Replayability in RPGs

[Yuugami 252]

So this is something I've been thinking about - my biggest story concern as far as my project is concerned, but also what could make a role-playing game a little more interesting to play in general.

 

So I was thinking of trying to figure out how to allow the players to experiment in my main project. Ideally, I want to add the following: the allowance of a multitude of "builds", no equipment is necessarily inferior (with some exceptions), any focus in stats can work, and weapons and skills would be unique in how the damage scales and/or unique effects, and the "equipping" of a set number of skills. However, I also want to tinker with a New Game Plus function - I have maybe around five different endings, each one with their own unique set of bosses and equipment. I'm probably not going to most of the equipment and stats carry over to a new cycle, except for an item that the final boss of each ending would drop. 

 

I was thinking in how I was going to handle endings in general - do I want their to be a true ending, unlocked only when all those special items are collected amongst the different routes? Wouldn't that make the game feel too grindy? Maybe I should allow the option to carry stats over so that players can clear the game quickly? Those are just a few questions I end up asking myself, since it would greatly affect how I want to delve into the story, but those are for me to answer. Help would be appreciated though (teehee).

 

As for the actual discussion, I must ask: what makes you play a RPG again?

 

Some people would say that the nostalgia is enough, or the attempt to re-experience the game, or to take it even further, experience the game completely. Usually, I find myself replaying games either for different endings and/or rewards, or to challenge myself. For example, playing Dark Souls II in a NG+ cycle would give me different challenges in the environment (and sometimes the boss), while I would also pick up more items unique to higher difficulties, giving me access to special equipment and more juicy lore implications - except I don't really care about any of that: I just want more souls, realize my build, and then eventually reach a point where I get so good at the game and my character is so unstoppable that I will complete an entire journey through Drangleic without dying. Hell, I already reached the point where it's rare for me to die to anything except a platforming mistake (but I die often to platforming mistakes). The challenge for me is to attain the realization of my Undead, and make it so that I will never have to see the "YOU DIED" screen once in a cycle. 

 

Another example would be the MegaTen games: I played Nocturne a multitude of times, completing my Compendium, trying out different builds, and not necessarily to experience the story (because let's face it, there's very little of that worth experiencing again in that game). I played Persona 4 and Persona 4 Golden a multitude of times, where I even filled out my Compendium and made sure every entry learned all the skills they possibly could. I took a step further in Shin Megami Tensei IV, finding bonus bosses that have a 1/256 chance of appearing, acquiring every single demon possible through the base game and the DLCs, etc. All of that was just to see if I could experience these games fully, and that was the challenge I gave myself.

 

So what constitutes "replay value" in games for you?

[magic2345 252]

Personally, when things get repetitive (about 20-30 ish hours into a game), the game stops being fun and becomes a chore. At this point, I play the game for the things I have not yet experienced, the story. I realize that this is not the case for others. For example, in Persona 4...okay, bad example, that game got me playing until the end without me feeling repetitive, a rare case. Oh, actually I could make it an example. In future playthroughs (if I ever play it again), I have no intention of collecting and powering up personas, instead, I'd go for the social links.

 

But, if a mechanic/system aka the gameplay is fun and diverse enough, requiring tactics and strategies, I'd play it again...probably not immediately though. After a few months/years perhaps. In my case, games like Riviera, Yggdra Union, Golden Sun, Summon Night Swordcraft Story in GBA and Monster Rancher 2 on the PSX.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Replayability? First and foremost the most important factor for replay value is how fun the game is to play in the first place. Even long games can have great replay value if the gameplay and story are excellent. Assuming that you're game will be super duper fun and have exciting gameplay, what else can you do to up the replay value?

 

The multiple endings is a great way to do it. Personally, I like the idea of the "true end" if the player completes them all. Depending on how long the game is, 

five endings may be a bit daunting. I can think of one good example of this. A fun lil' Gamecube game, "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Regarding the replay, it went like this. At the end of the first level, you find yourself in a room with three ancient relics. They each contained the power of an alien god. You could play through three times, choosing a different relic each time to reach the "true end". It was a long time ago, but I think it took around 20-25 hrs to complete the story. 60-75hrs of gameplay total to play all three. It was a really well crafted game, both story and gameplay so I wanted to keep playing to fully complete it. I like the idea of stats carrying over. It's a good way to have a high level cap, and a lot of high level skills w/out making the player grind endlessly to reach them. Of course, you also have to increase the enemies' stats to keep things challenging. Having an Enemy Levels script would be a very good idea.

