when i was a kid i used to pick a random game and then try to make like a base or house in it and just basically roleplay instead of interacting with the story. Like on halo I loved the marines so I would just make them get in the warthog, drive them all to one place, then pretend im building an army to fight the covenant. I wish I still had that kind of imagination
I would play GMod and decorate Half Life 2's outposts/bases while conjuring up a headcanon for it. It gave me a kind of childlike comfort, like I was posing action figures and imagining what they would do. My childhood was defined by limitation and societal pressure, so it felt awesome engaging in that kind of imaginative play after depriving myself of it so much. Even in GMod. 🤣
I remember playing Simpsons Hit and Run and pretending that Homer knew a zombie apocalypse was coming in the first level and he started prepping, driving back and forth places to warn people and get supplies and such. I was only a really little kid so I only ever got as far as Bart's level and had no idea about the final Halloween level. I miss being a kid
„Roleplaying“ as yourself can be interesting too in my opinion. Especially if one is honest with themselves and builds in all the personal shortcomings. Asking yourself „what would I *actually* do in this situation?“, seldom turns out to be the most rewarding or heroic decision, and I think that adds depth to the game, just as playing someone entirely different can.
I remember rping myself in fallout new vegas once, and there was a perk that made you less perceptive if not wearing glasses. Even if i wanted to wear a full helmet or a cool mask or something, only the glasses gave me more perception So i put that shit in because that's literally me, even if it was annoying
Ehhhhhh, I mean, the issue is that playing as yourself, if the character gets dragged into a situation where they have to do things you wouldn't do in this situation, that would break the RP, tbh. Also, personally, if I was to recreate myself, I would probably feel like a narcissist.
I used to strongly dislike skyrim at first. I came to like it for what it was eventually however. The difference being that I initially approached the game like an RPG. Skyrim is a *terrible* game for roleplaying. And I cannot believe people still speak of it like it is.
@@daanstrik4293 Yep Bethesda games kinda suck for roleplaying, especially the modern ones. Most of the choice in the games, especially Skyrim, is either do the quest or dont.
@@daanstrik4293 I guess it depends on your understanding of the world Roleplaying. It doesn't have to be dialogue choices, it can also be just about what food you prefer to eat, what transport method you use, what weapons you use, stealth or raw force etc. Having few dialogue choices doesn't stop a game from being an RPG, just like having a lot of dialogue choices doesn't instantly make a game an RPG.
Ooh that's a good point. I should have had a little section talking about not loading your previous save every time something goes a little wrong. It's especially hard to not do that in games like Xcom where units can permanently die.
@@ryszakowySo uh... Why are you deliberately misconstruing what they're saying? What do you gain from that? Do you feel personally attacked or something?
I think allowing save states really hurt a lot of the TES series. Imagine having to play Skyrim with only saves in town or when you sleep. It makes adventuring and dying have consequence.
In my longterm terraria world I once hit an explosive trap over lava and lost a whole bunch of rare stuff including a starfury, but I decided to roll with it instead of cheating my stuff back and now it's part of my world and my character's story :) every good story has both its ups and downs, and bouncing back from the downs is what makes a truly compelling playthrough of a game in my opinion.
As a gamedev student, I've personally found that one of the best way to fix this problem is to make the game expect more from the player. Not necessarily by being hard or punishing, just forcing players to engage with your systems. Make them THINK before they do things. I remember never really using alchemy in Witcher 3 during my first playthrough on normal, but on deathmarch it forced me to engage with the system. Punishing careless play isn't difficulty in my eyes, just plain good game design. As long as the systems are presented in an approachable way, making players engage in them in order to survive instead of giving them an avenue to steamroll if they pay slight attention. I don't think optimal play is the problem, I think optimal play being too easy to achieve is and the "one tool fits every job" approach a lot of games have as well.
i don't want to be forced to engage a system i don't like. i usually prefer to use realistic weapons or such. like ballistic projectile firearms. i know how they work. what they do. their limitations. etc. it's easy to fully imagine its implementation on your team. while magic or energy weapons, are loose cannons. fully at the whims of someone else's imagination i might not agree with. conventional weaponry works relatively the same throughout every game. they have real, established rules that already exist by the laws of physics. intuitive and immediately perceptible. while i imagine a magic or energy weapon system works in a much different way than the creator envisioned. and i have no basis to argue on it because we're both right. so i just gotta live with it and deal with its uncomfy existence grating against my idea of how it should've been done. in fallout, i've only used unconventional weapons when out of ammo for my usuals. in skyrim, i only use metal and wood. etc. i would absolutely hate if a game forced me to use something i'm uncomfy with.
I played the Witcher 3 for the first time on the second hardest difficulty as I heard at the time It would become too easy a few hours in.. so the game kept somewhat challenging for tens of hours. But then it became very easy. Now I'm on death march on the new game plus after the recent next gen update. Only on this run that I cared about using alchemy and oils sometimes. But I bet that playing on death march from scratch.. must be totally essential to use alchemy way more.
I don't think forcing the player to interact with the systems of your game is the best way to do things. Encouraging him heavily to do so, by rewarding him for it ( more XP, more money ) is fine, but forcing it though, I don't like the idea. Because, the problem is that, it forces on the player systems he might not want to interact with, which can be a game breaking thing for him. I'll give you 2 personal examples of how that can be a bad thing. As first example, I'll take a Far Cry game, though I'm not sure if it's Far Cry 5 or Far Cry New Dawn. I believe it's 5 but not entirely sure. Far Cry 5 is a game I absolutely love. We have a variety of vehicles in there ( small cars, pickups, ATVs, planes, helicopters, ect ) , which is great, I love having different possibilities, the more possibilities the better. Problem is, I absolutely suck at "driving" planes. If they're not forced at any point ( in any quest, both main and side quests ) then that's not an issue, because it's there to use for those who enjoy it, without ruining the experience for those who don't want to use planes, ever. In that game though, there is a sidequest that forces the use of a plane. Need to fly through circles as fast as possible to unlock something. As a completionist, I want to unlock that thing, but because I can't drive a plane in any game, I can't unlock it, which is infuriating. There's also one of the main quest that forces the player to use a plane, and as if it wasn't bad enough, we need to kill an enemy's plane at the same time. Wouldn't be too much of an issue if there was an auto-lock that automatically follows the enemy's plane movements, but no, we're expected to drive it and aim and shoot at the same time. Took me about 6 hours to pass that quest on Easy difficulty. I love the game, and would love to do multiple playthroughs of it, but I can't, just because of that mission that I know I won't be able to pass. Gonna take me forever, raging because of how unplayable planes are for me, and I don't want that. I got nothing against the idea of doing a mission in the air, but, since there's helicopters in the game, why force a plane on the player instead of letting him choose if he wants to use a plane or a helicopter. That would make things a lot better. Because of that, I can't do a new playthrough, as I don't wanna have to go through that awful quest again. Second example, Starfield. Even though it has many negative things about it, I still enjoy the game for what it is. But there is one aspect of the game that I need to ignore, which as a completionist is a pain in the backdoor. And that thing is, lock picking ( and therefore every locked safe, can't unlock them ) . Because, I loved the system Bethesda had in Skyrim and Fallout games, but I hate the new system in Starfield and refuse to interact with it. I'm missing a lot of items ( including unique ones and all ) because of it. I wish we could switch it back to the Skyrim and Fallout system, but nooo... Which is why I am against forcing any specific system on the player. It's okay to encourage it massively, with all types of rewards, but, it shouldn't be forced on the player. For Starfield for example, it would be okay to encourage lock picking by giving more ammo, money, valuable loot to sell for a good price, ect. But, having legendary or unique items locked behind that awful lock picking system, that's where I have an issue with it. Those items should be obtainable even for those who don't wanna interact with their new, awful, lock picking system.
@Subreon I don't really agree with OP's point and while your response gets pretty close to covering it all of how I feel about this, I feel there's something important missing from this discussion: Replay value When I play an RPG, I want to know that there are different paths that I didn't take this run that I can take in the next. For that to work I want some choices to be restricted from me based on my earlier decisions, including large chunks of narrative content like quests or companions. I love oblivion, but I shouldn't be allowed to join the fighters guild as a fighter if I have made my character physically weak for the run. To this degree I am more than happy if a game forces me to interact with certain systems if I want to participate in others. That being said I feel like Juhius is making the mistake of assuming that the player should feel compelled to interact with systems in a way that defies their character's role to complete important content. Personally I prefer when an rpg game forces me to interact as my character and makes narrative restrictions rather than gameplay ones.
I think Zelda BOTW is a good example of this. At the start of the game things hit you like a truck. You have to be gathering food and making meals to survive harder encounters. As the game goes on and you get stronger, you don't have to rely on that as much, so it gives that feeling of progress as well.
Since you spoke about Bethesda games, an interesting aspect worth discussing is Fallout 4's Survival mode. Personally, it made it a lot easier for me to get into a roleplaying headspace, and it's a good example of how mechanics can encourage rp. Sure, you have to eat, drink, sleep. The basics of that aren't new to survival games. But the scarcity of it all, especially in the early game, made me so much more mindful of everything I did. I felt like a scavenger in this wasteland, barely scraping by. The limited carry weight also means you have to pick only a small handful of weapons and stick to a playstyle. Damage is heightened to both npcs and you, meaning that getting caught off guard is life threatening. You cannot just walk in and take out a whole pack of raiders. You think whether quests are worth the risk before taking them. And no fast travel means you plan out routes, figure out plans. My urges to minmax and optimise stopped going against immersion and ended up going towards it. "I had to swim to escape an enemy but the water made me sick, and now I need antibiotics and radiation meds. Maybe I should find a clinic or hospital to scavange". "I am running low on food, maybe I should leave the city centre and hunt some wildlife". "If I help this settlement, I can set up shop here and get a bed and clean drinking water every time I come past this way in future". And then factions provide true benefits that are hugely tangible - vertibird travel and patrolling allies from the brotherhood of steel, teleportation from the institute - that make the choice between them genuinely feel weighty and meaningful, not just in the story but in practicality. The consequences of your choices aren't shown in an ending slideshow like New Vegas, but impact the world and your experience in it in super weighty, tangible ways. Clearing out a location means there will not be enemies there for a long, long time, so all your future walks are safer. Setting up a mortar system with the minutemen gives you a devastating advantage in assaulting an outdoor camp. Working for the railroad means light armour that far outperforms anything else, a visceral difference compared to combat without it. And when you go against a faction, you create a powerful new enemy that changes every journey across the wasteland. If you haven't played it, it's really worth a go. Fallout 4 isn't a great "roleplaying" game in the same sense as New Vegas is - focused on dialogue and character stats and lots of smaller decisions that will reflect on you in the ending. But the survival mode shows that a huge amount of thought is put into the world that you miss unless you're forced to engage with it on its own terms, treat the world as a real place, engage in all the overlapping systems.
I agree. This is how I also played Fallout 4. It is quite enjoyable. Not being able to fast travel by the map was itself a remarkable thing. I got to know my way around the landscape very well, and when I got to first travel by vertibird, I was astounded.
I can get super immersed until I have a choice of being a good guy or a bad guy but the bad guy option removes 40 minutes worth of content and replaces it with a cutscene with no story impact whatsoever..
i have a huge idea for a super mario sunshine 2, where in the eyes of the majority of people who are comfy with their new corporate lives stripping resources from their once natural paradise, mario is the bad guy for trying to revert it to how it was, and since majority rules, it does mean he really is the bad guy, even though he's absolutely doing the right thing overall.
@@spacebassist lmao. it's more like restoring cultural heritage, tourism, and nature. also more like a rebel takeover story. kinda like the just cause series. gonna have a character switch function, with one of them being bowser, maybe dk and warrio who are destruction focused characters. mario like characters do platforming and cleanup. luigi like characters do platforming and puzzles. bowser like characters do pl-DESTRUCTION OF OPPRESSIVE INFRASTRUCTURE! EXPLOSIONS FOR PEACE! DOWN WITH THE TYCOON'S OIL PUMPS AND FUEL DEPOTS! ERASE THE SCAR OF SMOKESTACKS AND BARREN FORESTS!
@@Subreon super mario: guerilla warfare would easily get me invested in his games lmao i thought DK was a rogue agent (i've played like the first two maps of country), like his interests were preserving his territory and driving off invaders like the croc guy bowser's army would be at its greatest, mountains converted to MOABB launchers (mother of all bullet bills), goomba/koopa legions patrolling the wastes that used to be toad villages, every last natural resource exhausted for his unending lust for expansion. so bowser would be strategy, but the only victory is domination (or reaching a certain number to progress the story, making it a section to demonstrate how he sees the world as a set of pieces he can move to get what he wants) wario would be the arms dealer playing both sides. his mansion grows over the course of the game, until just before he tries to skip town, the toad uprising mario and luigi inspired (now the "revolution bros.") march to his abode and torch it with fire-flowers waluigi is tried for his war crimes during his service to bowser's army (as always, trying to do the opposite of luigi and assist the domination) boo's mansion thrums with the uncountable casualties of it all
God, I hate playing games optimally. I love putting constraints on myself. Last run of Skyrim, I only allowed myself to punch things to death. It was great fun beating Alduin to death with my bare hands.
I think that's why games were so fun when we were kids. Just stumbling around, not sure what exactly we are doing and saving the world. We know how to play a game the moment we pick it up nowadays.
I love roleplaying so much. I get a lot of flak from my friends because I make entire new characters in the Souls games to do different builds. Currently I made a sorceress in Elden Ring that only uses Glintstone Sorceries and a whip, because it pertains to that character that I made. I effectively made the game harder for myself but it’s just so fun to me.
I do the same thing by limiting my level cap. On Elden Ring I usually aim for 150 for pvp reasons. This way, I can play the game multiple times and get different experiences each time depending on what bosses my character is good/bad against.
Wait your friends give you flack for doing different builds? Isnt getting to try out the stuff you didn’t get to do last time one of the main appeals of replaying those games? Your friends sound weird.
@@tropicturtle9021 Well they give me flack because I don’t just co op with them since I like to roleplay. Some characters I make wouldn’t co op or the ones that do aren’t that good for bosses my friends wanna fight because of the build.
