Opinions on Monsters in RPGs

[YanBG]

In my game(looks a bit like diablo) i have only human enemies(bandits etc). That saves me time on modeling each unique beast/mythological creature.

I'm thinking are they one of the main appeal in rpgs? In the original fairy tales, these were kind of rare, one for a village/town or forest. Wasn't it rather late in history when authors write about whole armies of orcs etc? I mean sure demons were popular in the middle ages too but probably not whole dungeon of them?

Recently Kingdom Come Deliverance was successful with "realistic" setting(you kill only people), on a 3d engine though.

I find such creatures more interesting myself but with a human i can just switch the clothes to make new variation and would like to make that game design work too.

Main goal is to make something unique. Why play this game when you can play diablo in the first place?

 

[TrunX]

I think it completely depends on your setting. If its a "realistic" Middle Ages setting then you don't need them. A dirty "adult" world full of injustice might be enough for an interesting game experience. You can also create a fantasy world in which dragons, other monsters and magic casters are super rare and tie it to the story. Make it a super hard boss fight to kill the only dragon in the game.

But what's the genre? A simple "brain dead" hack'n'slay or a storytelling rpg? The former might need more visual variety for the enemies as the gameplay itself will be very repetitive

 

[YanBG]

A combination, with a polished battle system hack and slash is easy to have but i want to have story too(e.g. baldur's gate).

 

[Niels]

I usually like it when monsters make sense in the context of the area where they are found. (Undead in crypts and graveyards, trolls in forrests and caves) the witcher 3 did this pretty well and also the old infinity engine games (baldur's gate, icewind dale, planescape:torment)

 

[Guest User]

according to Google, this is the game you are talking about?

Spoiler

for helmets i see a barbute, kettle, great, turban, and possibly a cervelliere. armor-wise there's lamellar and plate here, and i think that dead dude is probably wearing a surcoat over his armor idk.
this breaks up the monotony of "5 dudes in iron armor that all look the same" that you can sometimes end up with in games and pretty much fits in line with your variant system perfectly.

there is also tactics to consider. a lot of games (Skyrim) basically have all humans have the exact same AI. meanwhile, dragons trolls spriggans etc. all have unique AI to their species and abilities that make them stand out amongst the 500 humanoids that fought exactly the same. so, you could possibly consider having different humans actually fight differently depending on what they are actually equipped to do.
e.g. a single heavily armored nobleman won't be afraid to get in close with the player, while a group of lightly armored bandits will probably work together to take down the player via flanking and stuff.

 

[YanBG]

Yeah that's the game, i can add many armors too, but on the smaller 2d sprites it might be harder to differentiate than in 3d game.

 

[Yal]

The most important thing is that you have variety in your game. Going for a single type of enemy just so you can save work might come off as lazy, so you'd need to hide it well. Some things to consider:

• Having different sizes can make players instantly gauge whether an enemy is dangerous or not. It might be possible to just upscale graphics to make some enemies more hulking and scary-looking.
  
• Enemies should have different weapons and armor, and perhaps unique movesets as well. (Nioh has ninjas that do backflips and stuff, while normal pirates, soldiers and bandits don't do anything fancy).
• Don't forget that you can have mounted enemies and wizards, that could help add some variety as well (mounted hun archers, mounted knights that attack with really long lances, wizards that use all kinds of fancy magic, witches that ride brooms)... also reanimated skeletons could reuse animations and armor resources while still being a bit different visually, as well as having unique attacks like throwing bones.
• Slimes, crystalline structures, ghosts and other amorphous creatures don't need too much animation work and all of them could justifiably be palette-changed to introduce a new elementally charged variety (fire, ice, thunder etc), while filling a role that's distinct from normal human enemies (e.g. crystals that buff all enemies in the room or can be used as turrets, ghosts can go through walls, slimes keep regenerating unless killed with the element they're weak to etc etc)

 

[YanBG]

I'm developing an equipment system out of pieces to add the variety. Currently 60 to 90 items in ~10 types can be swapped on the base character's body. The torso armor and cloth is the largest and most noticeable but there are also feet, arms, legs and head pieces. I can probably recolor various parts too.