 

The issue with measuring how long the game "should" take to fully complete is it's entirely subjective. If you go that route, it would be a good idea to take a  poll and see how much time people would be willing to spend playing your game to fully complete it. 

 

The idea of "builds" can work well too. Giving the player a lot of customization options promotes experimentation which promotes replays. However, don't just make customizable characters simply for the sake of replay. Figure out what system you feel will work best for the game you're trying to create. If that happens to

be this, it's an added bonus.

 

Another method is one you see all the time. Completing the game unlocks a new mode. Usually it's a harder difficulty setting. Sometimes it unlocks bonuses,

a new playable character (almost always if certain criteria was met during the story), or even God Mode/cheats. It's a great way to increase replay without jacking up the play time too high for most people.  

 

Collectibles. LIke trying to get all the Heart Pieces of Skulltulas in Legend of Zelda. nothing that's required to beat the game, but doing it will give the player some sort of reward. The trick is to make it difficult to find everything, but still keep things fun. Zelda is a great example because of the diverse ways to collect these.

There all are sorts of secret areas to find and explore, minigames, and the player has to use almost their entire arsenal to succeed. I love this method because it

everything can be done the first time through. There's no danger of having people feel like your just trying to squeeze more play time out of them. An example of that, but still viable if done well was Dragon Quest III's monster medals. To actually get all of them, you either have to be extremely lucky or playthrough an insane amount of times. Ever enemy had 3 medals; bronze, silver, and gold. Each a rarer drop than the last. Bosses included. Think abou that. Even if you were guaranteed one of each medal per boss fight, you'd still have to play through 3 times. And it was very far from a guarantee. I doubt many people would go to 

such extreme lengths for a collectible. However, scaling that down could possibly work. 

 

Unlockables/achievments. Not just by completing the game, mind you. These are unlocked by completing specific quests or achieving a specific criteria. Anything you can think of can be an unlockable. Characters, costumes, different modes, cheats, even a sound test.

 

There's lots and lots of ways to boost replay. Multiple endings, customization, collectibles, unlockables, and I sure there's other I haven't even thought of. You can incorporate several of them or even all of them. It's important to note that none of them are needed to make a great or a complete game. Only include the features that are necessary to create the game you envision. If that involves highly customizable characters, awesome. You have built-in replay with that. If you 

want the player to be able to explore different story paths and thus have multiple endings, great. If the story is good, people will want to see the different routes.If you want to add lots of sidequests and hidden areas for the player to explore, create away. Giving the player other things to do than level grind or go through the story is never a bad thing. It's all optional, and if those features are fun, people will play them.

[Kmany 5]

The only games I find myself going back to are games where there is (somewhat)randomized loot, and a good character progression/creation system, where you can try different combinations, or games where the challenge lies in surviving for as long as possible, and there is a learning experience attached to dying. Or both.

 

For a single developer or small team, I think it is very hard to create a proper RPG with replay value..

For steam I have noticed that some devs like to make achievements that demand several playtroughs to get, but I think that is the wrong way to go about it.. that is not a fun way to do it, but someone might disagree..

 

Personally I think a game does not need to have as much replay value, as they needed 10 years ago, since the market and accessibility of new games has changed.

It is natural that the player moves on, after a while, even tho some games will pull you back in at occasion.

Getting a couple of hours of quality game time for per dollar is acceptable from a small indie dev imo.

For an RPG the story and playing experience is the most important.

[Rezanta 373]

Let's talk Kingdom Hearts. If you speed through the game, you miss out on a ton. In KH2, you had to collect everything and be a completionist in order to unlock hidden things. In 1.5 and 2.5, the GA!e basically egged you to try multiple difficulties and 1.5 had an ability to prevent EXP gain.

