Genres you hate and what you would do to make them enjoyable

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

Turn based games. I'd improve them by..... well.... not making them turn based.

 

[Shadowhawk77]

but whats the difference between a gimmick and inovation?

It's all in how well it's implemented and as you said, whether it actually adds something.

I love Pokemon, but I would change it so there is a replay value to the games.

Pokemon doesn't have replay value? I'm always having the most fun with a Pokemon game when I'm playing through the story with the rag-tag team I've managed to put together by that point. The only reason I don't replay them is because I'd lose everything.

Exactly that! I loose everything if I replay a game

Only way I can see that happening is through an increase in harddrive space in the chips themselves to allow more info to be stored for multisaves
OT: An inovation is always a gimmick but a gimmick is rarely an inovation...like putting a couple zombies in a single area and doing sales because the game is zombied up-or taking a full game of nothing but zombies and sell it off of the zombies that are really there

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I don't like JRPGs or MMOs because as a rule they encourage stat-grinding over actual roleplaying. Unfortunately this means there's nothing that can be done to make these games more palatable to me as what I dislike about them is built into their fundamental core mechanics. So I guess I'll just leave 'em well alone like I do now, and let those as likes them have their fun. It takes all sorts, after all.

[sub]Now if only game devs would show me the same courtesy and stop turning every one of my favourite WRPG franchises into bloody MMOs... /grumble[/sub]

 

[WoW Killer]

I dislike all the micro-management in RTS games. I generally prefer the games with a more general overview like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander over the more micro-management orientated titles like Star Craft. Red Alert 3 was very micro-managey as well. Not really my thing.

I think Chris Taylor went the right direction in his games, but it needs to go further IMO. Unfortunately such games don't usually receive as much attention as the more micro-managey titles. I still think there's a niche market there for a properly strategy orientated RTS.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Even though I have no problem with RPGs in general I really dislike turn-based ones. They tend to require you to keep track of a crapload of stats that half are pracically redundant and shouldn't even be there as well as the chance the characters will hit their target based on a dice roll. It's really not something I like to see when I'm cheated out of a well placed shot at ten feet away.

Now it's obvious what I want changed. First, cut down on pointless stats when there is one already serving that purpose. Second, I like to have some like timed hits that boost the chance of hitting a target. Third, avoid having to extensively grind to advance the plot by 5-7 levels (or depending how quick xp is earned).

Yep, that's my take.

The thing is when you start "cutting out pointless stats when there is one already serving that purpose", and start "streamlining" RPGs, you're removing the RPG elements and dumbing the game down. The myriad of different skills enhance the character-customization that is the essence of RPGs. For example, in Fallout 1, there's two different skills for First Aid and Doctor. Sounds like the kind of thing you'd take out, right? But now there's nothing differentiating my dainty former surgeon character from your battered wasteland survivor who's learned to patch himself up over the years. It's little things like that.

The reason for turn-based combat is that it's the only way to make the combat in RPGs be reliant on the stats you defined your character with rather than how nimble you are on the controls. The dice-rolls are there so that the combat isn't just about who's done the most grinding and equipped the strongest gear. Take away turn-based combat, streamline the skills and what you have is an action game with RPG elements.

And that's fine, but that's what they've been systematically turning every single RPG into in an attempt to appeal to the masses who don't care as much about customization and don't have the patience for a true RPG. The result is that there are now practically no true RPGs released; everythings an action-RPG like Deus Ex, Mass Effect, Skyrim, The Witcher or even my beloved New Vegas.

 

[Cannibal Johnson]

JRPGS, The only way to slightly improve those is to cut down the character angst ridden androgynous cunts. And it would also help if they stopped dressing like well. Just plain fucking weird. I'm not saying every JRPG character is like that, but goddamn are the ones I just mentioned fucking everywhere. I mean I have one JRPG character I like and its that guy with a chocobo living in his afro because that is genuinely hilarious. And not to mention he's the only guy in the whole game with some survival instinct. While everyone is running around twatting each other with swords, he's the only one with the intelligence to use guns.

 

[mega48man]

the JRPG genre reeeeally bugs me. not just the way the game is, but how japan keeps making these games without any sign of improvement or change, like some kid at school who brings in the same boring thing for show and tell EVERY TIME.

so what'd i do to change it? first, dump the crazy bad guys. giant ridiculous monsters are fun and they can stay, but when the tiny bad guys you find along your quests are just out right random and weird, IT'S A BIT DISTRACTING. instead, wolves, bears, tigers, lions, giant bats, giant scorpions, giant spiders, and other natural animals or otherwise large scary creatures will do fine. in environments where animals and creatures wouldn't be appropriate and guards would, just don't make the guards look like the gods from Clash of the Titans, this make making their head honcho look superior challenging without making him liam neeson.

character development; just don't bother and hire an american or european writer to do that for you. that goes for story to, i don't care how "amazing" or "awesome" any of the stories from any final fantasy game where, they were all dull for the most part and far too drawn out. if a story is to be good it needs to be well paced and keep the gamer involved. try having some looming question hanging over the gamer like 'what are the true origins of the main character? could they be sinister?' or something that drives the character to fight the villain like 'the main bad guy betrayed and murdered your family to achieve power, you must avenge beloved family's death!' (assassin's creed 2 anyone?)

but that's just my opinion.