Probably like 13 years ago i had a Skyrim file where I roleplayed zuko. It was a great choice because he can be pretty morally ambiguous and i thought it’d be fun to start out the game making more evil decisions with some good ones and gradual become more good. Mechanically it was interesting too because he could only use fire magic, a simple lightning spell, dual swords, and spirit swords, referencing his time as the blue spirit. What this video is proposing is most of what i did and i can confirm that it’s fun. Having a pre existing character helps figure out satisfying ways to respond to the story and restrict your gameplay
I agree and I try to roleplay in games. The problem pops up when the illusion of choice is pushed to disbelief. Skyrim is a great example of this. You COULD try to roleplay an evil or unsavory character, but most of the time the rewards for a quest are such that even an entirely self-centered character would still be the good guy because it's very obviously the only choice worth taking.
i think the bigger problem is people telling you not to play how you want. if you wana optimize it then do that, don't force yourself ot play a way you don't want. Your time is infinitely valuable
@@Eggsecuter I do not know the details. I guess Sid Meier is mentioned because it was, in reality, Soren Johnson who said it, but as co-designer Soren is far less known.
Counterpoint though - it is definitely enjoyable in its own way to be insanely overpowered and smite anything in your way. Especially after a bad day at work or something - just to get that little feeling of 'power'
Being overpowered can present some good comedy as well. Trying out goofy Warframe builds can be hilarious, especially when you're carrying lower level players. Hell, even being carried by someone with a broken build can be funny in an absurd way. Maybe my sense of humour is odd, who knows. 😂
this is why the isekai genre is the most popular in anime. and why the premise is mostly the same in all of them. character dies or otherwise freed from their oppressive bland life of lonely forever work. they wake up in a blank canvas world ready to be shaped to their desires. this is mostly a medieval type of world. where the concept of society is well established, but lack of long range communication keeps everyone malleable by their local ecosystem. while in our world, life has been optimized to a comfy standard for most, so most wouldn't care enough to change it, and if you were to change it, you'd have an entire world of instantly communicating people to contend against to make it happen. much easier in smaller pockets of disconnected population that can be amazed by simple concepts like a hot bath. they also typically have extremely overpowered abilities that sweep any common challenge, including many that are daily real life annoyances. people love these shows cuz they want to imagine a world where they can just, not stress over everything. their life is secure and stable. they have people that care about them. and any challenges that come to threaten that, they can simply bat away and be a hero to everyone. it's a much more exciting life to envision than one of being alone at a computer typing out lengthy paragraphs of meaninglessness to any passing viewer they hope will take a second to acknowledge it and comment on it in some form of validation...
I feel like the desire for power in games can be fun, but “power” can also arrive from the challenge There’s a reason people want to play dark souls, because they want to see that boss go down, even if they are weak There’s also the very mechanical satisfaction, of wanting to build a perfectly oiled and engineered machine, be it a OP character build in a RPG or a impenetrable defence for your base in something like tower defence or colony management games
I am the most optimal Skyrim player. I begin by turning on a mod that lets me bring around multiple followers. And not just 5 followers, not even 10 followers, but 512 followers. I then download mods for custom followers. Characters from games I like, such as the Soul of Cinder from Dark Souls, who is twice as tall as any normal character. Then I download mods for fully custom characters, specifically characters with custom voices. The more goobers I have bantering back-and-forth, the better. I then boot up the game and run around, collecting as many followers as I possibly can. Once I have so many followers that I can no longer navigate interior spaces, and their voices drown out all other noise, that is when my Skyrim playthrough has reached its peak optimization. It once took me 13 minutes to travel from the bed in Breezehome to the front door. Speedrunners fear me.
Hilarious read. Funnily enough I have a friend like you. In every game we play, he would always try making an army, whether through summons or other methods. It got so bad in Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 where we could AFK for minutes while his summons use up their turns.
Optimizing every experience is what made me think video games were getting boring. It was never their fault, it was mine. The last five years they have become fun again as I've forced myself to adjust.
What sucks about giving yourself restrictions is that the game never rewards you. Its hard to feel satisfied when you get the exact same reward no matter how you do it. Thats why I love games that give you more rewards based on difficulty
this is what it was like for me playing cyberpunk 2077. the game makes you play as V, you can't just be "yourself", but it turns out that ended up pushing more to actually roleplay a character. i decided i wanted to be a good-hearted nomad who values loyalty and would fight only with fists or bludgeoning weapons, killing only when necessary. i felt more attached to the character and it helped me make decisions i might have otherwise had decision paralysis over
I realised this playing games with our kids. Their randomness of their approach and what in a game they become fascinated with makes gaming with them genuinely more fun than my dull grown up approach.
I also want to add that the best way to get into roleplaying or doing challenges when playing games is to JOIN THE COMMUNITY. There are lots of people who want to do this type stuff, and post logs. People do this in VNs, RPGs, even FPSes! Getting involved with others on your run is how you can enjoy the game much more.
Pretty much every time I play Wii Sports I add extra story to it. Like I’ll determine either Tyrone or Pierre (depending on who they match me up with after I reach pro status) is some undefeated boxing legend who wronged me outside of the ring and I vowed to become a boxer and beat him. Each fight comes with a press conference during the vs screen and commentators during/after the fight. Don’t get me started on the showdown mode in swordplay on Wii Sports Resort.
There are a some people who are happy with themselves as a person, so they enjoy being themselves also in the games. That's something a lot of people just can't understand, because they usually can't stand themselves, whether they can admit it or not.
I had a bad childhood. I joined the army at 21, and after my tour, Skyrim released. Being a fan since Battlespire and Redguard, I was super excited. I did play as I normally did all TES games with a wood elf archer. The more I played, the more cathartic I found it. Til, eventually, I started putting myself in the game. After a year of indecision, I finally settled on a Khajiit. Just felt right, and I joined the thieves guild and the empire. Did all the things I wanted to do and walked away from the game for about 6 solid years and eventually started back up with whatever edition for the PS4. I now have a high elf vampire that I platinumed the game with and still frequently play as. Again, it was a cathartic experience because the one character I identified with growing up was Kain from Blood Omen. He was robbed of his life and became something dark. I was on a similar path, but I gamed instead of schemed.
I truly immersed myself in a character once - Stumbling around for the first hour of Dead Space totally lost in the role of a lumbering sapce dog, overworked underpayed and almost completely checked out even before necromorphs come into the picture. More concerned with rearranging the lyrics of Black Sabbath's *_Iron man_* to better include mentions of cans, drinking and _drinking cans._ It may have been the all time greatest gaming moment of my life. A close second may have been an almost entire hour of a friend playing Sekiro with a random selection of tunes from OFF playing not just in the background but tightly matching and informing his gameplay both moment to moment and in a tactical and strategic sense truly delicious
This is why Starfield's traits and backgrounds are so great. My main character has the Wanted trait. Because of that, they get ambushed often by bounty hunters, and I have to make split second decisions when they do. That single trait allowed me to craft a story for my character and explain *why* they are being hunted by bounty hunters.
Even for a game like stardew valley I don’t get it. Part of the fun for me is discovering what the villagers like. Some players have literal spreadsheets on what the villagers like. And then I wonder why there aren’t just watching a let’s play
I'm personally pretty fatigued on the culture surrounding "optimal play" that has been built up more and more over the years. Now to be clear, I think that *to a degree* "optimal" play is fun and even just a naturally occuring thing in a lot of players' ways to play. For instance say you're playing Minecraft, you'll probably want to upgrade your gear over time to the highest tier, whether that is diamond or netherite. You'll also probably want good enchantments eventually. But even just before all of that, what do you do in a Minecraft world? Well you gotta cover things such as food, and for most people this basically boils down to either planting a ton of crops or herding a bunch of cows. You're encouraged to go for something that is good, because you do not want to deal with low hunger your entire playthrough, and inadvertedly without realising you optimize how to get food. This example is a bit of a cheat on my part admitately, since food is not all that complex in minecraft and getting to an "optimal" point takes little effort. But what I hope to convey here is that at least to an extent players tend to wanna streamline certain mechanics or processes whilst playing a game. And that is perfectly fine, it comes naturally during regular play and only makes sense, afterall you probably wouldn't exclusively eat apples in minecraft unless you impose a challenge on yourself. And that is exactly the thing, there is a certain fun in making things easier for yourself in a game by optimizing an aspect for it, I'd even call it a rather large pillar of the survival genre as a whole. However, this has its limits and can go into territory that becomes bland, uninteresting and sometimes even downright toxic. One game community I have been a part of for years now is the Don't Starve community, and with how difficult and obtuse the game is to learn, it sort of began fostering a culture within said community that is hyperfocused on "optimal" play. Everything ranging from food to combat has been optimized by people playing the game. Some people treat things as more of a competition than an activity to have fun. You can't simply play the game to have fun besting a harsh world that is out to kill you at every turn, no its all about learning how to cancel your attacks at the right frame to get another attack cycle on a boss before needing to kite. You can't just enjoy the intricate cooking system, you have to optimize it to waste as little hunger value as possible even if the difference does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Nobody is truly forcing you to play that way, but it becomes a sort of expectancy within the inner circles of the community. And in an ironic twist, a large chunk of people within these inner circles stop enjoying the game more and more, both because they constantly go for optimal play for the sake of optimization simply going through the motions, and because said optimal play makes the game far too easy. In fact, that second point is so pronounced within discussion of the game, a lot of players genuinely think the game has only gotten objectively easier since the first time they played it, when in reality they have simply gotten so good at the game that nothing poses any meaningful challenge. It's hard to find something within the base game that is going to pose a threat to a player with literally thousands of hours of playtime under their belt afterall. But the "optimal" play rabbit hole goes even deeper, there's other ways in which optimizing the hell out of a game can detract from it. For this example I will be using Team fortress 2. TF2 is at its core built to just be a fun shooter, pick the class you like, choose a loadout and just play some payload or king of the hill. It is built with players simply wanting to have fun in mind, but offers just enough of a competetive edge that of course the community created their own competetive modes. And that's awesome, like genuinely. I have nothing against people wanting to play tf2 competetively, in fact I encourage it. ...To an extent. Because what competetive inevitably does to a player's mind, and by extension how they view the game, can actually end up doing more harm than good. Instead of just playing the game for the fun of blasting people with your scattergun, or the thrill of infiltrating the enemy defenses as a spy, instead with competetive it is all about winning the game and ranking up. Your mind will now be more focused on how to eek out more advantage at every corner of the game, rather than if you are having an enjoyable time or not. And once again, playing devil's advocate here, enjoyment can absolutely come from that, there is a charm in participating in a competition of sorts like that and I absolutely do not want to detract the enjoyment people get out of it because of my own bias. However what is important to realize is that making things a competition as a regular game mode is definitely going to harm certain players' experiences because they will at one point or another HAVE to play the game in ways they might not like. Maybe they'd love to play Demoman to blow people to bits, but because their team already has 2 demomen they really cant do that unless they want to jeopardize not just their own rank, but also that of their entire team as well. Or maybe they want to play spy and stir the enemy team up from within, but doing so would do the same thing as just described because spy is not meta. In this case the way players are restricted in what they can or can not do to play the game makes for a less interesting, less varied and overall more frustrating experience, because even if they do go against the grain, unless they are outright kicked from the match by their teammates expecting them to play optimal, they still risk consequences for everyone involved just because they wanted to play the game a certain way. And to be absolutely clear here, this is not just on the people who are willing to kick or be mean. They have their own responsibility here for sure, but I moreso want to focus on the game itself in this case. Because it is the game itself here which encourages this sort of behaviour in the first place. It is the game that dangles the promise of a new rank in front of players' faces, with the looming punishment of having your progress on said rank undone because you dared go against the norm. As a result people become more harsh, sometimes angry, because they do not want to get punished for something out of their control. They are simply conditioned to try and minimize failure like that, and one such part of minimizing failure is to stick to what is "meta", with any deviation being a justification to bar others from playing that way. What I just described applies to a lot of competetive multiplayer games, specifically ones with ranking systems baked into them, but I think you get the idea of what I am trying to say. Optimizing your gameplay for one reason or another is something that is fairly normal, but just like everything else in life can be overdone to an unhealthy degree. All of the games I have mentioned here are incredibly good games that simply have a few faults with how they make players interact with their systems and lead to communities surrounding the game to become less inviting and more focused on success than having a fun time. And with that last example in particular, with how AAA games lean more and more into competetive multiplayer systems, live service models and ELO systems for ranking, it just makes the gaming landscape as a whole a less inviting environment for a lot of people, as a good chunk of players will have certain behaviour these games encourage so ingraned into their way of playing and speaking, that things become less enjoyable for everyone involved. Anyway if anyone is reading this down here, thanks for giving my comment the time of day, and remember that these are just my two cents. Feel free to disagree, but stay respectful, and have a wonderful day.
I do very much agree with what you said and yeah, playing the game optimally for the sole purpose of triumphing over other players with the same characters or loadouts or techniques etc. consequently makes the game become monotonous. I also do not comprehend how some people have over thousands of hours on a competitive multi-player game especially fps ones since you are essentially iterating the same thing over and over, albeit there are game modes to spice things up but the gameplay loop is unchanged. It really makes me wonder what compells people to play those competitive games where you accomplish the same objective over and over with the only difference being the opposing team composing of new strangers.
@@CagXanno I mean the same can be said about career sports players who devote their life to a sport despite the rules of that sport never changing. Some people just genuinely enjoy competition (and enjoy winning, mostly winning) and they pick one game that strikes their fancy to get as much of that fix as possible with. It’s just a different kind of entertainment.
THIS. i thought you were gonna be all about roleplaying, thought you were gonna say you do it all the time and why it is good. but no, you said you WISH you could but actually can't really. and man do i relate to you. all you described is exactly what and how i feel about this topic and it felt like a relief hearing someone talking about the same experience. awesome video. thanks!
I play Warframe, and boy you better believe how much I'm constantly attacked for not using the most optimal builds and changing them for each and every single mission And y'know, it's really fun using off-meta or outright bad gear and still being the strongest player in that mission all while everyone is confused as to how I'm doing so well with what I have Even in a game where the developers themselves cheat using commands, and expect the player to use the easiest to obtain (and most powerful) weapons with the same builds. As for Skyrim? Evil and stabby, very stabby. Love playing as a snarky khajiit assassin
Most fun playthrough I had on Skyrim was as a restoration-pacifist. I had a mod which added a ring that would damage anyone who harmed me, it didn't do a ton of damage so I had to be sure to have enough magicka to be able to heal myself until they were dead. Just really brought an entirely different mindset to encounters.
