Stat progression is really one way in which I feel RPGs *should* innovate more; in fact, one reason I like the SaGa series is that it does this. Many of the games have stats gained based on your actions, and a few of the games (1, 2, and Frontier 1) even have different races with entirely different growth systems. For example, you have characters who get random stats from battle, those whose stats come solely from equipment (and who aren't bound by body slot limitations and therefore can equip multiple suits of armor at once), and even those whose form, stats, and abilities completely change whenever they eat monster meat!

On a side note, for whatever this subject is worth:

I think Morrowind is a true RPG. It's just a really bad one, that is nevertheless saved by it's amazing world and sense of immersion and possibility within it.

Character advancement is clearly the axle about which accomplishment within the game turns. The game is about as "action RPG" as a 90's Might and Magic game with one character instead of a party (and no turn-based mode).

It's a bad RPG, because despite the primacy of the progression system, that progression system just so happens to be a wreck. It's either redundant, full of over-powered options that reduce planning to a simplistic choice between better and worse, is therefore largely void of strategy, and what attempt it makes at sophistication only succeeds at making the system ass-backwards and rich for exploitation.

So there you go:
It's a bad (but true) RPG, and an amazing game.

Suppose that you had a game that played exactly like a turn-based RPG, except that there's no progression system; your stats and abilities stay the same throughout the entire game. Is that game still an RPG? (I would say yes.)

To directly above, yes. That would just be an odd, unorthodox RPG that I probably wouldn't like.

The key is that you have to play your role in the story and the story must progress. Your stats don't need to progress, but you must be able to progress through the game, and there must be a chain of events that you progress through, even if it's not a pre-written story. And the simulation of you existing and progressing through those events must be sensible and attempt to be accurate in some way, as opposed to being based purely on gameplay actions. Without exception, any RPG must allow you to play your way, providing you with the option of playing it with minimal physical gameplay if you so desire. And statistical calculation must be a vital, immutable part of all intrinsic gameplay mechanics in the game.

Essentially, an RPG controls and affects the player as the player controls and affects the RPG. And when we're talking about games where the player plays through an avatar (or avatars) of some kind, no other kind of game does this.

Now, looking through the rest of the stuff in this thread...

It IS true, and sad in a way, that we in the West have by now abandoned RPGs for the most part. They don't bring in the bucks, maybe. But talking about Doom and Duke Nukem in a discussion about RPGs is quite stupid and unnecessary. And yes, any standard FPS just becomes a slow, Rainbow Six-like tactical FPS when it's turn-based.

I feel like this is self-evident. Those games are so far-removed from RPGs that it's like you're asking me why my foot is not an RPG. The better question would be what about them makes them RPGs? Nothing. There you go.

I smirked at your first paragraph BTW, that was funny. ^_^

And yes, Jermun, I would have no known objections to talking with you before I know what you have to say. xD I just wanted to clarify that I'm virtually 100% confident that I'm not wrong about anything I've said in this thread. smirk

That can be named as perfectly "optimized" level-scaling. And it shows its very essence: absence of absolute character progression.

Speaking about it. Recently, when some new (new for me) RPG catches my attention, I caught myself that I first google if this game has level scaling (as well as no respawn) or not.

Also I'd say that if your starting character(s) can finish the game without levelling even once and without upgrading themselves in any other way (learning new skills, getting new gear), then this game is quite weak as RPG. It means that either this game relies too much on dexterity skills, or it has too much reliance on RNG (so you can save-scum your way till very end).

There's still a difference. In this hypothetical game, the monster formations would get trickier, with late-game enemies being able to kill you easily before you learn how to deal with them.

Interestingly, one thought I had regards Final Fantasy 8 (which I have not played). That game has level scaling, but also allows you to grow stronger without leveling up by using the junction system. I have been thinking, however, what if they removed leveling entirely but kept the junction system? (Of course, make enemy strength increase as you progress through the game; maintaining a proper difficulty curve makes this essentially mandatory.)

Leaving aside all the numerous gameplay issues with FF8, I think that removal of leveling in any RPG makes it boring. The whole point of those games is to kill dragon to get experience and loot to be able to kill dragon in the next dungeon, there you get experience and loot to kill the next dragon, etc.

RPGs without leveling (or any similar means of substantial character progress) are like fighting games without combos, or platform games without jumping, etc.

Said game would have a means of character progress; as you progress, you get stronger spells, and those spells can in turn be junctioned to your stats, allowing your stats to improve as the game progresses.

I could see, in a similar vein, an RPG with Metroid-style progression. You would not get any stronger by killing enemies; rather, there are various items in the game world that, when collected, will permanently boost your stats. In your example, you wouldn't get experience by killing the dragon, but perhaps the dragon guards some item that boosts your stats, then you go to the next dungeon, get all the power-ups there, kill the dragon (who may be guarding another power-up), and so on. In this game, there would be a strong incentive to explore (this approach might work really well for an open world game), but no incentive for fighting the same enemies over and over.

(An interesting example here: Try playing SaGa 2 (either original or DS remake) with a party containing only robots. While the English Game Boy version manual advises against this party, it actually works really well (aside from the lack of magic, though the DS version fixes this), and can be quite fun. The interesting thing about this party is that the only way to get stronger is through equipment (though money earned from battles helps with this), but your equipment options are flexible enough to allow for significant stat customization, and you can even give different robots different roles (and the DS version even adds robot mages as another option).)

