and then change your strategy on the fly. And you can do it without worrying about someone or something killing you while you're doing it.
Furthermore, combat in such games is not twitch driven. Roll dies take place in the game engine that decide how effective an attack is, for example, which means it's not about how well you as the player happen to center an aiming reticle over an enemy. The game looks at your character, his or her stats, the enemy, and other factors, and decides, somewhat randomly, how well you did.
So while you certainly have to have skill, it's not just in the amount of dexterity you can muster. It's also about how well you understand character development, the enemy, your inventory, and the sorts of strategic decisions you make while engaged in combat. And since this sort of knowledge takes time to learn, your mastery of it won't be instantaneous, which means that subsequent play throughs can add to that mastery and can offer interesting experiences.
For Mass Effect 2, Bioware didn't take away the ability to pause combat, but they changed the shooting mechanic from heavily relying on stats to relying more on how well players can shoot. It became important to aim successfully and the game changed from offering strategic combat to literally being a shooter. That was a major design goal and reviewers and gamers generally agree that Bioware succeeded.
The problem from a replayability standpoint with such a decision is that shooters are not unique. Some first person shooters, like Modern Warfare, are extremely successful, with online multiplayer being a large focus of the game, and many people play such games for months or even years. But most shooters don't succeed. Most shooters are throwaway affairs that may last for ten or more hours and then fall by the wayside.
More importantly, though, is that almost everyone knows how a shooter works, which means there isn't much of a learning curve with this type of combat. This is probably why Bioware chose to make Mass Effect 2 a shooter. They wanted anyone to be able to pick up and play the game, which then opens up the market for the series.
But the downside is significant to those of us who enjoy replaying RPGs. If combat is no longer strategic, and the decisions I make in developing my character have little bearing on combat, then one play through versus another will seem basically the same. Instead of being able to learn how best to fight, which takes into account everything from how I developed my character to which items I equipped on my party to what orders I give them while in combat, all I have to know is how to use a controller to shoot.
This is gonna be long and I apologize.
I'd think the bigger stumbling block to character development would be less the lack of options than the sheer pointlessness. I mean compare the two from a practical perspective. Sure you get more out of it early on, but those 2 points per level can't be coasted on for very long. In short order you reach a stage where you have no choice but to sit on points waiting till you can afford anything. How is that better than small but continuous upgrades.
Combat-wise I can't say I agree really. There may be less of a learning curve, but the act itself is more dynamic. I sucked hard my first time through ME1, in no small part because I believe I was expecting a shooter. However my later playthroughs didn't make the combat any more engaging. Practically every fight boiled down to the same rote pattern. Take cover, pick a target, shoot until your shield drains or your gun beeps. Repeat. There were variances of course, but that pattern could get you through the majority of the game. And the only outside consideration with any significant effect on combat was your ammo mod. Obviously you'd want your best gun equipped, but the mods were the only real "tactical" concern. Or you could just Sledgehammer everything.
I was actually just thinking about the inventory system switch up the other day. It seems to exemplify the overarching problem. I have the long term memory of a drop of water, so this is something I've been wondering if it actually happened. Am I the only one who remembers reading comments from Bioware about how they were aware of player grievances with certain parts of the first game; i.e. the inventory & Mako? And how they were sure players would be pleased with the changes/overhaul made to these problem areas? If I am then I guess its moot. Just go ahead and ignore me. If it actually happened then I don't really know what to think. Except that perhaps I've been underestimating the creative power of my keyboard "Delete" key. I understand that practically everything in the first game was worthless, but that seems more a fault of either: the random loot generation, the obvious and massive discrepancies between different pieces, or the very existance of SPECTRE gear.
I'm curious now. What about the story bothered you?
Robert, I'll address each of your points:
1) In ME2 character development for me seems dry and somewhat pointless. One skill seems just as good as another, and I personally don't feel a lot of differentiation between classes, skills, etc., which means one character, skill, etc, is as good as another. But maybe it just feels that way to me but isn't really that way. I have thought about this a lot though, so regardless, there is where I'm at about this.
2) Combat in ME1 felt really stragetic to me. Not every little battle necessarily, but the bigger battles took some effort in terms of character placement, skill selection, etc. Now I almost never changed ammo, and I didn't do that either in ME2 (selecting an ammo type in ME2 felt like just selecting another skill - again, it all had a certain sameness to it), but I did make sure that certain characters used certain weapons or skills, and it all took a certain amount of planning and skill to accomplish. Yes, AI of characters and enemies wasn't great, my party routinely killed itself, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it.
3) Yes, Bioware took player feedback and revised just about everything. I can't see that as a ringing endorsement for the changes. I also don't see the high review scores as an endorsement. There are plenty of games I see as crap that get high scores and vice-versa. My point isn't that the inventory system in ME1 was awesome, but instead that it gave the player flexibility and let them customize the party as they saw fit. ME2 just does it for you and the options you are given don't you me a lot of freedom.
4) You may have been kidding but I don't agree that everything in ME1 was worthless. To me it was a great game with some relatively minor graphical issues, some clunkiness, but I don't think it needed a complete overhaul.
5) The story in ME1 was about Shepard and his realization that a huge intergalactic crisis was in play. ME2 took a small segment of that and made a game about it. It took away an investigation and encounters where I as the player felt like I was in control and instead made Shepard the instrument of what we had assumed was a terrorist organization of some sort.
ME2 as an action adventurish side story to the main series would have been awesome. Something that played differently, was streamlined, but wasn't a true extension of the main story. Then it wouldn't matter that it's story centered on the party members instead of the true center of the ME universe. But to take a huge left turn and suddenly say, "Hey, remember ME1? Well, we don't. Instead let's give you an action game in hopes we can make more money this time around."