I do a lot of roleplaying in my RPGs (to the point where it's difficult for me to really get into JRPGs and the sort, but I digress). Like, _A LOT_ a lot. Like "I have 4 Dragonknights in ESO and they all play differently" a lot. It's one of those things that you have to actively work on so that you don't "optimize" yourself out of the experience. The more you get into the weeds and understand how the game's various systems work, the the easier it becomes. Yes, I have one of those infamous "stealth archers" in Skyrim, but she's also sort of a ninja thief-type girl. A ninja thief-type girl that understands dick about magic, so no Illusion, Alteration, or even Enchanting for her. But she understands plants and how some of them can have some rather nasty effects on one's internal organs, so I invested in Alchemy for her. She's also not too shabby with a sword, so I gave her One-handed as well, although if Unarmed was a tree, I'd give her that instead (yeah, I know there's the one Heavy Armor perk, but it's just not the same). Pickpocket, Mercantile, all that good stuff. It's a good time. Contrast my templar, who grew up among the Vigilants of Stendarr. Has a warped sense of justice, very black and white with her morals, to the point of appearing like a religious zealot. Meridia would cream Herself(?) if She(?) and my templar ever met. Anyway, "a good defense is the best offense", so One-handed, Block, and Heavy Armor were priorities for her. Restoration magic means she can stay in battle against "the forces of evil" for longer, and basic understanding on Enchanting lets her fortify herself and/or her offense against those forces. Barely knows what a bow looks like, never mind operating one. However, remember what I said about the warped sense of justice. Even the most harmless of thieves would face her wrath if she caught wind of them. I have more (like my blacksmith, my pyromancer, and my half-daedra sorceress), but I'm sure you get it. It can be a ton of fun and dare I say is totally worth it, _IF_ you manage to stick with it and can refrain from going for the more efficient options simply because they're more efficient.
I love roleplaying, in fact I love when RPGs have established characters like geralt, I can try to be like them and do what they would do, I think it's fun
Honestly why not both? Roleplay is cool and all, but i really like breaking game and feeling overpowered personally. Unless it's something like Darkest Dungeon where struggling is part of the fun.
hanging out in world 301 in old school runescape taught me how to relax in videogames. I think a lot more people role play in videogames than you expect, it may be difficult to think this is true, because it's so contrary to the way you play in games like Skyrim, but... I've never consciously "roleplayed" in a videogame, not to the point that I am Argok the Orc that was a baker as a boy but his village burned down in a freak fire and he was the only survivor and now he is a BLAH BLAH, no. It is not a binary situation. You are not just roleplaying or not roleplaying, it is a broad spectrum of different actions that we put into the "box" of roleplaying. Some games I go in and I just do whatever combat feels good, whatever quests seem fun, but I will never do morally bad actions. Others I am maximum fuck around and find out mode, and others still I have a character in my head that I want to portray in the world, which I believe would be closest to your idea of roleplaying. Everyone plays videogames differently, for different reasons, and from different backgrounds. You say that to role play you must "raise your state of mind", and when you encounter a choice, or a quest, you think "what would I do", but at the same time, you don't think twice about committing crimes in the game for the sake of your character? It sounds like you are role playing a version of yourself that is not inhibited by the restrictions of life. Roleplaying a fantasy, if you will. This is the real reason a lot of people play these games, a massive number of the current Fallout New Vegas player base is similar to this, I think. To role play can be to act as someone you are not, or it can be to live a fantasy of someone you wish to represent in a digital world.
That's an interesting way to think about it. Rather than starting out as a character with a set backstory and a moral foundation and all that, you just accept that whatever choices you make during your playthrough form your character. I guess I can see it. Though with me, I play games the same way a lot of the time. Every time I start a Skyrim character I almost always gravitate towards the same skills, same weapon types, same quest choices. By your system, I'm practically making the same character every time I play. I wish I didn't really gravitate towards those same options every time... but I do for whatever reason. I like how you put it though. That's definitely something I should keep in my mind regarding roleplaying if I ever make another video on the topic.
Having a good point but listing as many hated and reviled mechanics as humanly possible as solutions to the issue. The scenario in which you find a very good axe is the *****reason***** for an rp no-axe backstory to begin with. Conflict. Taking away the ability to equip the axe is just robbing an opportunity. That's prob why you can't roleplay. You're trying to play a *guy*, not a "character". The difference is a character has a dramatic reason for the camera to follow them at all. You're making personality traits in a vaccuum that don't come into conflict with the setting/gameplay in an interesting way.
I can very much relate to this. It's been a struggle of mine to roleplay and resist the temptation to make choices based on the meta rather than immersion. One thing that I started doing that helps is to force yourself to SLOW DOWN. Games condition us to lean into whatever is fast and convenient, and you sort of have to do the exact opposite.
What the hell just happened... I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn right now, and as I was watching this video near the tenth minute mark I started thinking how I can implement some of the things you've talked about in my playthrough - and just at that moment you showed Horizon footage (with the "bias from other games we're playing" commentary) and I admit I got spooked there xD
I love roleplaying in games! Made my whole youtube channel around it. Granted "let's roleplays" aren't the most popular... But I've never had more fun playing games. Even non-rpgs, I love embodying the pre-defined character, like an actor would. RPGs might be a genre, but roleplaying is an approach you can have to any game!
I had a great experience just yesterday in Skyrim. Just as I was stepping off the carriage to Riften, I was rushed by three dawnstar members. I had to duck behind the stables, desperately trying to snipe then with calming spells before they one shot me with their deadly bolts. This was all while my hired merc was too busy fraternizing with the horses to care to fight with me. And to make matters worse, attacking the passive dawnstar warrior only made the Riften gate guards mad at me, never mind that they were the ones to start a fight first. If I was able to black out the sun I might've stood a chance, but it was so early in the day I couldn't get a clean shot at it, and had to brute force my way through the flight. It took many reloaded saves to finally win, but it was such a dynamic encounter, using the buildings and trees to gain cover, running around trying to manage three different deadly threats at once, picking them off one my one. It was frustrating for sure, but all the more memorable because of all the different factors working together to bring this fight for my life into a real, tangible experience. That's why I wanted to make a brand new vampire character to begin with, and it turned out to be a great choice.
Super insightful video! My friend and I talk about this all the time - how since Skyrim, it really seems like games are obsessed with making sure all content is available to everyone from the first playthrough. Also, on the topic of tabletop RPG's, a lot of players who come from a gaming background tend to optimize the fun out of their games as well. In my experience, in either a TTRPG standpoint, or a standpoint of role playing through an RPG like Skyrim, one of the best ways to intrench yourself in your character is to let yourself make discoveries as your character. When your character goes through a close call in combat, consider how that might affect them. Let your in-game experiences determine what you emphasize in character progression.
No, I will continue to play optimize my gameplay, then once I figure out the meta, add arbitrary restrictions, then optimize around those restrictions.
As a creative writer who makes up stories anyway, I live for games where I can role play and its not so much about being me or not being me, it about being ‘them’, this ‘other’ I have created and what ‘they’ would do. Some of those decisions might totally align with me and some may not. What I love about playing video games as different from character writing my own narratives is having limits based in-game and sometimes I will actually take that into narratives I write to get past writers block. No matter how lose the games rules are at some point you can run into a game forced choice where you actually think all your options are bad but you have to make one and even make one against established character and if I was writing a novel or short story I may create a ‘writer out’ I feel matches character but being forced to work within game mechanics forces me to make a ‘game-able choice’ and those moments are super fun.
The idea of having guiding principles or restrictions can really make it a fresh experience. It's the idea behind playing MMOs self-found or hardcore or challenge runs in Dark Souls. I did something like this many years ago in WoW. I made a set of rules for my character: (1) I would only run everywhere (no mounts or flight paths), (2) I would only use items that I found or crafted (no auction house or trading), (3) I would never use the map (never hit the m key on the keyboard to open the world map), (4) I would complete every quest I came across without looking everything up (no addons, tracking, or websites, only reading the in-game quest text), and (5) I would stand my ground and fight every enemy I aggro'd (even if it meant certain death). I leveled from 1-55 in this way and it was a lot of fun!
It’s a good exercise in perspective to lean in to the character you’re given rather than just optimizing all the time. It’s one of the reasons I love a game where I as the human am subject to what happens to my character and I can decide how my in-game character will react
i have the same problem with fallout new vegas, i loved my first experience and i 100% the NCR ending and most of the game, so much so i wanted to do the same playthrough again. Predictably, it didnt fell the same. i still love the game, but sometimes i think "havent i done this 100 times already?" , and when i try doing a gimmick with unique restrictions i think of a different one and just restart. i know its a thing with RPGs and its called altoholism. im just pouring my soul out and i dont wanna start hating my favorite game. in super evil playthroughs i sometimes immerse myself too much with violence and feel terrible afterwards like "What have i done?" and kinda makes me feel sick, i know its fiction, but a part of me feels empathy towards the characters i cross, maybe i should integrate that into the character. I guess its stands as a testament to the believability of the characters and great writing.
I embrace it by playing as myself. Every choice I make is what would I do if I was actually in that position. Of course, sometimes save scumming to see alternate paths is on the menu, but generally I enjoy the game as I immerse myself whatever it may be
I roleplay Skyrim and all the elder scrolls games. They don’t always support it fully but I love making a character and getting attached to them. I feel like all the elder scrolls stories, even the good ones like Morrowind, still leave most of the emotional legwork of connecting to the game world to the player. But I’m more than happy to creatively engage with the series amazing lore to make a character that bridges that gap 😃
I do limit my character in Skyrim a little. Although I try to complete every quest I stumble upon, I always limit my character to master the Thief's skills (sneaking, light armor, archery, etc.). That allows me to focus my xp on a set of skills
Thank you for saying this. I never play optimally and it sucks the fun out of any game for me. At a certain point, you may as well just do taxes for fun or organize excel spreadsheets. An old friend of mine inadvertently made me dislike terraria which used to be one of my favorite games because whenever we'd play all's he would do is ultra optimized boss runs and item farming and stuff and spoil everything in the game. Part of the fun of gaming for me is immersing yourself in rp and natural progression. When its too "gamey" ironically enough it stops being a fun game. This is why I prefer crusader kings over civilization as an example
Breakpoint is a fantastic example! i loved playing that game solo and with my cousin. in coop i was our loud, lmg toting juggernaut that dominated close quarters with my shotgun backup while he made sure no enemy was safe behind cover and we both suffered against the opposite. enemies bum rushing him was a death sentence and being out in the open for me made me useless in a fight and i loved that. solo i would go full splinter cell, daunting single shot silenced weapons and gear that made me rely heavily on being a true ghost and going loud almost always spelled my death.
I played Skyrim with no Enchanting + Weapon/Armor crafting as a cloak and dagger vampire while difficulty scaling based on level. Just to play the entire game like that not just for main story and done. Best Skyrim playthrough I had, making my personal spreadsheets for my best in slot gear was fun. Using cool looking gear that I would never normally use. Playing without Blacksmithing/Enchanting (also no armor/weapon upgrading) feels like a much better way of playing for me. That and I was also roleplaying as a custom character.
your point about putting constraints on yourself and how games don't do this by default is evidently clear in modern bethesda titles all the way down to the lighting. They put all these cool spells and torches and stuff to help you see in the dark but the game never dares make it too dark for the player to see. But when you mod in the darkness back suddenly all those tools add another layer of depth to the game. Its such a flaw in modern game design to coddle the player. So glad games like elden ring are showing it is actually possible to make a mostly single player experience and still make it a challenge while selling millions.
How can I not play as myself. I am the Imperial Crusader born under the sign of the Lover, the reincarnation of lord Indoril Nerevar the hortator and moon and star himself.
@Pretzel all these things are for somebody that is desensitized. A newcomer to games or to a specific genre doesn't care. Playing optimality and playing non-optimality are equally valid. I approve of what you say due to being extremely desensitized. I've played to much, too many genres, tried everything. At some point, you need exactly what your video talks about.
Self-imposed constraints are a good way to not only make a game more unique and challenging but also make roleplaying something integral to gameplay. That said I always somehow end up min maxing my way to an overpowered slog anyway.
5:55 I think I would dislike the random super axe a lot more if I couldn't use axes at all. The game taunting you with the choices you made so long ago, rather than the choice you continue to make.
My GOAT Pillars of Eternity mentioned ❤ You just articulated what i felt was missing from BG3. Yes its a more complete experience in all aspects, but that concreteness takes away the wonder that PoE had. Its like how a Hard Magic system takes away the awe of a Soft Magic system
I love roleplaying to this day, even got better at it. My best play through of all time was Fallout 4. I played as the mother and felt an emotional connection with her because her pain and quest. She did things I don't agree with but her experience in the wasteland led to those decisions and because I was so connected with her, I understood them. I even gave her somewhat of a happily ever after ending, where the Commonwealth is on the way to be governed again and Taryn accepted her place in the new world as a leader. Even thinking back to her story brings a smile to my face as I write this, I was so locked in to the roleplaying. So yes, roleplay and really create a character in place of self inserting sometimes. It can end up being really rewarding :) Btw Pretzel just want to say love the way you think and express yourself. You're my favorite content creator rn, you bring such a cozy video style 🫶🏽
to this very own day i play garrys mod with my friend and we goof around and act and re-act our favorite movie scenes with some twist to the point we start to larp unintentionally
I usually play as myself on the first playthrough, and then roleplay on subsequent ones. For Fallout 4, I roleplayed as agent 47 (Hitman) for my railroad playthrough, Negan (Walking Dead) for my raider boss playthrough, and Darth Vader/Anakin for my Brotherhood of Steel playthrough. My first playthrough, I sided with the Institute and created an alliance between the Minutemen and the Institute. If I were in the sole survivor's position for real, that is likely what I actually would have done. Each playthrough had different rules, different aesthetics, a different character, and a different playstyle. Vader was all about melee power armor and vengeance. The only people safe from Vader were the Brotherhood of steel, and anyone Maxson sent him after got no mercy. 47, by contrast, was a stealth build with heavy firearms focus, particularly handguns, and while he would take out anyone that interfered with his mission, he was still a good character. He sided with the railroad because what the Institute does with synths reminded him of what the agency did to him as a child (play Absolution. It covers this and inspired this playthrough). I've had a lot of fun this way.
One of the reasons I love project zomboid so much is that you are incentivized to get into that roleplaying state of mind when playing because of the fact that you need to give your character a profession, positive and negative traits, a name and their looks; and if they die they are gone for good. It's so refreshing starting a new game and thinking of a cool character idea to write the story of that particular world and getting attached to that character, then if they die it really hits you and you have to make the decision of just making another charater in that world and finding the zombified previous character and their base, or just creating another world and starting all over again.