If everyone's favorite Nordic nanny-state simulator, Skyrim, can be said to have enough of an emphasis on the importance of character progression to be considered an RPG, then it does beg the question of why other games that use progression and perk systems, like FarCry, aren't.

If you find it frustrating that I'm pushing a comparison that may seem silly to you, you should know that if it really is silly, then there's surely a logical reason why it's so silly. Please share that reason with me. I really am curious.

I for one, do believe that Skyrim is at least closer to the mark of what makes a game an RPG than FarCry is (even if I wouldn't call either an RPG), but I would like to see the borders solidly defined from your perspective. That's why I asked the question.

First of all, just to be clear, I do not find any of what you have said to be frustrating. The only thing I didn't like was when you suggested I was a little bit wrong. Nothing else you've said has bothered me at all. I have rather enjoyed the remainder of what you've said here.

As to that reason you mention, I feel like the easiest and simplest way to get to the heart of this matter - if also the most primitive - is simply to say that literally every single real-time first-person RPG ever created is almost exactly like what is probably the first one ever made: Dungeons of Daggorath from 1982. Like, you can play that game and it feels virtually exactly like playing Might and Magic 8. Or even Morrowind or Deus Ex, for the most part, if you can mentally survive the tech-jump, and the feel of the obvious movement differences. And that's because in every way that really matters, those are all the same games. If you could walk around in the code, you'd see the same structures everywhere you looked. If Dungeons of Daggorath looks like Portland, Oregon, then every other real-time first-person RPG created since then would look to you just like another US city, rather than like you were walking around on another planet, with structures that Martians might have built.

Far Cry, on the other hand, would look completely different. That would very much appear to be the barren landscape of the red planet, just as when we play it and we all immediately recognize just how vastly different it is from, say, Might and Magic 8, which is a direct result of the underlying structures looking nothing alike. Everything in a FPS is based on visual display, gameplay mechanics such as movement, and trajectories - there's no underlying systems that we would always, always see everywhere we look in an RPG. There's nothing beneath Far Cry outside of the engine. In fact, if you were to crack it open, that's pretty much what you would see: a supremely well-developed, fancy-ass engine with some art sitting on top. And that's pretty much it.

But that just alternate leveling system (progressing via junction).

That's also alternate leveling system (progressing via equipment).

Problem with those alternate leveling systems is that they are secondary to standard leveling, and they are there to give more depth to character progress, and more of those moments of feeling the progress (got level up - cool, nought new armor - great, upgraded armor - super, unlocked some permanent stat increase, etc..).

RPGs should have meaningful character progress, and I think that making progression systems more thin only makes it worse.

And I have a feeling the game might have been better if it had taken that approach, instead of trying to mix it with character leveling and enemy level scaling.

I really wish more RPGs would try different character growth systems. (There's a reason I like the SaGa series.)

They don't have to be secondary to standard leveling; they can *replace* standard leveling, in that they can be present in games that don't have standard leveling at all.

I'd say that good RPG must have good interesting and captivating character progress. And as such, it is great when it combines different subsystems.

For example from my favorite games, Agarest games - they provide you with standard leveling, crafting, leveling gear, enhancing it with gems, going for various titles (which in later Idea Factory games provided permanent stat buffs), etc.

Labyrinth of Touhou II - it has standard leveling, stat leveling, skill leveling, crafting, stat imbuers and tiered class system.

Disgaea (though I actually dislike it for some moments) - it has standard leveling, reincarnations, leveling skills, upgrading classes, upgrading equipment which had dozens of tiers, 4 major subtiers, and then you could modify it by messing with Item World.

I started getting turned away by modern Western RPGs entirely due to extremely shallow character progression. Low level caps, level scaling, no respawn, roguelike, bweh. It seems that Might and Magic games were the finish for Western RPGs.

Btw, speaking about Might and Magic VI (and VII; to lesser degree about VIII and IX), it has standard leveling, skill leveling, equipment, permanent buffs from various fountains, barrels, shrines, black bottles, cauldrons, etc. Skill leveling consists of 3 tiers. There is also class promotion, which you do twice, and it empowers your characters significantly.

I liked how skill system was made in EverQuest I and II (though I am not fan of MMOs for many reasons, but played a bit some of them): you level your skills by using them, but each skill has cap. The higher is your character level, the higher is the skill cap. I wish The Elder Scrolls games had similar skill systems instead of the mess they had (and minus the level scaling).

Or SaGa 1, which lacks standard leveling, but still features multiple growth systems:
* Humans get stats by using buyable stat-up items.
* Espers (Mutants in English Final Fantasy Legend) may get stat increases or changes to their ability list after battle based off what the (terrible) RNG decides.
* Monsters can eat meat to change form; when this happens, the monster's stats and ability list change completely to match the new form.

Or SaGa 2, which builds on what SaGa 1 did, but is different:
* Humans have a chance of gaining HP or a point in the controlling attribute of the last action performed (or it might be last action selected)
* Espers are like Humans, but they also have a chance of gaining new abilities (a new ability will replace the last one if 4 abilities are already known, or if you filled up the Esper's ability list with items),
* Robots gain stats solely from equipment, but they get better stat boosts than other races from it (including HP from equipment), and they can ignore body slot restrictions (so you can equip one with 7 suits of armor if you wish and don't care about the robot not being able to do anything during battle).
* Monsters grow like SaGa 1 monsters.

(Neither game has anything like level scaling; it's not until the Romancing SaGa games that level scaling entered the franchise.)