 

Pokemon is another game that's always replayable for the story, even if it's the end of the world, a laser hitting the planet, or just Darkrai taking away the world into a never-ending stall.

 

Fire Emblem is another "so many branches you want to shoot your foot" kind of a game because you can marry yourself to a ton of characters, and even set yourself up with marrying others to others.

 

To wrap this rambling up, I say it differs on what you want for a feel. I love games with multiple story changes, like Undertale, or multiple routes, like Fire Emblem, the competitive play, like Pokemon and some other MMOs, and even the challenges like Nuzlocke, WonderWed, and so on.

[Purple Phantom 453]

Alrighty. I've replayed several games, both RPG and not, for a variety of reasons. For the sake of keeping my post from being too long, I'll narrow it down to my top five most replayed games.

 

#5 - RLH: Hunt or be Hunted

While this game may not have anything like character customization, randomized anything, achievements or unlockables (on the PS2 version, at least... on the XBox version, you can beat the game and get alternate uniforms), the characters and story are fantastic enough to keep you coming back again and again.

 

#4 - Spooky's House of Jumpscares

The game doesn't have too much in the way of story, but it makes up for it with the adorable character of Spooky and her randomly generated house of, well, jumpscares. Almost everything in this game is randomly generated, right down to when and if monsters will chase you when you open that door, or if a cardboard cutout will jump out of the wall when you take that next step. On top of that, there are two endings, each with their own requirements. The DLC, Karamari Hospital, has more story to it, two alternate endings and a New Game+.

 

#3 - Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

The game is surprizingly replayable, despite the fact that there aren't any alternate endings or character customization features. However, in order to traverse the entire map, collect everything in the game and see every monster there is to see, you'd have to play it through a few times. On top of that, you can unlock all sorts of things, such as two new characters, a way to listen to the soundtrack, etc.

 

#2 - Primal

This PS2 game, like most other games I've played, has no character customization, but has a story and characters to make up for it. On top of that, there are collectibles you often have to really look for. Collecting them gets you stuff in the menu that you can look at, which are pretty cool.

 

#1 - Devil May Cry 1-3

This game series is notorious for having unlockables. From new characters and difficulty modes to secret modes only accessible by beating the game on different difficulties and as certain characters. The story is also fantastic and the characters are brilliant.

DMC1 - This only has Sparda available and only in Legendary Dark Knight Mode. Beating each difficulty unlocks a new mode, eventually unlocking LDK Mode.

DMC2 - A game on two disks with save files that read off of each other to determine what you've done on both, as both Dante and Lucia. If you beat it on (I think) Normal as both, you unlock Trish. Each difficulty also unlocks new outfits for Dante and Lucia.

DMC3 - If you're playing the normal one, you can only unlock new difficulties and new outfits for Dante, but if you have the Special Edition (like me - lolz), you can unlock the ability to play as Vergil. Also, I'm not sure if this is SE exclusive or not, but you can choose either Yellow Orb Mode or Gold Orb Mode (more like sub-modes). If you use a certain cheat code disk (Not a GameShark, unfortunately x_x), you can also unlock Lady, who, from my understanding, kicks major freaking butt.

 

I'm not entire sure what makes me keep coming back to games, but I thought maybe my top 5 list could help.

[Nirwanda 323]

Wow, people had a lot  to say about this, let me throw my two cents in, too.

+ What do I think of the idea

You seem to have a firm grasp of how to implement a new game+ and I wouldn't mind a particularly satisfying true ending, provided it offered a real new experience and it wasn't just the other endings rolled up in one.

+ Why do I replay?

- An exciting story that made me want to see certain awesome elements over again.

- Offering variety even within a linear story, either through gameplay (many different builds, for example) or the story itself. Baldur's gate is a great example of both, It's not necessary to say why playing as an assasin feels so different from plaing as a berserker, but your party builds also play a large role, there were so many interesting interactions if you made unlikely parties.

- Collectionism: getting everything out of a game is always a great driving force. Especially if the gatherable items/party member or such are fun and make the experience more unique. Your equipment ideas sounds like they could be fun and are a good example of this.

- Fun extra challenges: new game only bosses, extra difficulties, you know the deal.