One of the best ways to make a game more immersive if you’ve hit writer’s block or a creative wall is to use your resources. For example, ChatGPT is excellent at compiling data and quick processing. Just ask GPT to give you a backstory, race and class choice, personality, and personal preferences. Then just stick to it. After enough times of that, one may be able to start making up their own stories.
My favorite thing about RPGs is being able to bring characters I imagine outside of games to life, even if in a limited way. When I played Baldur's Gate 3 with a couple of buddies everyone was near paralyzed trying to imagine characters to play, while I just went "Oh I know which of the people who live in my brain I can make on this" and beelined into a character I always wanted to write. I also get frustrated when an RPG chafes against the characters I imagine. In my view, if a role-playing game limits the character I imagine and want to make, it's not a very good one. I also like playing as myself however. Not self-inserting as much as doing the same thing as above, only the character is me. What am I good at, what am I bad at, personal strengths & weaknesses and weighing that into a character sheet. It gets strange because by the end of most RPGs your character is overpowered, so I end up playing an idealized hyper-competent version of myself. Still, it's an interesting thing to try, but really shouldn't be the default instinct when it comes to character building.
I used to straight up brainstorm and write out a small character writeup when i played ES- Oblivion. They would have a defined backstory, fighting style, lore-accurate name, sometimes even family ties to other chars in game. That was so much fun to play that way
I remember having a great time roleplaying in skyrim the last time I played it in 2019. Spent 200 hours on it, was some of the most fun I've had in any game. I'll always remember it.
While not a roleplaying game I think a game series that kind of gets me into that mindset is the old Soul Reaver/ Blood Omen franchise. Its has such a vast potential for an expansive world but a lot of it is honestly left up to your imagination because you only ever see what it looks like in the moment and not the entirety of it, in the first Blood Omen you got to explore the vast majority of it but it was limited by the hardware of the Ps1 so you had to somewhat fill in the details yourself. But the other aspect of it is getting to hear the character's inner monolog to understand what they're thinking and why they're thinking it. When you're left to do all of that yourself, in a game like Skyrim, you're partly disenganged from what is happening to you in the game, because you have to stop and think not as yourself but as your character and while possible for some its not a simple task for everyone. As humans, we will always try to find the path of least resistance and while I will come up with elaborate back stories and names for my characters in Elden Ring ultimately it always boils down to I still act within the best intrests of my progression. And not how my character would necessarily approach the world.
Restrictions Encourage Creativity -> Creativity Leads to interesting playstyles and playing optimally If you restrict someone too much it will inherently make someone play optimally. Oblivion and it's hardest difficulty forces you to learn how to manipulate the system in different ways because of how broken and obtuse it is. Daggerfall is less obtuse but you have to play somewhat optimally because picking no skills in any offensive slot makes the game a slog. Morrowind is similar but encourages you to break the game in your own way using magic and enchanting. Morrowind also got rid of level scaling for the most part and is entirely based on your knowledge of the game itself. Fallout NV had STR requirements and Skill requirements and forced you to be wise about your starting SPECIALs and makes it harder to use certain weapons if you don't meet the stats but otherwise doesn't restrict you. I personally enjoy making optimum play styles for NV because if you play an optimum gunslinger it locks you out of playing an optimized Melee weapon specialist or an energy weapon specialist or so on. It's fun to theory craft and test new builds. You're restricted but you never realize it and I think that's the best way of doing things but also the hardest. Difficulty is a very hard thing to gauge and is based entirely off of how things feel it's very subjective. Too hard and you force optimum playstyles and too hard you lose people's interest.
I don’t agree or disagree but I will say this: Try to play NV and pick perks that fit the character you’re playing, not whatever is the most optimal. There are tons of perks in that game that people call useless that I think are there purely for RP and they let you RP in a way no other creation engine title lets you. You won’t pick these perks no matter how many optimal class builds you create because at the end of the day every build benefits from bloody mess and none of them benefit from the perk that lets you ignore alcohol addiction. Only the alcohol perk will give you special dialogue though. Also getting speech, lockpick, and science to 100 will rob you of like half the combat and puzzles in a lot of dungeons, sometimes even entire dialogue trees
@TheFloodFourm I do pick perks for that character. The useless perks in NV are actually fucking useless. Things that effect xp or here and now are worthless. Traits that add things like 4 eyes are overpowered. Most perks that do anything do a lot. Playing optimally in NV IS picking the things that fit your character because most perks are useful and add an edge. Challenge perks like lord of death make the game easier simply by playing.
This year I finally started playing Skyrim for the first time, and I'm glad that I didn't play it when I was younger, because as a kid I did exactly what you are saying, I would kinda just play as myself and do everything that I could, even if it didn't matched my character. But 2 years ago I started playing D&D and discovered how much I enjoyed roll playing a character, and not just a glorified version of me. So, when I started playing Skyrim this year I didn't want to play myself the all powerful warrior/mage/thief/companion/assassin/bard/vampire hunter/etc., but instead I decided to roll-play as my first ever character for D&D, which coincidently, was a dragonborn. Thus started the adventures of Corvus Scipio, a nordic warrior that will always try to solve any problem with his quick thinking and sharp tongue, and if that's not possible, he can always rely on his even sharper sword and his unbreakable shield. He's not fond of magic or violence, but if pushed too far he might have to use the latter. He has a strong sense of justice and he'll always defend the weak and innocent, but if that fails then he'll make sure to avenge them. Up until now I've not only loved playing the game, but also I really enjoy playing this character. And as I play I constantly think how my future characters for future playthroughs would deal given the same situations, characters that don't share the same values as I do and may be more inclined to steal or kill, and many other ideas. If any of you have not tried to play the game like this and always ends up playing a stealth archer, I highly recommend to give this type of play a try, don't just fight differently, play differently as well.
Newer big games are afraid of not being broad enough of an appeal, and every obstacle is a potential moment where one more player quits. They're convinced this causes less profit.
I never play myself in games, so for me this comes fairly naturally. Roleplaying has allowed me to find joy in slowing down and really experiencing game worlds and characters. It allows me to feel attached to things in games in a meaningful way.
Skyrim. I come up with a backstory while creating my character. Alternate start helps. Usually, I play on master and pretend I'm actually uninitiated in all the skills. Weak. My favorite role was a young wood elf who fled home when confronted with a particularly personal run in with the canabolism that's part of the culture (it helps to watch a lore video or two for ideas). I started in a small camp in the woods and spent a good while hunting for food (survival mode on) and sneaking to avoid harder enemies. When leveling up skills, I would increase something that played into a fun or interesting gameplay moment like I was actually learning. I ran into a traveling merchant and leveled speech, for example. When food was scarce, I tried eating some ingredients. This started me on a path where I would eat too many and black out and find myself in a place I might not have the courage to go normally. You kind of have to write and rewrite some things in your head while things are happening. I'd limit magic use until I met someone to teach me, or I got into a sticky situation that put me in touch with my latent healing ability. Then I'd write that into my backstory if I hadn't already. I ended up doing the hunting quests and other related adventures. It was a ton of fun. Don't limit yourself to the dialogue options. Make the conversation up and try to choose things that go along with it if available. I made an orc with the hand on face painting whose backstory was that they were seen as too powerful by the shaman so they cursed them with not being able to use their voice. I exited most conversations because it didn't make sense to be able to communicate complex ideas. They finally became able to use their voice and overcome the curse when they learned their first shout. Allowing for your character to change creates great story elements and can get you out of gameplay restrictions you grow tired of. Most of the time, I'd put the main quest off to keep the dragons from spawning for awhile. I never had to be the dragonborn. The beginning was is always the most interesting to me, so I found myself creating a new story once I got somewhere between levels 20-40. I could go on and on about this. It revived skyrim in a beautiful way. Some mods can really help, but aren't necessary. It's all about what you can imagine and how you fit the game mechanics around your story.
Yeah, I expect a videogame to actually explain who my character is. I don't want to come up with a backstory for my character. If the game has me play a blank slate - then either that would just be me, or that would just stay a blank slate. Not to mention - I'm not sure I can fully get immersed. From my experience - I very much did meta gaming. If a game has no morality system and there's no consenquences for doing something - I'd probably just do something that has the best rewards. I can't make myself not do something just because "this character won't do that". I'm playing a videogame, so I'll play it like a videogame.
people tend to misconstrue the "optimizing the fun out of the game" quote, players aren't dumb or silly for trying to make things optimal for themselves, optimizing stuff is naturally fun and neat and i WILL keep doing it.
if you play something as fundamentally failed as bethesda games - or shit like aliens colonial marines you have to cheese that's the only way to progress
"Optimising the fun out" refers to the stage where you've found the ideal strategy making the rest of the game way too easy to be fun. i.e when there is nothing left to optimise
@@BenersantheBread nope, sid meier said that when talking about the civilization series, the rest of the quote is "one of the responsibilities of the designer is to protect players from themselves" meaning it's talking about about exploits. it has nothing to do with the endgame state when the player has figured everything out.
@@BenersantheBread sorry i think i was too unclear, it's not really about "when there's nothing left to optimise" because that can be applied to every game, it's talking about exploits trivializing the game, which is a very specific thing.
the embrace of roleplay is what differentiates my Baldur's Gate playthrough from my friend.. he made a whole solo world, just to aim for getting the best possible ending.. but the moment he joins my world he has to witness the chaos that i unleash as the literal chosen one who chose to use my prophet status for chaotic neutral intend, as i help out the weak and plunder villages of tribes that insulted my very presence, either through their words or their sheer ugliness that i had the misfortune of laying my eyes upon, with my (other friend) companion who also likes to commit chaos.. and then there's the friend i mentioned earlier, who's just trying to progress the story..
I wanted to mention that the improvisational, in-person collaboration of DnD is really important to the roleplay. Roleplaying by yourself is harder, and roleplaying in a predetermined experience (a video game) vs a dynamic one (having a dungeon master) is a lot harder. I don't even really feel like Baldur's gate is good for roleplaying. It's more of a pick your own adventure game.
I play titles like Elder Scrolls as myself the first time around, make the choices I would make while also trying to realistically weigh if I would risk one thing or another, do I really care about this and that. This also allows me to get to know the world, and then I can really deep-dive into roleplaying on a new character that is shaped by the events in that world.
This is why I have the most interest in RPG's like Skyrim and Cyberpunk: You can customize your character and make up their backstory and how their story ends! I love it! Any game that already has a character and their backstory (RDR, The Witcher, Kingdom Come Deliverance, etc.), I won't care much for the game. It's really weird, ik. However, to me, gameplay-wise, sometimes I might not care about some restrictions, except for the basics, like skills or types of weapons to use (btw, if you find an axe you can't use just because you use a different type of weapon, just give it to your follower or sell it for big gold), which are simple enough. Head-canon-wise, I do care. However, I may either not pay attention or miss some details in my own head. It's hard if you're not an artist/animator, but I do write them out on a note app as best as possible, it helps with my memory. I always think about being an artist/animator and would love to make my own TV shows about them. Skyrim, Cyberpunk, and possibly Dragon Age Inquisition. Whichever game I get my hands on, I'll start thinking about making a TV series out of it.
I think one thing that helps people become able to role play is to play a game to death once your so intimately familiar with it you get sick of it but still love it and want more from it this is where challenges come from like nuzlockes or challenge runs etc as you do more of them you become more able to ignore the urge to quit and grow the ability to moderate your actions allowing you to more easily stick with a role when you easily could quit
I feel like character creation in a game is the best start for feeling more immersed. For example in Skyrim my characters always have one specific physical trait and a well thought out meaningful name. My character has a black void around her eyes and is called Hecate after the greek goddess of witchcraft. This creates the basis for a morally grey, mage focused character. Even though i dont fully roleplay I like creating small bits of lore around her as the game progresses.
I always role play as a mage character in RPGs. So when I created my second playthrough in Skyrim, I really doubled down into actually being a pure mage in Skyrim. 13 years later, I still play as a full mage character, and I give him some personality and preferences when it comes to spell casting. I love it.
I would definitely recommend the channel Skypothesis if you're looking for roleplay focused characters for Skyrim. Their builds are the definition of unique roleplay and aesthetics.
Its pretty fun to make a character thats an actual person with flaws and traits. I rp'd a ton in skyrim and even headcanoned how these characters knew each other and how they developed in the world. Even wrote their backstories down. Its fun to build your own world really. Bg3 is also pretty good for that.
when i was a kid i used to pick a random game and then try to make like a base or house in it and just basically roleplay instead of interacting with the story. Like on halo I loved the marines so I would just make them get in the warthog, drive them all to one place, then pretend im building an army to fight the covenant. I wish I still had that kind of imagination
Reorder the campaign missions and suddenly you’ve got an entire new storyline starring one or more characters haha
Same tbh
I'd argue the imagination is still there. We just lack the time to aimlessly do stuff like this now as adults.
I would play GMod and decorate Half Life 2's outposts/bases while conjuring up a headcanon for it. It gave me a kind of childlike comfort, like I was posing action figures and imagining what they would do. My childhood was defined by limitation and societal pressure, so it felt awesome engaging in that kind of imaginative play after depriving myself of it so much. Even in GMod. 🤣
I remember playing Simpsons Hit and Run and pretending that Homer knew a zombie apocalypse was coming in the first level and he started prepping, driving back and forth places to warn people and get supplies and such. I was only a really little kid so I only ever got as far as Bart's level and had no idea about the final Halloween level. I miss being a kid
„Roleplaying“ as yourself can be interesting too in my opinion. Especially if one is honest with themselves and builds in all the personal shortcomings. Asking yourself „what would I *actually* do in this situation?“, seldom turns out to be the most rewarding or heroic decision, and I think that adds depth to the game, just as playing someone entirely different can.
That's what I always do so I agree with you completely.
I remember rping myself in fallout new vegas once, and there was a perk that made you less perceptive if not wearing glasses. Even if i wanted to wear a full helmet or a cool mask or something, only the glasses gave me more perception
So i put that shit in because that's literally me, even if it was annoying
Ehhhhhh, I mean, the issue is that playing as yourself, if the character gets dragged into a situation where they have to do things you wouldn't do in this situation, that would break the RP, tbh.
Also, personally, if I was to recreate myself, I would probably feel like a narcissist.
@@AvengerofWarcrafthow could you know if u never really had to do those things?
Ppl are able to do a lot more in dangerous situations
All that happens is that everyone plays as a stealth archer in skyrim.
I love how at 10:50 you say "what choice would you choose?" as Skyrim prompts ONE. SINGLE. dialogue option in the gameplay shown.
