I've played a number of rpg's in my day but it seems that the majority of them have mediocre to bad combat mechanics.
This thread will mostly focuses on Western rpg's since I have little knowledge and have played only one JRPG.
Sometimes I wonder whether these developers purposefully did this or they don't put enough time fine tuning the combat of their games.
I find people's reasons and excuses weak because almost every rpg I've played, combat is unavoidable and a lot of times either the controls or the combat itself is a huge barrier for me as a player. I don't think getting used to the combat is a good enough solution nor do I think just waiting for mods to "fix it" is a good solution either.
Bethesda is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to this.
For example, the combat in the two Elder Scrolls games I've played, Oblivion & Skyrim, suck. Skyrim was a big improvement but it isn't what I would call good either. There are other first person games with combat that is comparable to the Elder Scrolls series that Bethesda could have taken inspiration from to improve theirs. The fact that they've been making this series for 20 years and still haven't mastered their own style of combat is disturbing.
Fallout 3 & New Vegas have First person shooter combat and yet both still fail at it. How could Bethesda and Obsidian have gotten combat so wrong when so many FPS's came out the same time as both games?
The Witcher series is also another big offender of this too. Witcher 1's combat is super simple, like a glorified QTE. You just click and wait for the cursor to light up and keep clicking. Witcher 2's was worse and plays like a bad action game.
Now, I have played some rpg's with good enough combat like Jade Empire, Kingdom's of Amalur and Dragon's Dogma but those are rare.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
I've often thought that RPGs with action-based forms of combat tend to pale in comparison to actual action games. I'd be interested to know the reasons why ARPGs so often highly lack mechanical polish and balance. Maybe there are technical factors.
I don't think it's always such a bad thing, though. Take Oblivion and Skyrim, for instance. The combat is just kind of there; it's not good, but it's not super-annoying either. The main thing it does is add to the experience of feeling like you're living the life of an explorer and an adventurer in a fantasy world, which is the main draw of those games for a lot of people.
That said, I see no reason to make excuses. Just because I think the combat is serviceable enough to play its part in the overall experience doesn't mean I wouldn't want it to be better. It's fair to criticize them.
Its mostly western studios, thats not just for RPGs, most western studios make gameplay that puts me to sleep.
I dont think so. traditional RPGs with hack/slash combat always get so boring so fast. That includes The Witcher 3, which I cant bring myself to finish.
I'm probably the odd man out, but I MUCH prefer the combat in Elder Scrolls games to third person hack/slash. Elder Scrolls combat allows you to approach situations from multiple angles, and you get a lot of control over combat scenarios. Sneeking up on some townspeople, pegging one of them in the head with an arrow, and then retreating into the shadows is so satisfying. Traditional Hack/slash RPGs never allow that kind of freedom.
Testament to how true sandbox design can bring much more life to a game. Games that are absolutely drenched in long, drawn out bullet-sponge combat scenarios need good combat.
I agree with this post. I play games for game-play first and foremost, everything else second. I don't care how good your graphics or story is, if you don't have satisfying gameplay I just can't deal with it.
This is why I don't play a lot of RPGs. . Their combat is unsatisfying and boring. . There are a few exceptions of coarse.
Like the Souls series.. these barely have story in them. Straight up gameplay.
I didn't even bother going near any of the Elder scrolls games.