- Multiple endings, this is not very high up on my list. Unless the game has some of the above qualities or getting the alternate endings is much easier (because you get to keep your levels, choose a chapter to start at or whatever) the story has to be exceptionally good, or the whole point of the game (like a in a visual novel) to make me want to replay it.

These, of course work even better when more than one of them is at play at the same time.

+How would I implement a new game plus

I'm the impatient type, if you want me to stay glued to your game for more than one playthrough you'll have to offer something fresh each playthrough or at the very least make it not feel like a chore.

All of the already mentioned methods would satisfy me. But if I could have my way, I'll definitely allow the player to keep experience and items on the new game plus (it incentivates collectionism). Even if your aim was to make a harder new game plus just up the ante with the enemies, don't make the player feel like he wasted time, by losing all of his stuff. Also, the game should be faster to play a econd time around, some good ideas are skippable cutscenes and the possibility to skip random mobs (an accesory that blocks random encounters or if you use touch encounters maybe enemies will run away from you). You should do everything in your power to make the experience feel fresh and rewarding.

That's just my opinion anyway.

[amerk 1,122]

For me, it has nothing to do with a New Game +. In fact, I seldom ever do a second run after I've played it once, as New Game + tries to make me do, and by the time I get around to playing it again, I've forgotten enough to just start an entirely new game.

 

But what makes me replay a game is whether I really enjoyed the game, the story, the mechanics, combat, and overall experience to subject myself a second time. Some games (like Ephiam's RM2K Dragon Fantasy games) I've played multiple times, and I enjoy them more each time I play. Generally, I wait about a year or so before replaying a game. But others I once enjoyed, I liked less on a second run and wondered what the heck was I thinking the last time around.

 

It's hard for me to pinpoint, but I think it really just boils down more about the experience than it does replaying for missed content.

[Smiling Dragon 8]

I think replayability is kind of overrated. Most gamers when they finish a game, the common things is to play another game. I never saw anybody that play a game again after they finish a an RPG. Except for Visual Novels of course. I know it just a small sample size, but still....

[Chadzter01 183]

I think replayability is kind of overrated. Most gamers when they finish a game, the common things is to play another game. I never saw anybody that play a game again after they finish a an RPG. Except for Visual Novels of course. I know it just a small sample size, but still....

I do! If you love the game, You'll play it again,But not just as a normal playthrough. You replay the game to fully understand the story, The meaning of everything and why they are in the game. For this example. Chrono Cross. When i first played it, I think it's a good RPG game, But there is one thing that makes me replay it. The story.

The story is sooo complex that at that time i can't follow what's happening. (Because i haven't played trigger that time.) But as soon as i find out that trigger happens before cross. I played the game again. And this time, I finally understand it. Anyway, That means that a good RPG does not always rely on a good gameplay, It really needs a good story to make it replayable. (Bonus point for the items that can be collected on the 2nd playthrough and optional bosses that can be fought on the 2nd playthrough. Many RPG uses this technique.)

[amerk 1,122]

That may be, but most will probably want to take a break first. I've played the hell out of Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, and I learn new things each time I play them, but I still wait a long while before playing them over again - I usually wait at least a year, sometimes longer before replaying a game, even ones I really like. It allows me to let the story sink in, have time to move on, and then go back and see what I remember but what I forgot or didn't get the first time around.

 

Unless it's Like NDS DQ IV, where a new dungeon opened up and the story continued / altered as a result because then it really becomes more like a second game for me, than a replay of the first.

[Kayzee 4,032]

To me replayability is a matter of having a dynamic set of mechanics or story. A large "possibility space" as it were.

 

For the furthest extreme of replayability one just has to look at the roguelike genre. In that genre everything is randomized and dynamic to the point where no two runs are the same. Sure once you play enough times you will eventually more or less see every bit of content and get a feel for the full possibility space of play, but the whole genre is designed so that the exact layout and challenge is never quite the same. It isn't really necessary to go to that extreme though. Games like Dark Souls or The Elder Scrolls series for example offer just enough flexibility in how you build your character to make it worth it to try different things and experiment a bit, even if a lot of the game's world and events don't change.