I used to strongly dislike skyrim at first.
I came to like it for what it was eventually however.
The difference being that I initially approached the game like an RPG. Skyrim is a *terrible* game for roleplaying. And I cannot believe people still speak of it like it is.
It absolutely is an RPG and one of the better ones for roleplaying.
@@daanstrik4293 Yep Bethesda games kinda suck for roleplaying, especially the modern ones. Most of the choice in the games, especially Skyrim, is either do the quest or dont.
@@krzysztofwozny9742it's extremely limited lol
@@daanstrik4293 I guess it depends on your understanding of the world Roleplaying. It doesn't have to be dialogue choices, it can also be just about what food you prefer to eat, what transport method you use, what weapons you use, stealth or raw force etc. Having few dialogue choices doesn't stop a game from being an RPG, just like having a lot of dialogue choices doesn't instantly make a game an RPG.
i like how the title change from "stop optimizing games" to "embrace roleplaying", It kinda reminds me of that meme
Which meme? Embrace monkey lol?
Making mistakes and overcoming them is part of the fun, is what makes it feel more like a journey.
Ooh that's a good point. I should have had a little section talking about not loading your previous save every time something goes a little wrong. It's especially hard to not do that in games like Xcom where units can permanently die.
@@PretzelYT so you have skill issue and want others to paly the way you do instead of bullying themselves into perfect run
@@ryszakowySo uh... Why are you deliberately misconstruing what they're saying? What do you gain from that? Do you feel personally attacked or something?
I think allowing save states really hurt a lot of the TES series. Imagine having to play Skyrim with only saves in town or when you sleep. It makes adventuring and dying have consequence.
In my longterm terraria world I once hit an explosive trap over lava and lost a whole bunch of rare stuff including a starfury, but I decided to roll with it instead of cheating my stuff back and now it's part of my world and my character's story :) every good story has both its ups and downs, and bouncing back from the downs is what makes a truly compelling playthrough of a game in my opinion.
As a gamedev student, I've personally found that one of the best way to fix this problem is to make the game expect more from the player. Not necessarily by being hard or punishing, just forcing players to engage with your systems. Make them THINK before they do things. I remember never really using alchemy in Witcher 3 during my first playthrough on normal, but on deathmarch it forced me to engage with the system. Punishing careless play isn't difficulty in my eyes, just plain good game design. As long as the systems are presented in an approachable way, making players engage in them in order to survive instead of giving them an avenue to steamroll if they pay slight attention. I don't think optimal play is the problem, I think optimal play being too easy to achieve is and the "one tool fits every job" approach a lot of games have as well.
i don't want to be forced to engage a system i don't like. i usually prefer to use realistic weapons or such. like ballistic projectile firearms. i know how they work. what they do. their limitations. etc. it's easy to fully imagine its implementation on your team. while magic or energy weapons, are loose cannons. fully at the whims of someone else's imagination i might not agree with. conventional weaponry works relatively the same throughout every game. they have real, established rules that already exist by the laws of physics. intuitive and immediately perceptible. while i imagine a magic or energy weapon system works in a much different way than the creator envisioned. and i have no basis to argue on it because we're both right. so i just gotta live with it and deal with its uncomfy existence grating against my idea of how it should've been done. in fallout, i've only used unconventional weapons when out of ammo for my usuals. in skyrim, i only use metal and wood. etc. i would absolutely hate if a game forced me to use something i'm uncomfy with.
I played the Witcher 3 for the first time on the second hardest difficulty as I heard at the time It would become too easy a few hours in.. so the game kept somewhat challenging for tens of hours. But then it became very easy. Now I'm on death march on the new game plus after the recent next gen update. Only on this run that I cared about using alchemy and oils sometimes. But I bet that playing on death march from scratch.. must be totally essential to use alchemy way more.
I don't think forcing the player to interact with the systems of your game is the best way to do things. Encouraging him heavily to do so, by rewarding him for it ( more XP, more money ) is fine, but forcing it though, I don't like the idea.
Because, the problem is that, it forces on the player systems he might not want to interact with, which can be a game breaking thing for him.
I'll give you 2 personal examples of how that can be a bad thing.
As first example, I'll take a Far Cry game, though I'm not sure if it's Far Cry 5 or Far Cry New Dawn. I believe it's 5 but not entirely sure.
Far Cry 5 is a game I absolutely love. We have a variety of vehicles in there ( small cars, pickups, ATVs, planes, helicopters, ect ) , which is great, I love having different possibilities, the more possibilities the better. Problem is, I absolutely suck at "driving" planes. If they're not forced at any point ( in any quest, both main and side quests ) then that's not an issue, because it's there to use for those who enjoy it, without ruining the experience for those who don't want to use planes, ever.
In that game though, there is a sidequest that forces the use of a plane. Need to fly through circles as fast as possible to unlock something. As a completionist, I want to unlock that thing, but because I can't drive a plane in any game, I can't unlock it, which is infuriating.
There's also one of the main quest that forces the player to use a plane, and as if it wasn't bad enough, we need to kill an enemy's plane at the same time. Wouldn't be too much of an issue if there was an auto-lock that automatically follows the enemy's plane movements, but no, we're expected to drive it and aim and shoot at the same time. Took me about 6 hours to pass that quest on Easy difficulty. I love the game, and would love to do multiple playthroughs of it, but I can't, just because of that mission that I know I won't be able to pass. Gonna take me forever, raging because of how unplayable planes are for me, and I don't want that.
I got nothing against the idea of doing a mission in the air, but, since there's helicopters in the game, why force a plane on the player instead of letting him choose if he wants to use a plane or a helicopter. That would make things a lot better.
Because of that, I can't do a new playthrough, as I don't wanna have to go through that awful quest again.
Second example, Starfield. Even though it has many negative things about it, I still enjoy the game for what it is. But there is one aspect of the game that I need to ignore, which as a completionist is a pain in the backdoor. And that thing is, lock picking ( and therefore every locked safe, can't unlock them ) . Because, I loved the system Bethesda had in Skyrim and Fallout games, but I hate the new system in Starfield and refuse to interact with it. I'm missing a lot of items ( including unique ones and all ) because of it. I wish we could switch it back to the Skyrim and Fallout system, but nooo...
Which is why I am against forcing any specific system on the player. It's okay to encourage it massively, with all types of rewards, but, it shouldn't be forced on the player. For Starfield for example, it would be okay to encourage lock picking by giving more ammo, money, valuable loot to sell for a good price, ect. But, having legendary or unique items locked behind that awful lock picking system, that's where I have an issue with it. Those items should be obtainable even for those who don't wanna interact with their new, awful, lock picking system.
@Subreon I don't really agree with OP's point and while your response gets pretty close to covering it all of how I feel about this, I feel there's something important missing from this discussion: Replay value
When I play an RPG, I want to know that there are different paths that I didn't take this run that I can take in the next. For that to work I want some choices to be restricted from me based on my earlier decisions, including large chunks of narrative content like quests or companions.
I love oblivion, but I shouldn't be allowed to join the fighters guild as a fighter if I have made my character physically weak for the run. To this degree I am more than happy if a game forces me to interact with certain systems if I want to participate in others. That being said I feel like Juhius is making the mistake of assuming that the player should feel compelled to interact with systems in a way that defies their character's role to complete important content. Personally I prefer when an rpg game forces me to interact as my character and makes narrative restrictions rather than gameplay ones.
I think Zelda BOTW is a good example of this. At the start of the game things hit you like a truck. You have to be gathering food and making meals to survive harder encounters. As the game goes on and you get stronger, you don't have to rely on that as much, so it gives that feeling of progress as well.
"i assume you cant make a jack of all trades"
Thats the bard class, we arnt just a pretty face
Since you spoke about Bethesda games, an interesting aspect worth discussing is Fallout 4's Survival mode.
Personally, it made it a lot easier for me to get into a roleplaying headspace, and it's a good example of how mechanics can encourage rp.
Sure, you have to eat, drink, sleep. The basics of that aren't new to survival games.
But the scarcity of it all, especially in the early game, made me so much more mindful of everything I did. I felt like a scavenger in this wasteland, barely scraping by. The limited carry weight also means you have to pick only a small handful of weapons and stick to a playstyle.
Damage is heightened to both npcs and you, meaning that getting caught off guard is life threatening. You cannot just walk in and take out a whole pack of raiders. You think whether quests are worth the risk before taking them. And no fast travel means you plan out routes, figure out plans.
My urges to minmax and optimise stopped going against immersion and ended up going towards it.
"I had to swim to escape an enemy but the water made me sick, and now I need antibiotics and radiation meds. Maybe I should find a clinic or hospital to scavange".
"I am running low on food, maybe I should leave the city centre and hunt some wildlife". "If I help this settlement, I can set up shop here and get a bed and clean drinking water every time I come past this way in future".
And then factions provide true benefits that are hugely tangible - vertibird travel and patrolling allies from the brotherhood of steel, teleportation from the institute - that make the choice between them genuinely feel weighty and meaningful, not just in the story but in practicality. The consequences of your choices aren't shown in an ending slideshow like New Vegas, but impact the world and your experience in it in super weighty, tangible ways. Clearing out a location means there will not be enemies there for a long, long time, so all your future walks are safer. Setting up a mortar system with the minutemen gives you a devastating advantage in assaulting an outdoor camp. Working for the railroad means light armour that far outperforms anything else, a visceral difference compared to combat without it. And when you go against a faction, you create a powerful new enemy that changes every journey across the wasteland.
If you haven't played it, it's really worth a go. Fallout 4 isn't a great "roleplaying" game in the same sense as New Vegas is - focused on dialogue and character stats and lots of smaller decisions that will reflect on you in the ending. But the survival mode shows that a huge amount of thought is put into the world that you miss unless you're forced to engage with it on its own terms, treat the world as a real place, engage in all the overlapping systems.
I agree. This is how I also played Fallout 4. It is quite enjoyable. Not being able to fast travel by the map was itself a remarkable thing. I got to know my way around the landscape very well, and when I got to first travel by vertibird, I was astounded.
This is great, first argument for Fo4 RP vs NV RP I've seen that makes a great deal of sense
I can get super immersed until I have a choice of being a good guy or a bad guy but the bad guy option removes 40 minutes worth of content and replaces it with a cutscene with no story impact whatsoever..
i have a huge idea for a super mario sunshine 2, where in the eyes of the majority of people who are comfy with their new corporate lives stripping resources from their once natural paradise, mario is the bad guy for trying to revert it to how it was, and since majority rules, it does mean he really is the bad guy, even though he's absolutely doing the right thing overall.
@@Subreon "Wahoo!"
*un-does the industrial revolution*
@@spacebassist Mario is the true hero we need
@@spacebassist lmao. it's more like restoring cultural heritage, tourism, and nature. also more like a rebel takeover story. kinda like the just cause series. gonna have a character switch function, with one of them being bowser, maybe dk and warrio who are destruction focused characters. mario like characters do platforming and cleanup. luigi like characters do platforming and puzzles. bowser like characters do pl-DESTRUCTION OF OPPRESSIVE INFRASTRUCTURE! EXPLOSIONS FOR PEACE! DOWN WITH THE TYCOON'S OIL PUMPS AND FUEL DEPOTS! ERASE THE SCAR OF SMOKESTACKS AND BARREN FORESTS!
@@Subreon super mario: guerilla warfare would easily get me invested in his games lmao
i thought DK was a rogue agent (i've played like the first two maps of country), like his interests were preserving his territory and driving off invaders like the croc guy
bowser's army would be at its greatest, mountains converted to MOABB launchers (mother of all bullet bills), goomba/koopa legions patrolling the wastes that used to be toad villages, every last natural resource exhausted for his unending lust for expansion.
so bowser would be strategy, but the only victory is domination (or reaching a certain number to progress the story, making it a section to demonstrate how he sees the world as a set of pieces he can move to get what he wants)
wario would be the arms dealer playing both sides. his mansion grows over the course of the game, until just before he tries to skip town, the toad uprising mario and luigi inspired (now the "revolution bros.") march to his abode and torch it with fire-flowers
waluigi is tried for his war crimes during his service to bowser's army (as always, trying to do the opposite of luigi and assist the domination)
boo's mansion thrums with the uncountable casualties of it all
God, I hate playing games optimally. I love putting constraints on myself.
Last run of Skyrim, I only allowed myself to punch things to death. It was great fun beating Alduin to death with my bare hands.
The Fists of the Pugilist enchantment combined with the Fortify Restoration exploit is honestly some of the most fun I've ever had in a video game.
I completely agree with your point, but there actually are fun unarmed builds in Skyrim
So your character is optimised for unarmed combat?
Way more doable in Oblivion with the Hand to Hand skill
That sounds like alot of fun! I'd like to do that as a khajiit in VR.
I think that's why games were so fun when we were kids. Just stumbling around, not sure what exactly we are doing and saving the world. We know how to play a game the moment we pick it up nowadays.
I love roleplaying so much. I get a lot of flak from my friends because I make entire new characters in the Souls games to do different builds. Currently I made a sorceress in Elden Ring that only uses Glintstone Sorceries and a whip, because it pertains to that character that I made. I effectively made the game harder for myself but it’s just so fun to me.
I do the same thing by limiting my level cap. On Elden Ring I usually aim for 150 for pvp reasons. This way, I can play the game multiple times and get different experiences each time depending on what bosses my character is good/bad against.
Wait your friends give you flack for doing different builds? Isnt getting to try out the stuff you didn’t get to do last time one of the main appeals of replaying those games? Your friends sound weird.
@@tropicturtle9021 Well they give me flack because I don’t just co op with them since I like to roleplay. Some characters I make wouldn’t co op or the ones that do aren’t that good for bosses my friends wanna fight because of the build.
Probably like 13 years ago i had a Skyrim file where I roleplayed zuko. It was a great choice because he can be pretty morally ambiguous and i thought it’d be fun to start out the game making more evil decisions with some good ones and gradual become more good. Mechanically it was interesting too because he could only use fire magic, a simple lightning spell, dual swords, and spirit swords, referencing his time as the blue spirit. What this video is proposing is most of what i did and i can confirm that it’s fun. Having a pre existing character helps figure out satisfying ways to respond to the story and restrict your gameplay
I agree and I try to roleplay in games. The problem pops up when the illusion of choice is pushed to disbelief. Skyrim is a great example of this. You COULD try to roleplay an evil or unsavory character, but most of the time the rewards for a quest are such that even an entirely self-centered character would still be the good guy because it's very obviously the only choice worth taking.