P.S. - this is funny, the captcha says "easy as cake". guess i win, maybe?

 

[Loonyyy]

RTS game's aren't about feeling sad for your characters, its all strategy, all of it. Its about crushing your opponent with superior thinking, not about not trying because your soldier doesn't have a wife and kids and sad backstory. There isn't character depth for a reason. I think changing it into what you would want (basically a shooter) defeats the entire purpose.

I totally agree with this kind of sentiment.

RTS games are like Chess or Checkers, as opposed to more action oriented ones which are more akin to sports, or paintball or something.

Although...

An interesting exception, in my mind, was Battlezone II. It was a first person shooter, you flew around at ground level in little ships, think landspeeders from Star Wars, but as the campaign progressed, they introduced squad commanding mechanics so you could control team-mates, and then finally resource gathering and unit building. It made a very hectic combination: You could stay in your radar centre and do all the building, but you're usually the most effective fighter on the field, so being mobile is much more useful to your team. I never thought it could work, but it kind of all came together well.

OT: I'm kind of sick of regenerating health in modern shooters. I like the modern form of shooter, but this concept of "Hide and your health will go all the way back up" kind of annoys me, especially when I think that Far Cry 2, and Just Cause 2, both had a better mechanic in hand, where there were discrete chunks of health which could be recharged, but once lost, you had to use medical supplies which were limited. It allowed for the desperate dash from cover to cover of regen health, but with the survivalism and the danger of non-regenerating health.

It's not really changing a genre, but I'd like to see more games play around with that kind of balance.

 

[Paul Barclay]

Already said this in a simular thread, but I dislike racing games(well, sports games in general), so I suggested a stealth racing game.

Stealth racing is kind of brilliant. Everyone is driving a sort of James Bond-esque supercar with loads of weapons and gadgets and made to work their way through a crowded, GTA style cityscape to an objective. The challenge here being that you and the AI drive identical sorts of cars, so if you're behaving exactly like the AI cars you'll be impossible to distinguish from the AI non-racers. This way, you're moving toward the objective but trying your best not to give away that you're a player because if other players spot you, they can instantly vaporize you.

Now, after this we'll need stealth football.

 

[Palademon]

Sports games that aren't based on real sports that you can go outside and play.

Like the Quidditch games, or an entire game made from Blitzball from FFX.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Military FPSs get me down. I find a simple solution is turn them into a closet interest and don't tell your friends that you have them; that way, they won't bug and pester you to play multiplayer with them 'til you explode from the pressure and frustration. That mindset's kinda thwarted when you consider the fact that they can acknowledge that you have the game through either trophies or achievements.

JRPS's also bore me mostly because most of them are ALL THE SAME. Whiny characters, dramatic story, that whole "YOU'RE CHOSEN AND YOU AFFECT YOUR FUTURE" nonsense. It probably already exists and I have yet to play it, but I wanna play a JRPG where the characters aren't anorexic cross-dressers who have HUGE eyelashes (for a male character) and the main antagonist isn't the typical "I'M TAKING OVER THE WORLD" bad guy. They aren't superheroes, they can't wield HUGE weapons, they aren't running from some "traumatic experience", and the females aren't succubi.

Catherine spoiler~
That was one of the stranger things I liked about Catherine. She was a succubus and as I played the game, I lowered my controller and said "my God, it all makes sense. This is the universal answer to all the females in JRPG!"

 

[Fractral]

Pokemon style games. I find them tremendously boring.

I'd give them a shot again if they combined the polish and production value of Pokemon with a real time fighting engine. But then again, that's not what people come for with those games. But that's pretty much what it would take for me to be interested in it again. XD

A fighting game where you control one pokemon against another pokemon in battle, in real time, perhaps with teams or maybe swapping around characters would be one of the two things that would work with the current pokemon rules and make it better. The other would be to make it more of an srpg, where your pokemon are all on the field at once. I think this would work better if it was turn based. Imo this would make for some very interesting strategies, such as using clerics and buffing pokemon more, and if done correctly could totally revitalize pokemon.
Although, it may be that that Conquest game uses this kind of setup. Not sure though.