 

I do think replayability is an important part of a game's impact on me. I can blow through a mostly linear story focused game and afterwards never have the desire to touch it again or think that much about it. When I even bother to play them and not watch them on youtube. But having a large "possibility space" means I want to play them over and over or at least really explore their world beyond one playthrough. It all comes down to what I call the "youtube test". Games can be sorted based on if after watching a video of it on youtube it makes me want more to play the game myself or if it makes me just want to watch more videos on it. Games that offer a large "possibility space" usually get me more interested in playing them then watching them and those that don't just make me want to watch them.

[+ Chaosian 617]

Not looking to necro a dying thread, but I find this topic interesting.
 

I think replayability is kind of overrated. Most gamers when they finish a game, the common things is to play another game. I never saw anybody that play a game again after they finish a an RPG. Except for Visual Novels of course. I know it just a small sample size, but still....

 
I dunno it might depend on the person...
Some people can certainly play a game over and over again. New Game+ exists for a very firm reason.

I'm sure that, ahem, someone around here has played though Metro 2033 (a linear corridor shooter) about 9 times, Spec Ops about 4 times, Dead Space something like 4 times, 50 hours in a little indie nothing like Cry of Fear, and put in around 400 hours in replays for a New Vegas mod.

...Someone, I'm sure.

 

Like the aforementioned branching, or engaging story, or deep mechanics that can take hundreds of hours to fully understand and feel as having mastered, sometimes it's the little things that people like to return to. A prefect segment of gameplay that you could play a hundred times and not get bored of, or they love a world and want to get lost in it. Hell, I've played though games over and over again just for the achievements and unlockables.

...I mean- someone has...

I'm sure.

Edited May 5, 2016 by Chaosian

[Whiona 310]

I agree with the people who who've said that replayability is more about the quality of the game itself than whether or not it can offer a different experience each time. The only time I tend to bother with getting every possible ending is in a visual novel. I've played through Mass Effect around four times and made more-or-less the same decisions every time; the only major alteration I made for each playthrough was my class. I can play linear games like Valkyria Chronicles or Pokemon Crystal over and over just because I loved the experience so much that I want to do it again.

 

So yeah, you can add things like branching classes, multiple endings, etc. to add to replayability for some people. But for people like me, what matters most is that the game is really good in the first place.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Well, I look at it this way: There is a difference between wanting to play a game again and "replayability". A quality game can be no different then a quality movie or TV show. You may wish to experience it again again and again, maybe to deeply analyze subtle aspects of it, or maybe just because you enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with that, nor should a game be discounted for providing that kind of experience. But that is not the same thing as what I think of as "replayability" when talking about games. That is something entirely different thing unique to games, the ability to explore a larger possibility space then one single playthough offers. Let's not mix things up here. Thinking of "replayability" as the same thing as "wanting to experience the game again" is needlessly confusing two very different things if you ask me.

[lonequeso 1,921]

I disagree. Replayability covers both to me. All it means to me is how likely is it someone will want to play a game again? How a game achieves that is inconsequential. As you can see just from the previous posts, people have many different reasons for replaying a game. I've played "Link to the Past" and "Ocarina of Time" more times than I can remember simply because they are great games. I didn't need the incentive of alternate or multiple story paths or bonus content to keep playing while another game I replayed, Eternal Darkness, was to complete all the storylines. If you played through all three, there was the "true end" conclusion. Still another game, Civilization 5, I replayed to keep challenging myself. I gradually played on higher and higher difficulties, and tried achieving different victory conditions, and winning with different civs. Three very different motivations, but all of them can be considered replayability.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Yeah but again we are talking about two completely different things, and they shouldn't be lumped together in the same category.

 

The first is, again, more like re-watching your favorite movie. It can be fun and engaging, but isn't particularly any kind of objective measure of anything. You like a game so you will play it again. I would think good games should be good weather or not you want to play them over and over. It's irrelevant to the question of replayability as a game design issue

 

The second is, depending on how you look at it, not really replayability at all. If your going though a game multiple times just to "see all the content", is it really that different from just having one long game? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how you look at it. But it still counts as "exploring the full possibility space" of a game, so I am counting it in my definition of replayability.