Im so bad for optimizing the fun out of game.
I think more optimizing yourself beyond the economy. Such as buying up the last piece of property in a gta game.
"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" - Sid Meier & Søren Johnson
i think the bigger problem is people telling you not to play how you want. if you wana optimize it then do that, don't force yourself ot play a way you don't want. Your time is infinitely valuable
@@larsdahl5528oh was that quote actually from Sid Meier, the civilization games? Not sure who Soren is tho
@@Eggsecuter I do not know the details. I guess Sid Meier is mentioned because it was, in reality, Soren Johnson who said it, but as co-designer Soren is far less known.
Counterpoint though - it is definitely enjoyable in its own way to be insanely overpowered and smite anything in your way.
Especially after a bad day at work or something - just to get that little feeling of 'power'
Being overpowered can present some good comedy as well. Trying out goofy Warframe builds can be hilarious, especially when you're carrying lower level players. Hell, even being carried by someone with a broken build can be funny in an absurd way. Maybe my sense of humour is odd, who knows. 😂
this is why the isekai genre is the most popular in anime. and why the premise is mostly the same in all of them. character dies or otherwise freed from their oppressive bland life of lonely forever work. they wake up in a blank canvas world ready to be shaped to their desires. this is mostly a medieval type of world. where the concept of society is well established, but lack of long range communication keeps everyone malleable by their local ecosystem. while in our world, life has been optimized to a comfy standard for most, so most wouldn't care enough to change it, and if you were to change it, you'd have an entire world of instantly communicating people to contend against to make it happen. much easier in smaller pockets of disconnected population that can be amazed by simple concepts like a hot bath. they also typically have extremely overpowered abilities that sweep any common challenge, including many that are daily real life annoyances. people love these shows cuz they want to imagine a world where they can just, not stress over everything. their life is secure and stable. they have people that care about them. and any challenges that come to threaten that, they can simply bat away and be a hero to everyone. it's a much more exciting life to envision than one of being alone at a computer typing out lengthy paragraphs of meaninglessness to any passing viewer they hope will take a second to acknowledge it and comment on it in some form of validation...
@@Subreon Isekai? Now that's what I call escapism!
I do think that being overpowered should be something that is optional and considered as a reward, rather than it just being handed out to you.
I feel like the desire for power in games can be fun, but “power” can also arrive from the challenge
There’s a reason people want to play dark souls, because they want to see that boss go down, even if they are weak
There’s also the very mechanical satisfaction, of wanting to build a perfectly oiled and engineered machine, be it a OP character build in a RPG or a impenetrable defence for your base in something like tower defence or colony management games
I am the most optimal Skyrim player.
I begin by turning on a mod that lets me bring around multiple followers. And not just 5 followers, not even 10 followers, but 512 followers.
I then download mods for custom followers. Characters from games I like, such as the Soul of Cinder from Dark Souls, who is twice as tall as any normal character.
Then I download mods for fully custom characters, specifically characters with custom voices. The more goobers I have bantering back-and-forth, the better.
I then boot up the game and run around, collecting as many followers as I possibly can. Once I have so many followers that I can no longer navigate interior spaces, and their voices drown out all other noise, that is when my Skyrim playthrough has reached its peak optimization.
It once took me 13 minutes to travel from the bed in Breezehome to the front door. Speedrunners fear me.
Hilarious read. Funnily enough I have a friend like you. In every game we play, he would always try making an army, whether through summons or other methods. It got so bad in Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 where we could AFK for minutes while his summons use up their turns.
Ever heard of Diablo The Cheater
Absolutely unhinged behavior
mans playing skyrim like its kenshi
Optimizing every experience is what made me think video games were getting boring. It was never their fault, it was mine. The last five years they have become fun again as I've forced myself to adjust.
What sucks about giving yourself restrictions is that the game never rewards you. Its hard to feel satisfied when you get the exact same reward no matter how you do it. Thats why I love games that give you more rewards based on difficulty
this is what it was like for me playing cyberpunk 2077. the game makes you play as V, you can't just be "yourself", but it turns out that ended up pushing more to actually roleplay a character. i decided i wanted to be a good-hearted nomad who values loyalty and would fight only with fists or bludgeoning weapons, killing only when necessary. i felt more attached to the character and it helped me make decisions i might have otherwise had decision paralysis over
I remember pretending that we lived in Nuketown on COD Black Ops 2 and when we all used to play Minecraft on the Xbox 360
I realised this playing games with our kids. Their randomness of their approach and what in a game they become fascinated with makes gaming with them genuinely more fun than my dull grown up approach.
I also want to add that the best way to get into roleplaying or doing challenges when playing games is to JOIN THE COMMUNITY. There are lots of people who want to do this type stuff, and post logs. People do this in VNs, RPGs, even FPSes! Getting involved with others on your run is how you can enjoy the game much more.
Pretty much every time I play Wii Sports I add extra story to it. Like I’ll determine either Tyrone or Pierre (depending on who they match me up with after I reach pro status) is some undefeated boxing legend who wronged me outside of the ring and I vowed to become a boxer and beat him. Each fight comes with a press conference during the vs screen and commentators during/after the fight. Don’t get me started on the showdown mode in swordplay on Wii Sports Resort.
There are a some people who are happy with themselves as a person, so they enjoy being themselves also in the games. That's something a lot of people just can't understand, because they usually can't stand themselves, whether they can admit it or not.
I had a bad childhood. I joined the army at 21, and after my tour, Skyrim released. Being a fan since Battlespire and Redguard, I was super excited. I did play as I normally did all TES games with a wood elf archer. The more I played, the more cathartic I found it. Til, eventually, I started putting myself in the game.
After a year of indecision, I finally settled on a Khajiit. Just felt right, and I joined the thieves guild and the empire. Did all the things I wanted to do and walked away from the game for about 6 solid years and eventually started back up with whatever edition for the PS4.
I now have a high elf vampire that I platinumed the game with and still frequently play as. Again, it was a cathartic experience because the one character I identified with growing up was Kain from Blood Omen. He was robbed of his life and became something dark. I was on a similar path, but I gamed instead of schemed.
I truly immersed myself in a character once - Stumbling around for the first hour of Dead Space totally lost in the role of a lumbering sapce dog, overworked underpayed and almost completely checked out even before necromorphs come into the picture. More concerned with rearranging the lyrics of Black Sabbath's *_Iron man_* to better include mentions of cans, drinking and _drinking cans._
It may have been the all time greatest gaming moment of my life.
A close second may have been an almost entire hour of a friend playing Sekiro with a random selection of tunes from OFF playing not just in the background but tightly matching and informing his gameplay both moment to moment and in a tactical and strategic sense
truly delicious
This is why Starfield's traits and backgrounds are so great. My main character has the Wanted trait. Because of that, they get ambushed often by bounty hunters, and I have to make split second decisions when they do. That single trait allowed me to craft a story for my character and explain *why* they are being hunted by bounty hunters.
Personally i don't like minmaxing, boring for me, but there are also people who absolutely love turning every game into a spreadsheet simulator.
Even for a game like stardew valley I don’t get it. Part of the fun for me is discovering what the villagers like. Some players have literal spreadsheets on what the villagers like. And then I wonder why there aren’t just watching a let’s play
I'm personally pretty fatigued on the culture surrounding "optimal play" that has been built up more and more over the years.
Now to be clear, I think that *to a degree* "optimal" play is fun and even just a naturally occuring thing in a lot of players' ways to play. For instance say you're playing Minecraft, you'll probably want to upgrade your gear over time to the highest tier, whether that is diamond or netherite. You'll also probably want good enchantments eventually.
But even just before all of that, what do you do in a Minecraft world? Well you gotta cover things such as food, and for most people this basically boils down to either planting a ton of crops or herding a bunch of cows. You're encouraged to go for something that is good, because you do not want to deal with low hunger your entire playthrough, and inadvertedly without realising you optimize how to get food. This example is a bit of a cheat on my part admitately, since food is not all that complex in minecraft and getting to an "optimal" point takes little effort. But what I hope to convey here is that at least to an extent players tend to wanna streamline certain mechanics or processes whilst playing a game. And that is perfectly fine, it comes naturally during regular play and only makes sense, afterall you probably wouldn't exclusively eat apples in minecraft unless you impose a challenge on yourself.
And that is exactly the thing, there is a certain fun in making things easier for yourself in a game by optimizing an aspect for it, I'd even call it a rather large pillar of the survival genre as a whole. However, this has its limits and can go into territory that becomes bland, uninteresting and sometimes even downright toxic.
One game community I have been a part of for years now is the Don't Starve community, and with how difficult and obtuse the game is to learn, it sort of began fostering a culture within said community that is hyperfocused on "optimal" play. Everything ranging from food to combat has been optimized by people playing the game. Some people treat things as more of a competition than an activity to have fun.
You can't simply play the game to have fun besting a harsh world that is out to kill you at every turn, no its all about learning how to cancel your attacks at the right frame to get another attack cycle on a boss before needing to kite. You can't just enjoy the intricate cooking system, you have to optimize it to waste as little hunger value as possible even if the difference does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Nobody is truly forcing you to play that way, but it becomes a sort of expectancy within the inner circles of the community.
And in an ironic twist, a large chunk of people within these inner circles stop enjoying the game more and more, both because they constantly go for optimal play for the sake of optimization simply going through the motions, and because said optimal play makes the game far too easy. In fact, that second point is so pronounced within discussion of the game, a lot of players genuinely think the game has only gotten objectively easier since the first time they played it, when in reality they have simply gotten so good at the game that nothing poses any meaningful challenge. It's hard to find something within the base game that is going to pose a threat to a player with literally thousands of hours of playtime under their belt afterall.
But the "optimal" play rabbit hole goes even deeper, there's other ways in which optimizing the hell out of a game can detract from it.
For this example I will be using Team fortress 2. TF2 is at its core built to just be a fun shooter, pick the class you like, choose a loadout and just play some payload or king of the hill. It is built with players simply wanting to have fun in mind, but offers just enough of a competetive edge that of course the community created their own competetive modes. And that's awesome, like genuinely. I have nothing against people wanting to play tf2 competetively, in fact I encourage it.
...To an extent. Because what competetive inevitably does to a player's mind, and by extension how they view the game, can actually end up doing more harm than good.
Instead of just playing the game for the fun of blasting people with your scattergun, or the thrill of infiltrating the enemy defenses as a spy, instead with competetive it is all about winning the game and ranking up.
Your mind will now be more focused on how to eek out more advantage at every corner of the game, rather than if you are having an enjoyable time or not. And once again, playing devil's advocate here, enjoyment can absolutely come from that, there is a charm in participating in a competition of sorts like that and I absolutely do not want to detract the enjoyment people get out of it because of my own bias. However what is important to realize is that making things a competition as a regular game mode is definitely going to harm certain players' experiences because they will at one point or another HAVE to play the game in ways they might not like. Maybe they'd love to play Demoman to blow people to bits, but because their team already has 2 demomen they really cant do that unless they want to jeopardize not just their own rank, but also that of their entire team as well. Or maybe they want to play spy and stir the enemy team up from within, but doing so would do the same thing as just described because spy is not meta.
In this case the way players are restricted in what they can or can not do to play the game makes for a less interesting, less varied and overall more frustrating experience, because even if they do go against the grain, unless they are outright kicked from the match by their teammates expecting them to play optimal, they still risk consequences for everyone involved just because they wanted to play the game a certain way.
And to be absolutely clear here, this is not just on the people who are willing to kick or be mean. They have their own responsibility here for sure, but I moreso want to focus on the game itself in this case. Because it is the game itself here which encourages this sort of behaviour in the first place. It is the game that dangles the promise of a new rank in front of players' faces, with the looming punishment of having your progress on said rank undone because you dared go against the norm. As a result people become more harsh, sometimes angry, because they do not want to get punished for something out of their control. They are simply conditioned to try and minimize failure like that, and one such part of minimizing failure is to stick to what is "meta", with any deviation being a justification to bar others from playing that way.
What I just described applies to a lot of competetive multiplayer games, specifically ones with ranking systems baked into them, but I think you get the idea of what I am trying to say.
Optimizing your gameplay for one reason or another is something that is fairly normal, but just like everything else in life can be overdone to an unhealthy degree. All of the games I have mentioned here are incredibly good games that simply have a few faults with how they make players interact with their systems and lead to communities surrounding the game to become less inviting and more focused on success than having a fun time.
And with that last example in particular, with how AAA games lean more and more into competetive multiplayer systems, live service models and ELO systems for ranking, it just makes the gaming landscape as a whole a less inviting environment for a lot of people, as a good chunk of players will have certain behaviour these games encourage so ingraned into their way of playing and speaking, that things become less enjoyable for everyone involved.
Anyway if anyone is reading this down here, thanks for giving my comment the time of day, and remember that these are just my two cents. Feel free to disagree, but stay respectful, and have a wonderful day.
yap sesh
Pretty good write up.
As much as one can reasonably expect to fit in a youtube comment anyhow.
I do very much agree with what you said and yeah, playing the game optimally for the sole purpose of triumphing over other players with the same characters or loadouts or techniques etc. consequently makes the game become monotonous. I also do not comprehend how some people have over thousands of hours on a competitive multi-player game especially fps ones since you are essentially iterating the same thing over and over, albeit there are game modes to spice things up but the gameplay loop is unchanged. It really makes me wonder what compells people to play those competitive games where you accomplish the same objective over and over with the only difference being the opposing team composing of new strangers.
@@CagXanno I mean the same can be said about career sports players who devote their life to a sport despite the rules of that sport never changing. Some people just genuinely enjoy competition (and enjoy winning, mostly winning) and they pick one game that strikes their fancy to get as much of that fix as possible with. It’s just a different kind of entertainment.
THIS. i thought you were gonna be all about roleplaying, thought you were gonna say you do it all the time and why it is good. but no, you said you WISH you could but actually can't really. and man do i relate to you. all you described is exactly what and how i feel about this topic and it felt like a relief hearing someone talking about the same experience. awesome video. thanks!
I play Warframe, and boy you better believe how much I'm constantly attacked for not using the most optimal builds and changing them for each and every single mission
And y'know, it's really fun using off-meta or outright bad gear and still being the strongest player in that mission all while everyone is confused as to how I'm doing so well with what I have
Even in a game where the developers themselves cheat using commands, and expect the player to use the easiest to obtain (and most powerful) weapons with the same builds.
As for Skyrim? Evil and stabby, very stabby.