Only way I can see that happening is through an increase in harddrive space in the chips themselves to allow more info to be stored for multisaves

I'm pretty sure that the cartridges have enough space on them to hold at least two sets of save data. I think I heard on this site that DS cartridges have 1GB of storage on them (the 3DS ones have 8GB but game freak have said that they'll keep developing for the NDS) and the pokemon games only take up around half of that. (Although, I could be very wrong) The reason why they dont put multiple save files on the games is because they want to encourage you to buy the game again, rather than losing the 500 hours you spent EV training and grinding. (Once more, I could be very wrong, this is almost entirely speculation)

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Even though I have no problem with RPGs in general I really dislike turn-based ones. They tend to require you to keep track of a crapload of stats that half are pracically redundant and shouldn't even be there as well as the chance the characters will hit their target based on a dice roll. It's really not something I like to see when I'm cheated out of a well placed shot at ten feet away...

The thing is when you start "cutting out pointless stats when there is one already serving that purpose", and start "streamlining" RPGs, you're removing the RPG elements and dumbing the game down. The myriad of different skills enhance the character-customization that is the essence of RPGs. For example, in Fallout 1, there's two different skills for First Aid and Doctor. Sounds like the kind of thing you'd take out, right? But now there's nothing differentiating my dainty former surgeon character from your battered wasteland survivor who's learned to patch himself up over the years. It's little things like that.

The reason for turn-based combat is that it's the only way to make the combat in RPGs be reliant on the stats you defined your character with rather than how nimble you are on the controls. The dice-rolls are there so that the combat isn't just about who's done the most grinding and equipped the strongest gear. Take away turn-based combat, streamline the skills and what you have is an action game with RPG elements....

I'm actually using two older examples known as Vagrant Story and Legend of Dragoon. I don't actually hate the turn-based combat itself but being overbearing can drag it down but I (subjectively, yes) feel that these two give you enough to worry about. I understand that introducing action heavy gameplay would be completely out of place in a menu-based combat system. I also understand that having classes and perk sets are not the problem since all they are is specialization/specific assignment of stat points plus bonuses. Timed hits and being able to manuver some gives me proof that it's not all dependent on stats and luck of the draw but abit more skill involved without going all out.

Although I do have to admit that I don't play many RPGs that often so I'm just sharing my understanding of it.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Point and click adventures I absolutely despise. The fact that they almost always have retarded puzzle logic and click everywhere on the screen multiple times to find out wtf you're doing repetitiveness just bores me. Plus just moving between screens annoys me.

"oh look another screen i need to spam clicks/item uses over to progress! Perfect!"

Just go and play/watch footage of Scratches on Steam... It's basically the perfect example of why the puzzle element is just... GAH!

Oh right how to improve them... Make puzzle solving less obnoxious or less of a core mechanic? Add a second mechanic that isn't screen swapping clicky madness?

I suppose the Phoenix Wright games could be considered a point and click by some people... They're wrong but whatever.

 

[Zeckt]

Sports. Madden can easily be fun by DEATH! everyone wears spiked armor. OOooo and baseballs that explode if they aren't caught in a glove, which would equal loads of hilarity should it land in the stadium audience. Or hockey where the sticks double as lethal weapons! Muahaha!

 

[Kayevcee]

Sports. Madden can easily be fun by DEATH! everyone wears spiked armor. OOooo and baseballs that explode if they aren't caught in a glove, which would equal loads of hilarity should it land in the stadium audience. Or hockey where the sticks double as lethal weapons! Muahaha!

This may be before your time, but google "Brutal Sports Football" to see this concept taken to its logical conclusion in the halcyon days of the Commodore Amiga. I don't know if it came out for any other system, but my Amiga-owning mates and I played it till the disk wore out.

-Nick

 

[Luca72]

I don't hate swords & sorcery style fantasy games, but I would like them a lot more if I could take out every story involving a chosen one, destiny, or ancient prophecy. Why can't I just be a sellsword or blacksmith or something? That way it would actually feel cool when I rid the world of dragons or kill an evil volcano or whatever.

 

[malestrithe]

Western RPGs in general. They need to get rid of character creation and stick to writing stories that involve you the protagonist being involved in the world. This copout excuse of saying that, "well because your ability to choose makes them better because you have more control over your experience" does not fly with me. What it does is make the game generic.

I guess that a way to solve it is to, IDK, make them more like Alpha Protocol.

 

[CommanderL]

Western RPGs in general. They need to get rid of character creation and stick to writing stories that involve you the protagonist being involved in the world. This copout excuse of saying that, "well because your ability to choose makes them better because you have more control over your experience" does not fly with me. What it does is make the game generic.

I guess that a way to solve it is to, IDK, make them more like Alpha Protocol.

But one of the best part of western rpgs is the character creation


Fps less grey more colour