 

It's the third example that reaches into what I think of as replayability the most. But I think while Civilization 5 is probably a really good example of a game you can really sink into and explore different aspects of, it doesn't need to be a game that complex or strategy focused to make my point. Look at, for example, Super Metroid. It has no bonus content, no alternate maps, no multiple story paths, yet it is very very "replayable", especially to speed runners. It's a game that really lets the player explore different possibilities and routes, lets them set there own challenges easily, lets them explore.
 

[Tarq 746]

I get what Killo is saying; If you 'replay' a game from, say, a new character's perspective then you aren't replaying the game at all as you're having a distinct, if related, experience. This does not apply strictly to the content you engage in (ie. separate routes, bonus bosses) but the order or the depth with which you do so.

To give a (very awesome) example: A fellow called B. S. Johnson once wrote a book that could be muddled up into any order and would provide a coherent, linear story each time; the reader still read the same content, but underwent an entirely separate experience each time.

 

Addressing the OP:

I think an often overlooked thing with storytelling is to provide room for fan mysteries. This is true with so many great films, books, and tv shows and I think it has greater capacity in games as all those other mediums have to draw attention to its potential significance themselves; whereby its significance is either confirmed later in the plot or in metatext, or is never mentioned again and defeats itself.

However, a stray line in equipment description or interacting with some stray object in an optional area reward a player's autonomy and suggest that if they look elsewhere they may find more, including now inaccessible areas due to plot: Its kind of like rewatching The Usual Suspects and looking for Verbal Kint's hints, but, well, not really :3

I think a significant piece of information, enough to change the player's perspective of events the second time and not just the player character's, is the only way to really invest a player into a new game from a story perspective.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Oops. I mentally replied to this yesterdy, but forgot to physically respond =/ Yeah I get where Killo is coming from, too.

It's not a bad way to seperate replay. After all, it's kinda hard to quantify how much a game will be replayed off of something as subjective and intangible as personal experience. Measuring replay by features and incentives that exist that increase replay (multiple/branching stories, new playable characters, customizible characters, etc, etc, etc times a billion) is a lot easier.

 

The reason I combine personal experience with it is while you cannot directly measure oersonal experience, you can infer it based on the overall quality of the game. You can design a game to have all the incentives in the world to play it again, but if the game is complete crap, how many people do you really think are going to. Thus you have a low relay value.

 

It not an exact science by any means, but it provides a pretty good gauge. Think of the converse. You design a incredible well crafted, fun, entertaining game, odds are it's going to have decent replay value just on those merits alone. Giving the player added motivations to play again is going to almost guarantee most players at least start a second game.

 

Again, not a perfect science, but a good gauge. I'm not sure you could really even quanitfy replayabity to a formula, and even if you could I don't feel you should.

 

My argument doesn't really account for things like fighting or strategy games that are designed to be played through again and again, but I don't wanna muddy things up too much. (Or let this wall of text get any larger.)

 

To conclude, I get your point, Killo. It's just not how I personally measure replayability. Everyone knows all my opinions are 100% correct all the time anyway =p. J/k!

[Kayzee 4,032]

I just think they should count as different things is all... But that's just what I think! *sprinkles fairy dust on you anyway*

[lonequeso 1,921]

We never agree on anything, do we? Th last thing I remember us coming to a consensus on was that squirrels are cute. 

[Nyuuchan353 147]

I'd like to reference Star Ocean: Second Story. The multiple endings (86 of them, depending on your in-game actions) made for decent replayability. The two perspectives also make for some good replay value, as well as certain characters being obtainable (if you just play through, you may only get like 6 or 7 characters, when there is a max party size of 8, and 12 total characters).

 

Chrono Cross also follows this, character-wise (there are 40 different characters) you can also [*Spoiler Warning*] experience the game a tad bit differently if you beat Lynx when you're supposed to lose against him (this is about midway through the game, iirc).

Edited May 12, 2016 by Nyuuchan353

[Kayzee 4,032]

We never agree on anything, do we? Th last thing I remember us coming to a consensus on was that squirrels are cute. 

 

Well, some things are just obvious. Hehe...