Love playing as a snarky khajiit assassin
I use what Warframe I like and what weapons I like.
If someone wants me to meta, they can buy the meta shit for me lol
ck3 makes that good by giving you a random character with random prefrences and making him suicidal if you act to much against them.
Most fun playthrough I had on Skyrim was as a restoration-pacifist. I had a mod which added a ring that would damage anyone who harmed me, it didn't do a ton of damage so I had to be sure to have enough magicka to be able to heal myself until they were dead. Just really brought an entirely different mindset to encounters.
I do a lot of roleplaying in my RPGs (to the point where it's difficult for me to really get into JRPGs and the sort, but I digress). Like, _A LOT_ a lot. Like "I have 4 Dragonknights in ESO and they all play differently" a lot. It's one of those things that you have to actively work on so that you don't "optimize" yourself out of the experience.
The more you get into the weeds and understand how the game's various systems work, the the easier it becomes. Yes, I have one of those infamous "stealth archers" in Skyrim, but she's also sort of a ninja thief-type girl. A ninja thief-type girl that understands dick about magic, so no Illusion, Alteration, or even Enchanting for her. But she understands plants and how some of them can have some rather nasty effects on one's internal organs, so I invested in Alchemy for her. She's also not too shabby with a sword, so I gave her One-handed as well, although if Unarmed was a tree, I'd give her that instead (yeah, I know there's the one Heavy Armor perk, but it's just not the same). Pickpocket, Mercantile, all that good stuff. It's a good time.
Contrast my templar, who grew up among the Vigilants of Stendarr. Has a warped sense of justice, very black and white with her morals, to the point of appearing like a religious zealot. Meridia would cream Herself(?) if She(?) and my templar ever met. Anyway, "a good defense is the best offense", so One-handed, Block, and Heavy Armor were priorities for her. Restoration magic means she can stay in battle against "the forces of evil" for longer, and basic understanding on Enchanting lets her fortify herself and/or her offense against those forces. Barely knows what a bow looks like, never mind operating one. However, remember what I said about the warped sense of justice. Even the most harmless of thieves would face her wrath if she caught wind of them.
I have more (like my blacksmith, my pyromancer, and my half-daedra sorceress), but I'm sure you get it. It can be a ton of fun and dare I say is totally worth it, _IF_ you manage to stick with it and can refrain from going for the more efficient options simply because they're more efficient.
Good comment!
I love roleplaying, in fact I love when RPGs have established characters like geralt, I can try to be like them and do what they would do, I think it's fun
Been waiting FOREVER for this to become a mainline gaming mentality. It used to be the norm.
Honestly why not both? Roleplay is cool and all, but i really like breaking game and feeling overpowered personally. Unless it's something like Darkest Dungeon where struggling is part of the fun.
hanging out in world 301 in old school runescape taught me how to relax in videogames.
I think a lot more people role play in videogames than you expect, it may be difficult to think this is true, because it's so contrary to the way you play in games like Skyrim, but... I've never consciously "roleplayed" in a videogame, not to the point that I am Argok the Orc that was a baker as a boy but his village burned down in a freak fire and he was the only survivor and now he is a BLAH BLAH, no. It is not a binary situation. You are not just roleplaying or not roleplaying, it is a broad spectrum of different actions that we put into the "box" of roleplaying. Some games I go in and I just do whatever combat feels good, whatever quests seem fun, but I will never do morally bad actions. Others I am maximum fuck around and find out mode, and others still I have a character in my head that I want to portray in the world, which I believe would be closest to your idea of roleplaying.
Everyone plays videogames differently, for different reasons, and from different backgrounds.
You say that to role play you must "raise your state of mind", and when you encounter a choice, or a quest, you think "what would I do", but at the same time, you don't think twice about committing crimes in the game for the sake of your character? It sounds like you are role playing a version of yourself that is not inhibited by the restrictions of life. Roleplaying a fantasy, if you will. This is the real reason a lot of people play these games, a massive number of the current Fallout New Vegas player base is similar to this, I think. To role play can be to act as someone you are not, or it can be to live a fantasy of someone you wish to represent in a digital world.
That's an interesting way to think about it. Rather than starting out as a character with a set backstory and a moral foundation and all that, you just accept that whatever choices you make during your playthrough form your character.
I guess I can see it.
Though with me, I play games the same way a lot of the time. Every time I start a Skyrim character I almost always gravitate towards the same skills, same weapon types, same quest choices. By your system, I'm practically making the same character every time I play. I wish I didn't really gravitate towards those same options every time... but I do for whatever reason.
I like how you put it though. That's definitely something I should keep in my mind regarding roleplaying if I ever make another video on the topic.
Having a good point but listing as many hated and reviled mechanics as humanly possible as solutions to the issue.
The scenario in which you find a very good axe is the *****reason***** for an rp no-axe backstory to begin with. Conflict. Taking away the ability to equip the axe is just robbing an opportunity.
That's prob why you can't roleplay.
You're trying to play a *guy*, not a "character". The difference is a character has a dramatic reason for the camera to follow them at all.
You're making personality traits in a vaccuum that don't come into conflict with the setting/gameplay in an interesting way.
I can very much relate to this. It's been a struggle of mine to roleplay and resist the temptation to make choices based on the meta rather than immersion. One thing that I started doing that helps is to force yourself to SLOW DOWN. Games condition us to lean into whatever is fast and convenient, and you sort of have to do the exact opposite.
What the hell just happened...
I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn right now, and as I was watching this video near the tenth minute mark I started thinking how I can implement some of the things you've talked about in my playthrough - and just at that moment you showed Horizon footage (with the "bias from other games we're playing" commentary) and I admit I got spooked there xD
I roleplay on the second playthrough, first playthrough is all about inserting myself in that world, both ways are fun to me.
I love roleplaying in games! Made my whole youtube channel around it. Granted "let's roleplays" aren't the most popular... But I've never had more fun playing games. Even non-rpgs, I love embodying the pre-defined character, like an actor would. RPGs might be a genre, but roleplaying is an approach you can have to any game!
I had a great experience just yesterday in Skyrim. Just as I was stepping off the carriage to Riften, I was rushed by three dawnstar members. I had to duck behind the stables, desperately trying to snipe then with calming spells before they one shot me with their deadly bolts. This was all while my hired merc was too busy fraternizing with the horses to care to fight with me. And to make matters worse, attacking the passive dawnstar warrior only made the Riften gate guards mad at me, never mind that they were the ones to start a fight first. If I was able to black out the sun I might've stood a chance, but it was so early in the day I couldn't get a clean shot at it, and had to brute force my way through the flight. It took many reloaded saves to finally win, but it was such a dynamic encounter, using the buildings and trees to gain cover, running around trying to manage three different deadly threats at once, picking them off one my one.
It was frustrating for sure, but all the more memorable because of all the different factors working together to bring this fight for my life into a real, tangible experience. That's why I wanted to make a brand new vampire character to begin with, and it turned out to be a great choice.
Super insightful video! My friend and I talk about this all the time - how since Skyrim, it really seems like games are obsessed with making sure all content is available to everyone from the first playthrough.
Also, on the topic of tabletop RPG's, a lot of players who come from a gaming background tend to optimize the fun out of their games as well. In my experience, in either a TTRPG standpoint, or a standpoint of role playing through an RPG like Skyrim, one of the best ways to intrench yourself in your character is to let yourself make discoveries as your character. When your character goes through a close call in combat, consider how that might affect them. Let your in-game experiences determine what you emphasize in character progression.
The first time I play I like to do a “what if I live in this word”. After that I will do other role pays
No, I will continue to play optimize my gameplay, then once I figure out the meta, add arbitrary restrictions, then optimize around those restrictions.
As a creative writer who makes up stories anyway, I live for games where I can role play and its not so much about being me or not being me, it about being ‘them’, this ‘other’ I have created and what ‘they’ would do. Some of those decisions might totally align with me and some may not.
What I love about playing video games as different from character writing my own narratives is having limits based in-game and sometimes I will actually take that into narratives I write to get past writers block.
No matter how lose the games rules are at some point you can run into a game forced choice where you actually think all your options are bad but you have to make one and even make one against established character and if I was writing a novel or short story I may create a ‘writer out’ I feel matches character but being forced to work within game mechanics forces me to make a ‘game-able choice’ and those moments are super fun.
The idea of having guiding principles or restrictions can really make it a fresh experience. It's the idea behind playing MMOs self-found or hardcore or challenge runs in Dark Souls. I did something like this many years ago in WoW. I made a set of rules for my character: (1) I would only run everywhere (no mounts or flight paths), (2) I would only use items that I found or crafted (no auction house or trading), (3) I would never use the map (never hit the m key on the keyboard to open the world map), (4) I would complete every quest I came across without looking everything up (no addons, tracking, or websites, only reading the in-game quest text), and (5) I would stand my ground and fight every enemy I aggro'd (even if it meant certain death). I leveled from 1-55 in this way and it was a lot of fun!
It’s a good exercise in perspective to lean in to the character you’re given rather than just optimizing all the time. It’s one of the reasons I love a game where I as the human am subject to what happens to my character and I can decide how my in-game character will react
Not even a minute in the video but I agree.
I didn't even watch the video and i agree with overuse of optimal peak meta dps builds.
@@Micecheese while I agree, that is not what this video is about
i have the same problem with fallout new vegas, i loved my first experience and i 100% the NCR ending and most of the game, so much so i wanted to do the same playthrough again. Predictably, it didnt fell the same. i still love the game, but sometimes i think "havent i done this 100 times already?" , and when i try doing a gimmick with unique restrictions i think of a different one and just restart. i know its a thing with RPGs and its called altoholism. im just pouring my soul out and i dont wanna start hating my favorite game.
in super evil playthroughs i sometimes immerse myself too much with violence and feel terrible afterwards like "What have i done?" and kinda makes me feel sick, i know its fiction, but a part of me feels empathy towards the characters i cross, maybe i should integrate that into the character. I guess its stands as a testament to the believability of the characters and great writing.
I embrace it by playing as myself. Every choice I make is what would I do if I was actually in that position. Of course, sometimes save scumming to see alternate paths is on the menu, but generally I enjoy the game as I immerse myself whatever it may be
2:55 You're weak during the day ☀️ if you're a vampire 🦇
I roleplay Skyrim and all the elder scrolls games. They don’t always support it fully but I love making a character and getting attached to them. I feel like all the elder scrolls stories, even the good ones like Morrowind, still leave most of the emotional legwork of connecting to the game world to the player. But I’m more than happy to creatively engage with the series amazing lore to make a character that bridges that gap 😃
I do limit my character in Skyrim a little. Although I try to complete every quest I stumble upon, I always limit my character to master the Thief's skills (sneaking, light armor, archery, etc.). That allows me to focus my xp on a set of skills
Based. Sometimes i end up not even liking the character i create but still sticking up to them and it's worth it every time.
BG3 was my first real experience with full immersing myself in role play, now I’m excited to replay other games with RP more in mind
Thank you for saying this. I never play optimally and it sucks the fun out of any game for me. At a certain point, you may as well just do taxes for fun or organize excel spreadsheets. An old friend of mine inadvertently made me dislike terraria which used to be one of my favorite games because whenever we'd play all's he would do is ultra optimized boss runs and item farming and stuff and spoil everything in the game. Part of the fun of gaming for me is immersing yourself in rp and natural progression. When its too "gamey" ironically enough it stops being a fun game. This is why I prefer crusader kings over civilization as an example
Breakpoint is a fantastic example! i loved playing that game solo and with my cousin. in coop i was our loud, lmg toting juggernaut that dominated close quarters with my shotgun backup while he made sure no enemy was safe behind cover and we both suffered against the opposite. enemies bum rushing him was a death sentence and being out in the open for me made me useless in a fight and i loved that. solo i would go full splinter cell, daunting single shot silenced weapons and gear that made me rely heavily on being a true ghost and going loud almost always spelled my death.
I played Skyrim with no Enchanting + Weapon/Armor crafting as a cloak and dagger vampire while difficulty scaling based on level. Just to play the entire game like that not just for main story and done.
Best Skyrim playthrough I had, making my personal spreadsheets for my best in slot gear was fun. Using cool looking gear that I would never normally use. Playing without Blacksmithing/Enchanting (also no armor/weapon upgrading) feels like a much better way of playing for me.
That and I was also roleplaying as a custom character.
your point about putting constraints on yourself and how games don't do this by default is evidently clear in modern bethesda titles all the way down to the lighting. They put all these cool spells and torches and stuff to help you see in the dark but the game never dares make it too dark for the player to see. But when you mod in the darkness back suddenly all those tools add another layer of depth to the game.
Its such a flaw in modern game design to coddle the player. So glad games like elden ring are showing it is actually possible to make a mostly single player experience and still make it a challenge while selling millions.
How can I not play as myself.
I am the Imperial Crusader born under the sign of the Lover, the reincarnation of lord Indoril Nerevar the hortator and moon and star himself.
@Pretzel all these things are for somebody that is desensitized. A newcomer to games or to a specific genre doesn't care. Playing optimality and playing non-optimality are equally valid. I approve of what you say due to being extremely desensitized. I've played to much, too many genres, tried everything. At some point, you need exactly what your video talks about.
Self-imposed constraints are a good way to not only make a game more unique and challenging but also make roleplaying something integral to gameplay. That said I always somehow end up min maxing my way to an overpowered slog anyway.
this is tough for me to do, needed this
5:55 I think I would dislike the random super axe a lot more if I couldn't use axes at all. The game taunting you with the choices you made so long ago, rather than the choice you continue to make.
2:04 Congratulations, you have discovered Daggerfall.
My GOAT Pillars of Eternity mentioned ❤
You just articulated what i felt was missing from BG3. Yes its a more complete experience in all aspects, but that concreteness takes away the wonder that PoE had. Its like how a Hard Magic system takes away the awe of a Soft Magic system
I love roleplaying to this day, even got better at it. My best play through of all time was Fallout 4. I played as the mother and felt an emotional connection with her because her pain and quest. She did things I don't agree with but her experience in the wasteland led to those decisions and because I was so connected with her, I understood them. I even gave her somewhat of a happily ever after ending, where the Commonwealth is on the way to be governed again and Taryn accepted her place in the new world as a leader. Even thinking back to her story brings a smile to my face as I write this, I was so locked in to the roleplaying. So yes, roleplay and really create a character in place of self inserting sometimes. It can end up being really rewarding :)
Btw Pretzel just want to say love the way you think and express yourself. You're my favorite content creator rn, you bring such a cozy video style 🫶🏽
to this very own day i play garrys mod with my friend and we goof around and act and re-act our favorite movie scenes with some twist to the point we start to larp unintentionally
1:45 smoothest transition of all time
I usually play as myself on the first playthrough, and then roleplay on subsequent ones.