Only downside is that with specific equipment on, you can look exactly like some of your enemies or an NPC(Underrail humans are like that but it has monsters too) . The advantage is that since NPCs use normal graphics they can be used more, like attacking the player if angered or defending their village from enemies.

You can check my progress here: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/bogarash-2d-rpg-gm1-4.1659/page-2#post-286745

 

[Timze]

You could always make just a few monsters then reskin / morph. Say you make a dragon or something. First appearance fairly basic. Later in the game maybe you fight an "ice" dragon. Take the old basic dragon change the color schematic add some ice shards maybe extend beard and narrow the eyes a little. Fire, metal, etc it should cut the work load down considerably.

Say you make a wolf. That outline or mesh can be reskinned and modified slightly to be a rabid dog a hyenna, a lion, or tiger type beast. Heck, you could just change the color scheme of the wolf. when that seems repetitive add horns. Lol

If people complain about that then there's bigger issues at play. As long as the core gameplay is good and engaging this should be fine

 

[Wraithious]

While you are correct about each area in the worlds of an old time fairy tale having one mythical beast you may also want to consider regular creatures that prowl the lands, such as poisonous snakes, lions, bears, and other creatures that actually exist and pose a real danger to your heroes as they frolic through the lands. also as you said humans can also be dangerous and deceiving as well so I think that's a smart move to have the main 'monsters' actually being human.

 

[Yal]

While you are correct about each area in the worlds of an old time fairy tale having one mythical beast you may also want to consider regular creatures that prowl the lands, such as poisonous snakes, lions, bears, and other creatures that actually exist and pose a real danger to your heroes as they frolic through the lands. also as you said humans can also be dangerous and deceiving as well so I think that's a smart move to have the main 'monsters' actually being human.

Let's not forget you could do both, having monsters that's humans with features of dangerous animals or such. For instance, the Rokurokubi yokai is a human with an extensible neck, which lets them do a lot of snakelike stuff:

 

[YanBG]

Good ideas, i like the snake guy for future references!

I have wolves, possibly horses and bears, but i have to keep my internal deadlines. I don't have unlimited resources, unless i hire a studio of artists, so i have to come up with a trick so that the game both looks good(spent more time to polish the humans) and have a plausible story.
Tropes and random quests won't matter much today i believe.

I'm shaping the story right now and it's more of a political setting, various factions but not really good vs bad, more like neutral alignment.

 

[Joe Ellis]

Did you ever play Rage of Mages?

This had a good mixture of both humans (all with interchangeable clothes like your game), and many monsters, which didn't have clothes and had different colors for their levels of hardness. Just an idea or something to look at \ think about.

But I agree with the people who said about it tying in with the storyline, so, make a good story, the original stuff you've got with the humans is great, and you could probably fit weird and wonderful mythical things in there aswell

 

[Joe Ellis]

I had another idea this morning about making your game more unique, I've always loved it in medieval games where they have some kind of technology, like steam power or electricity, or just anything that's historically incorrect, like in thief 1 & 2, pandemonium, dungeon keeper or quake 1

 

[YanBG]

I haven't played these but Arcanum have both magic and technology, i always found it a bit confusing. In the past i was thinking about "scientist/philosopher" class, because i didn't want any magic, so someone that can do tricks with chemistry/physics would be the closest to the classic wizard. It's perfect for monks, who read a lot of books and can actually convert and/or give more strength to people(used before battles).

A setting right after the middle ages with gunpowder and steam engines sounds interesting though.

Rage of Mages, i've seen screenshots lately and it seems pretty impressive for the time it was made, i like the graphics and effects.

I have to do a lot of work on the engine still, so i didn't have too much time for the setting and story but keep the ideas coming because often i get stuck with that aswell

 

[Yal]

A setting right after the middle ages with gunpowder and steam engines sounds interesting though.

Extra interesting because of how cumbersome guns were to use before we invented the modern bullet clips: took ages to reload, the gunpowder spoiled very easily and the guns needed a lot of maintenance and wouldn't always fire when you wanted them to (in particular flintlocks), but you could use any small hard objects (rocks, bullets, metal nails, buttons etc) as ammunition. These limitations could all be used as playable elements and/or balancing factors in an RPG.

