- RPGs nowadays feel excessively bloated and needlessly big.
- Games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are solid but require too much grinding, leading to a bad experience.
- There are many broader-scale RPGs that don’t require grinding, offering a more forgivable gameplay experience, like Mass Effect and Disco Elysium.
Open-world RPGs have faced a lot of criticism lately since modern titles tend to prioritize quantity over quality, affecting the whole experience. This is why games like Dragon Age: The Veilguard focus on a linear style, offering less but quality gameplay.
A major problem with the genre today is the fact that each release is filled to the brim with content, leading to forced grinding through repetitive and uninspiring content for levelling up.
However, developers need to understand the players’ perspective since grinding in an RPG shouldn’t be necessary. Players should be able to complete main quests without grinding through the same type of missions over and over again.
Why it matters: Open-world fatigue is pulling me away from RPGs. They have a lot of potential and will never cease to exist, but developers need to take grinding into consideration.
RPGs Often Make Me Feel Like I’m Working A Job
Imagine spending $60 or even $70 for a modern AAA title that is a far cry from the product it was marketed as. That’s what modern games, specifically modern RPGs, have become these days.
This is not even a debate of skill in these titles; it just comes down to the time factor or whether you have the money to unlock paid items that will make the experience a little more forgiving.
One of the biggest publishers that does that is Ubisoft. I enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed RPG trilogy, with Origins being the most fun of the bunch, but playing them often felt like working a job for free.
The level difference going from one main quest to another was so vast that it made me lose interest in the game at times, and I dropped Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for a brief time before picking it up again since I was so tired of raiding villages. That became so boring and felt like a vicious cycle.
As I mentioned, these titles are great and have a lot more to offer beyond these never-ending, unoriginal side quests. They were just designed badly, and to make up for that, Ubisoft sold Time Saver (XP boost microtransactions) DLC to eliminate the grinding.
Learn From The Best
Various RPGs with a broader scale and more in-depth gameplay and storylines avoid this problem, so why can’t the rest? Take the Elder Scrolls franchise, for instance. The franchise is near-perfect and has a scalable difficulty option for enemies, depending on the players’ level.
You can always adjust the difficulty level, but the main thing is that you don’t need to put an arbitrary number of hours into the grind to progress the main quest despite the franchise featuring some of the best side quests ever.
The only reason players choose to complete side quests is to gain newer skills and better weapons that make the experience even more fun, and most of the time, they go in to do these quests without being forced to.
Mass Effect is another prime example of this. Despite being an RPG, Bioware’s intentions with the game were to deliver a much more linear experience, emphasizing exploration and decision-making over grinding. The smooth skill system in this RPG helps you upgrade easily as main quests go by.
There are numerous other examples, such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Disco Elysium, Undertale, and others.
Hopefully, developers will learn from these games and make the player experience a little more forgiving, as this is arguably the biggest genre in the industry at the moment. Following Elden Ring’s success, a number of new RPGs will also certainly show up very soon.
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