For Fallout 4, I roleplayed as agent 47 (Hitman) for my railroad playthrough, Negan (Walking Dead) for my raider boss playthrough, and Darth Vader/Anakin for my Brotherhood of Steel playthrough. My first playthrough, I sided with the Institute and created an alliance between the Minutemen and the Institute. If I were in the sole survivor's position for real, that is likely what I actually would have done.
Each playthrough had different rules, different aesthetics, a different character, and a different playstyle. Vader was all about melee power armor and vengeance. The only people safe from Vader were the Brotherhood of steel, and anyone Maxson sent him after got no mercy. 47, by contrast, was a stealth build with heavy firearms focus, particularly handguns, and while he would take out anyone that interfered with his mission, he was still a good character. He sided with the railroad because what the Institute does with synths reminded him of what the agency did to him as a child (play Absolution. It covers this and inspired this playthrough).
I've had a lot of fun this way.
One of the reasons I love project zomboid so much is that you are incentivized to get into that roleplaying state of mind when playing because of the fact that you need to give your character a profession, positive and negative traits, a name and their looks; and if they die they are gone for good. It's so refreshing starting a new game and thinking of a cool character idea to write the story of that particular world and getting attached to that character, then if they die it really hits you and you have to make the decision of just making another charater in that world and finding the zombified previous character and their base, or just creating another world and starting all over again.
One of the best ways to make a game more immersive if you’ve hit writer’s block or a creative wall is to use your resources. For example, ChatGPT is excellent at compiling data and quick processing. Just ask GPT to give you a backstory, race and class choice, personality, and personal preferences. Then just stick to it. After enough times of that, one may be able to start making up their own stories.
My favorite thing about RPGs is being able to bring characters I imagine outside of games to life, even if in a limited way. When I played Baldur's Gate 3 with a couple of buddies everyone was near paralyzed trying to imagine characters to play, while I just went "Oh I know which of the people who live in my brain I can make on this" and beelined into a character I always wanted to write. I also get frustrated when an RPG chafes against the characters I imagine. In my view, if a role-playing game limits the character I imagine and want to make, it's not a very good one.
I also like playing as myself however. Not self-inserting as much as doing the same thing as above, only the character is me. What am I good at, what am I bad at, personal strengths & weaknesses and weighing that into a character sheet. It gets strange because by the end of most RPGs your character is overpowered, so I end up playing an idealized hyper-competent version of myself. Still, it's an interesting thing to try, but really shouldn't be the default instinct when it comes to character building.
I used to straight up brainstorm and write out a small character writeup when i played ES- Oblivion. They would have a defined backstory, fighting style, lore-accurate name, sometimes even family ties to other chars in game. That was so much fun to play that way
I remember having a great time roleplaying in skyrim the last time I played it in 2019. Spent 200 hours on it, was some of the most fun I've had in any game. I'll always remember it.
i'm so doing this after finishing my first run, lol. now i play as me first and foremost so i can make a quick decision in a pressing situation.
It's not about whether you can be the archmage as a barbarian, it's about if your character would actually be the type of guy to do that sort of thing
While not a roleplaying game I think a game series that kind of gets me into that mindset is the old Soul Reaver/ Blood Omen franchise. Its has such a vast potential for an expansive world but a lot of it is honestly left up to your imagination because you only ever see what it looks like in the moment and not the entirety of it, in the first Blood Omen you got to explore the vast majority of it but it was limited by the hardware of the Ps1 so you had to somewhat fill in the details yourself. But the other aspect of it is getting to hear the character's inner monolog to understand what they're thinking and why they're thinking it. When you're left to do all of that yourself, in a game like Skyrim, you're partly disenganged from what is happening to you in the game, because you have to stop and think not as yourself but as your character and while possible for some its not a simple task for everyone. As humans, we will always try to find the path of least resistance and while I will come up with elaborate back stories and names for my characters in Elden Ring ultimately it always boils down to I still act within the best intrests of my progression. And not how my character would necessarily approach the world.
Restrictions Encourage Creativity -> Creativity Leads to interesting playstyles and playing optimally
If you restrict someone too much it will inherently make someone play optimally.
Oblivion and it's hardest difficulty forces you to learn how to manipulate the system in different ways because of how broken and obtuse it is.
Daggerfall is less obtuse but you have to play somewhat optimally because picking no skills in any offensive slot makes the game a slog.
Morrowind is similar but encourages you to break the game in your own way using magic and enchanting.
Morrowind also got rid of level scaling for the most part and is entirely based on your knowledge of the game itself.
Fallout NV had STR requirements and Skill requirements and forced you to be wise about your starting SPECIALs and makes it harder to use certain weapons if you don't meet the stats but otherwise doesn't restrict you.
I personally enjoy making optimum play styles for NV because if you play an optimum gunslinger it locks you out of playing an optimized Melee weapon specialist or an energy weapon specialist or so on.
It's fun to theory craft and test new builds.
You're restricted but you never realize it and I think that's the best way of doing things but also the hardest.
Difficulty is a very hard thing to gauge and is based entirely off of how things feel it's very subjective.
Too hard and you force optimum playstyles and too hard you lose people's interest.
I don’t agree or disagree but I will say this: Try to play NV and pick perks that fit the character you’re playing, not whatever is the most optimal. There are tons of perks in that game that people call useless that I think are there purely for RP and they let you RP in a way no other creation engine title lets you. You won’t pick these perks no matter how many optimal class builds you create because at the end of the day every build benefits from bloody mess and none of them benefit from the perk that lets you ignore alcohol addiction. Only the alcohol perk will give you special dialogue though. Also getting speech, lockpick, and science to 100 will rob you of like half the combat and puzzles in a lot of dungeons, sometimes even entire dialogue trees
@TheFloodFourm I do pick perks for that character.
The useless perks in NV are actually fucking useless.
Things that effect xp or here and now are worthless.
Traits that add things like 4 eyes are overpowered.
Most perks that do anything do a lot.
Playing optimally in NV IS picking the things that fit your character because most perks are useful and add an edge.
Challenge perks like lord of death make the game easier simply by playing.
@@courier665 sounds good
This year I finally started playing Skyrim for the first time, and I'm glad that I didn't play it when I was younger, because as a kid I did exactly what you are saying, I would kinda just play as myself and do everything that I could, even if it didn't matched my character. But 2 years ago I started playing D&D and discovered how much I enjoyed roll playing a character, and not just a glorified version of me. So, when I started playing Skyrim this year I didn't want to play myself the all powerful warrior/mage/thief/companion/assassin/bard/vampire hunter/etc., but instead I decided to roll-play as my first ever character for D&D, which coincidently, was a dragonborn.
Thus started the adventures of Corvus Scipio, a nordic warrior that will always try to solve any problem with his quick thinking and sharp tongue, and if that's not possible, he can always rely on his even sharper sword and his unbreakable shield. He's not fond of magic or violence, but if pushed too far he might have to use the latter. He has a strong sense of justice and he'll always defend the weak and innocent, but if that fails then he'll make sure to avenge them.
Up until now I've not only loved playing the game, but also I really enjoy playing this character. And as I play I constantly think how my future characters for future playthroughs would deal given the same situations, characters that don't share the same values as I do and may be more inclined to steal or kill, and many other ideas. If any of you have not tried to play the game like this and always ends up playing a stealth archer, I highly recommend to give this type of play a try, don't just fight differently, play differently as well.
Newer big games are afraid of not being broad enough of an appeal, and every obstacle is a potential moment where one more player quits. They're convinced this causes less profit.
I never play myself in games, so for me this comes fairly naturally. Roleplaying has allowed me to find joy in slowing down and really experiencing game worlds and characters. It allows me to feel attached to things in games in a meaningful way.
Skyrim. I come up with a backstory while creating my character. Alternate start helps. Usually, I play on master and pretend I'm actually uninitiated in all the skills. Weak.
My favorite role was a young wood elf who fled home when confronted with a particularly personal run in with the canabolism that's part of the culture (it helps to watch a lore video or two for ideas). I started in a small camp in the woods and spent a good while hunting for food (survival mode on) and sneaking to avoid harder enemies. When leveling up skills, I would increase something that played into a fun or interesting gameplay moment like I was actually learning. I ran into a traveling merchant and leveled speech, for example. When food was scarce, I tried eating some ingredients. This started me on a path where I would eat too many and black out and find myself in a place I might not have the courage to go normally. You kind of have to write and rewrite some things in your head while things are happening. I'd limit magic use until I met someone to teach me, or I got into a sticky situation that put me in touch with my latent healing ability. Then I'd write that into my backstory if I hadn't already. I ended up doing the hunting quests and other related adventures. It was a ton of fun.
Don't limit yourself to the dialogue options. Make the conversation up and try to choose things that go along with it if available. I made an orc with the hand on face painting whose backstory was that they were seen as too powerful by the shaman so they cursed them with not being able to use their voice. I exited most conversations because it didn't make sense to be able to communicate complex ideas. They finally became able to use their voice and overcome the curse when they learned their first shout. Allowing for your character to change creates great story elements and can get you out of gameplay restrictions you grow tired of.
Most of the time, I'd put the main quest off to keep the dragons from spawning for awhile. I never had to be the dragonborn. The beginning was is always the most interesting to me, so I found myself creating a new story once I got somewhere between levels 20-40. I could go on and on about this. It revived skyrim in a beautiful way. Some mods can really help, but aren't necessary. It's all about what you can imagine and how you fit the game mechanics around your story.
i think being myself in a completely alien world is as vaild as any roleplaying, and im having fun, so i will keep doing it thanks
Don't roleplay.
Embrace yourself.
Yeah, I expect a videogame to actually explain who my character is.
I don't want to come up with a backstory for my character.
If the game has me play a blank slate - then either that would just be me, or that would just stay a blank slate.
Not to mention - I'm not sure I can fully get immersed.
From my experience - I very much did meta gaming. If a game has no morality system and there's no consenquences for doing something - I'd probably just do something that has the best rewards. I can't make myself not do something just because "this character won't do that". I'm playing a videogame, so I'll play it like a videogame.
people tend to misconstrue the "optimizing the fun out of the game" quote, players aren't dumb or silly for trying to make things optimal for themselves, optimizing stuff is naturally fun and neat and i WILL keep doing it.
if you play something as fundamentally failed as bethesda games - or shit like aliens colonial marines
you have to cheese
that's the only way to progress
"Optimising the fun out" refers to the stage where you've found the ideal strategy making the rest of the game way too easy to be fun. i.e when there is nothing left to optimise
@@BenersantheBread nope, sid meier said that when talking about the civilization series, the rest of the quote is "one of the responsibilities of the designer is to protect players from themselves" meaning it's talking about about exploits. it has nothing to do with the endgame state when the player has figured everything out.
@@swan-cloud I don't get how the followup isn't affirming my point.
@@BenersantheBread sorry i think i was too unclear, it's not really about "when there's nothing left to optimise" because that can be applied to every game, it's talking about exploits trivializing the game, which is a very specific thing.
the embrace of roleplay is what differentiates my Baldur's Gate playthrough from my friend.. he made a whole solo world, just to aim for getting the best possible ending.. but the moment he joins my world he has to witness the chaos that i unleash as the literal chosen one who chose to use my prophet status for chaotic neutral intend, as i help out the weak and plunder villages of tribes that insulted my very presence, either through their words or their sheer ugliness that i had the misfortune of laying my eyes upon, with my (other friend) companion who also likes to commit chaos.. and then there's the friend i mentioned earlier, who's just trying to progress the story..
I wanted to mention that the improvisational, in-person collaboration of DnD is really important to the roleplay. Roleplaying by yourself is harder, and roleplaying in a predetermined experience (a video game) vs a dynamic one (having a dungeon master) is a lot harder. I don't even really feel like Baldur's gate is good for roleplaying. It's more of a pick your own adventure game.
I play titles like Elder Scrolls as myself the first time around, make the choices I would make while also trying to realistically weigh if I would risk one thing or another, do I really care about this and that. This also allows me to get to know the world, and then I can really deep-dive into roleplaying on a new character that is shaped by the events in that world.
This is why I have the most interest in RPG's like Skyrim and Cyberpunk: You can customize your character and make up their backstory and how their story ends! I love it! Any game that already has a character and their backstory (RDR, The Witcher, Kingdom Come Deliverance, etc.), I won't care much for the game. It's really weird, ik. However, to me, gameplay-wise, sometimes I might not care about some restrictions, except for the basics, like skills or types of weapons to use (btw, if you find an axe you can't use just because you use a different type of weapon, just give it to your follower or sell it for big gold), which are simple enough. Head-canon-wise, I do care. However, I may either not pay attention or miss some details in my own head. It's hard if you're not an artist/animator, but I do write them out on a note app as best as possible, it helps with my memory. I always think about being an artist/animator and would love to make my own TV shows about them. Skyrim, Cyberpunk, and possibly Dragon Age Inquisition. Whichever game I get my hands on, I'll start thinking about making a TV series out of it.
I think one thing that helps people become able to role play is to play a game to death once your so intimately familiar with it you get sick of it but still love it and want more from it this is where challenges come from like nuzlockes or challenge runs etc as you do more of them you become more able to ignore the urge to quit and grow the ability to moderate your actions allowing you to more easily stick with a role when you easily could quit
I feel like character creation in a game is the best start for feeling more immersed. For example in Skyrim my characters always have one specific physical trait and a well thought out meaningful name. My character has a black void around her eyes and is called Hecate after the greek goddess of witchcraft. This creates the basis for a morally grey, mage focused character. Even though i dont fully roleplay I like creating small bits of lore around her as the game progresses.
I always role play as a mage character in RPGs. So when I created my second playthrough in Skyrim, I really doubled down into actually being a pure mage in Skyrim. 13 years later, I still play as a full mage character, and I give him some personality and preferences when it comes to spell casting. I love it.
I would definitely recommend the channel Skypothesis if you're looking for roleplay focused characters for Skyrim. Their builds are the definition of unique roleplay and aesthetics.
Its pretty fun to make a character thats an actual person with flaws and traits. I rp'd a ton in skyrim and even headcanoned how these characters knew each other and how they developed in the world. Even wrote their backstories down. Its fun to build your own world really. Bg3 is also pretty good for that.