 

[Famine]

Why play this game when you can just play Diablo? Well, I'll give you my reasons on why I don't play Diablo anymore. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they have monsters or humanoids. I don't play because constant grinding non-stop dungeons to a degree where I don't even look at the content just point-and-click with speed runs is just not fun for me as it is for others. I mean, the idea of speed running through a dungeon where you're just blowing down the challenge to get items or to try to do the run as fast as you can is not really attractive to me. It feels more like work than fun. For others, that's the opposite. So, if they were all humans, it wouldn't matter. I don't even care enough to look at the models. All I care about is getting from point A to point B as quickly and effectively as possible.

Games like Kingdom Come Deliverance or even games like Skyrim feel the opposite. It's not about blowing through the content. It's about getting immersed into that content and letting that game take you to places that hopefully are good experiences. Obviously, there are different experiences depending on whether you are talking with a barmaid versus slaying a big freaking dragon that is attacking the town you are currently in. Some are easier to sell, where others are much, much harder to sell to the end user.

In Kingdom Come Deliverance for example, they are not trying to sell you on that big dragon. They instead are doing a bit more work with trying to give you not only the face to the name, but also a bit of their story as well. For example, you have an idea of why the dragon is attacking the town, but you don't know specifically the dragons name, why specifically he is attacking you or what happen to it's family and so forth. It's randomly generated and dropped into the experience. It's easy to sell that experience because who doesn't want to slay the dragon? But then again, when you look at Kingdom Come Deliverance and your similar journey's on the road to various towns, you receive similar encounters in the form of random bandits attacking you that like the dragons, have no real specifics because as before, who doesn't want to kill the opposing baddies trying to rob you randomly in the night?

Anyways, yes, it's good to have diversity and all that jive. Monsters or not, it's really about how you craft the experiences with what you got. Don't fret the specifics on whether ot not you have monsters or not or even in Kingdom Come Deliverance, magic or not to boot. Just focus on how you can make the game fun with the NPC's you have. It will all work out in the end as long as what you made is truly fun to whomever you are targeting.

 

[poinl]

I think it'd be really neat to only see large amounts of them once you are really far into the game. Kinda like how berserk progressed.

 

[YanBG]

Why play this game when you can just play Diablo? Well, I'll give you my reasons on why I don't play Diablo anymore. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they have monsters or humanoids. I don't play because constant grinding non-stop dungeons to a degree where I don't even look at the content just point-and-click with speed runs is just not fun for me as it is for others. I mean, the idea of speed running through a dungeon where you're just blowing down the challenge to get items or to try to do the run as fast as you can is not really attractive to me. It feels more like work than fun. For others, that's the opposite. So, if they were all humans, it wouldn't matter. I don't even care enough to look at the models. All I care about is getting from point A to point B as quickly and effectively as possible.

I want to make money from the games, or atleast start with making myself a known developer(e.g. free but good game), so it's important to know the players crowd taste. Frankly i wouldn't make a game for myself or other small target groups.

In Kingdom Come Deliverance for example, they are not trying to sell you on that big dragon. They instead are doing a bit more work with trying to give you not only the face to the name, but also a bit of their story as well. For example, you have an idea of why the dragon is attacking the town, but you don't know specifically the dragons name, why specifically he is attacking you or what happen to it's family and so forth. It's randomly generated and dropped into the experience. It's easy to sell that experience because who doesn't want to slay the dragon? But then again, when you look at Kingdom Come Deliverance and your similar journey's on the road to various towns, you receive similar encounters in the form of random bandits attacking you that like the dragons, have no real specifics because as before, who doesn't want to kill the opposing baddies trying to rob you randomly in the night?

Tbh i didn't finish KCD, it got a bit boring after a few days. Diablo II i restarted several times(i still got bored but has more nostalgia).

Anyways, yes, it's good to have diversity and all that jive. Monsters or not, it's really about how you craft the experiences with what you got. Don't fret the specifics on whether ot not you have monsters or not or even in Kingdom Come Deliverance, magic or not to boot. Just focus on how you can make the game fun with the NPC's you have. It will all work out in the end as long as what you made is truly fun to whomever you are targeting.

I got many ideas for a more meaningful story(well not really but they can be developed). However, i think it requires a lot of testing and experimenting, with a bigger team. Each small topic needs to be investigated, researched etc. I can't do it alone and will look for funding(maybe i should get more business experience first).