@Riot, A Petition To Keep Lore And Gameplay Intertwined!

Impetual·Mar 17, 2015·13 votes·772 views

Lore and Gameplay should not be divorced.

Ideally, they should go hand in hand with one another.

Riot Please!

10 Comments

NorthernDruidMar 17, 20156 votes

Gameplay/Story integration, the thing you don't fully appreciate when it's there, yet see so clearly when it lacks.

I've been looking for something like what League had for like, 5-6 years or something, ever since FFXIII wasn't fully explicit with it.

And then towards the end of this summer i found it... and then... when i was just getting into it.

They decided to destroy it.

Way to go Riot, giving me so much mental pain, over broken wishes and dreams.

I vow, that when I make games, and stories, I will not retcon away core premises of my settings, no matter how bad I think they are. And I will keep my gameplay tied to my story as tightly as possible.

I vow this for Trundle the Cursed Troll, for Puff the Magic Dragon, and all the other creatures of imagination, who suffer from people like narrative neglecting them.

I will not leave anything to their fate, and I will not tell my story badly for the sake of being more free with either it's telling or the gameplay accompanying it.

Gameplay / Story Integration.

ImpetualMar 20, 20151 votes

Agreed! What good is a in-game story if it doesn't actually apply to the game it's about?

Nybx4lifeMar 18, 20152 votes

Lore and Gameplay should be as integrated as possible, but there are minor deviations that need to be in place sometimes.

Example: Final Fantasy 7 had a pretty serious character death of Aeris by the hands of Sephiroth. The strength of that moment where she's dead would be hindered if a simple Phoenix Down or Life spell could revive her.

So, just sometimes, that separation is needed.

MotajoMar 18, 20153 votes

{quoted}Final Fantasy 7 had a pretty serious character death of Aeris by the hands of Sephiroth. The strength of that moment where she's dead would be hindered if a simple Phoenix Down or Life spell could revive her.

Getting injured to 0 HP is commonly seen as being knocked out (in some games, it's simply "too injured to fight", but of course each game is different), instead of death. The bird feathers and white magic you bring up don't resurrect the dead, but resuscitate the wounded (of course, provided they aren't too critical, or in too deep a coma). In Final Fantasy V, there is a death (an awesome scene, might I add) where the other characters are frantically attempting to revive said dying person with the usual Pheonix Down, Arise, Curaga, etc., and failing because the person is too injured.

In my opinion, it makes the scene even stronger, as the party is literally doing everything a player would to try and save their friend. I don't know if the devs thought about it in this way, but I feel it's an ingenious form of story/gameplay integration for its time, and specifies the limits of the healing in the setting and what "0 HP" really means in FFV.

The more you know!

Nybx4lifeMar 18, 20151 votes

That's true. Unfortunately, it wasn't as defined for FF7.

MotajoMar 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}That's true. Unfortunately, it wasn't as defined for FF7.

While I haven't played 7 for more than a few minutes, we could probably assume the same, or similar, applies. When you go to the menu outside battle, is a party member at 0 health labeled as Knocked Out, Dead, or does nothing beyond the health count tell you they're out of commission?

Nybx4lifeMar 18, 20151 votes

From what I remember (years ago, so bear with me), within battle you saw your characters down (same for all of them minus 13, where they just look like all fucks have been taken from them). Outside, their portrait was grayed out, which other arcade games did at the time to say that the character passed away/died. They never stated the condition as KO or Death.

I do remember Phoenix Down having the description of reviving a character, so I assumed that meant bringing them back to life.

Nowhere in the game was the limitations of cure spells/items specified. Which had me pretty confused.

MotajoMar 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}Outside, their portrait was grayed out, which other arcade games did at the time to say that the character passed away/died. They never stated the condition as KO or Death.

I do remember Phoenix Down having the description of reviving a character, so I assumed that meant bringing them back to life.

Nowhere in the game was the limitations of cure spells/items specified. Which had me pretty confused.

Hmm, alright. I'd say you can just assume what you find most satisfying to you to be true until you find info about it. I think there are a lot of minor things in old RPGs that can be reasonably assumed or applied. I've played FFIV ever since I could read, and I only recently gleaned even more meaning to Cecil's atonement on Mt. Ordeals.

Nybx4lifeMar 19, 20151 votes

Pretty much. Outside of that one instance you talked about, I've never seen/heard someone try to pop a Phoenix Down/Curaga when someone was dying. As for FF7, so many things went over my head when I played through it before that it's like playing two different games.

Winters DefianceMar 18, 20152 votes

I think it's retarded they actually took a lot of the lore and shortened it to a few short lines that are incredibly vague. I thoroughly enjoyed the in-depth back stories that gave a REAL FEEL for the champion. Not some random nonsense like "... he does stuff and things b/c once upon a time ... stuff and things happened. The End."