And I realize that Bioware can do whatever it wants. I'm not asking for anyone to agree with me. But I am really disturbed by this trend, and as I see Bioware look at Dragon Age and how they can make it more accessible to console gamers, it makes me realize that maybe it's time to return to the PC.
Absolutely brilliant piece Gary! I 100% agree with you, and this article very clearly enunciates my precise feelings about the ME1 vs ME2 debate. ME1 was pure genius and I played through it three times in a row non-stop! I've never done that before with any other game. And it wasn't until my fourth playthrough recently (right before ME2 came out) that I discovered a totally awesome weapon combination allowing infinite crazy powerful shots plus I finally found some very secret backstory I'd never found before.
Anyway, ME2 I completed and enjoyed like you did because ME2 definitely has incredible production values. But I too had zero interest in playing it again. I wanted to have interest, I really did, but it felt so hollow. I even tried starting over but I found myself getting very annoyed at the same repetitive combat. And understand, I'm a hardcore FPS player as well as hardcore RPG player.
As you point out, ME2’s RPG elements were really completely pointless. Stats, character levels, ect all meant almost nothing. I felt like I was playing Uncharted or something when playing ME2.
I also agree 100% that the ME2 story was so completely contrived and silly. ME1 was epic. How anyone can think ME2’s story was good is beyond me…
Anyway, your article nailed it. ME2 is just shallow and doesn't allow for any further inventiveness in subsequent playthroughs. And I actually preferred the combat in ME1, I never once got bored of fighting during my four playthroughs. And I really enjoyed the inventory system in ME1. Of course, I also adored the Mako exploration segments (exploring distant planets in hopes of finding rare and powerful artifacts=awesome!). And yes, I realize I'm in the 0.001% minority.
I agree that games like ME1, Oblivion, and Alpha Protocol give players true reasons to replay them because they are deep enough to allow gamers to express themselves over and over each time. Games like ME2 allow gamers to express almost nothing. ME2 didn't allow me to have my own ME2 experience but rather the prepackaged ME2 experience, just like so many others like Uncharted, BioShock, Singularity, ect. It's the "me creating my own world" vs "me visiting someone else's world" juxtaposition of ME1 vs ME2 that I found so striking.
To conclude, thanks again for the article. I also hope BioWare reconsiders and makes ME3 more like ME1 because the last thing we need is more 10 hour throw-away shooters!
@Gary
Regarding Item management, thats actually sorta what I meant. Between that and the Mako it seems like they spent so much time listening to people complain, they couldn't seem to hear anyone who actually enjoyed them. I for one was looking forward to any number of tweaks to the same basic formula. A more efficient equipment screen setup & maybe some sort of improvement to the Mako; make it faster or more dynamic to control for example. Or just give us stuff to do in it, generally speaking. Instead they just got axed completely, all the while we were hearing about all the "improvements" that had been made.
And the worthless comment was directed to the majority of the game's equipment/loot, not the game itself. Even if you ignored the SPECTRE gear completely, once you figure out each weapon's best "brand" you never have to switch again. A low level "good" weapon was almost always better than/equal to a mid-high level competitor weapon.
Of the two games, I hands down got far more replayability out of ME1. I havent touched ME2 since my initial playthrough, which is exactly what I did with Gears of War, so I guess thats another area Bioware expertly copied Epic.
I think this article did a very good job of breaking things down into different parts, but personally for me the main reason above all the smaller ones as to why ME2s replayability was so non-existent is because of how the game is built. It really is about 90% just one off shooting galleries completely disconneted from any sort of gameworld.
If Im to play ME3, that is probably the foremost thing Bioware would need to remedy: the lifeless shooting gallery gameworld. Oh sure, in terms of visuals and layout it beats those damn boring prefabs of ME1, but when the cost is spending most of your gametime behind cover in shooting galleries, and you see that the "hubs" have been turned into bland little shopping malls, I think the cost was too high.
Mind you, most shooter games, which is what ME2 really is, derive their replayability from multiplayer, and since it look set for ME3 to recieve that, Im left wondering if ME3 is going to be just like ME2, and built as a shooter.
I mean after all, this article is about RPG replayability, and RPG is something that Bioware look to perhaps be moving away from. "The future of RPGs" according to some is a Gears of War clone with dialogue system you can barely influence. Im not surprised some of us are finding the replayability takes a massive nosedive.
Thanks everyone. I appreciate the comments.
I see Bioware and Bethesda as the two big Western RPG developers. They have both been creating big, expansive RPGs with incredible worlds for quite some time now. But while Bethesda's RPGs used to be kind of flat experiences, they are now incredible. Morrowind for example was an excellent but to me still felt kind of one dimensional, while Bioware's RPGs have always felt more fully realized. But with Oblivion, Bethesda really knocked it out of the park, streamlining things where it counted but making the world more interesting. And with Fallout 3, they finally learned how to tell a better story, make quests much better, and further improved things like character customization and inventory management.
Conversely, Bioware has gone in the other direction. As they become more and more story driven, they appear to be turning themselves into an action game developer. Maybe that's more important to them? Maybe they don't really care about the RPG trappings and what they really want to do is create interactive movies. A modern day Cinemaware perhaps? And that's fine as far as creating experiences that probably sell well and are highly rated.
But as far as I'm concerned, those kinds of games are not replayable. For me they are diversions that help me wait for big Western RPGs. I guess my point is if Bioware continues this way, we'll lose yet another great RPG developer, and there aren't enough around for us to lose anymore.