How would you improve RPGs?

[AlohaJoe]

The biggest problem with RPGs is that the name implies something they aren't. They are spreadsheet simulators and turn based genocide engines but they virtually never let you play a role.

Combat: The comment above about slight percentages being all that matters is one example but the very notion of combat is the problem. In Mass Effect over the course of, what a few weeks tops?, my character murdered hundreds of sentient species. Not only does he exhibit sociopathic levels of remorselessness but no one else around him seems to mind, either. And we're not talking about kill-or-be-killed scenarios, we're talking about some side quest where a rival gang lord essentially hires you as an assassin and you never bother to ask the underlings to surrender.

Levels: Again, I'll use Mass Effect as an example. I start the game and I'm allegedly such a bad ass special forces type that all of humanity is putting me forward as a Spectre candidate. Yet I can't hit the broad side of a barn with a sniper rifle. Yet somehow, miraculously, a week or two of gametime later and I'm a super sniper extraordinaire who has (in his spare time) also mastered hacking and electronics. If a couple weeks is all it takes to progress to this level of competence why isn't EVERYONE in the universe this good?

Side quests: Side quests are generally ridiculous. In and of themselves they are ridiculous but the notion that someone would take time out from saving the entire universe from complete and total destruction to run a side quest destroys all suspension of disbelief. Heroes have priorities. When I played Baldur's Gate 2 I happily let me friend languish in prison for months on end while I ran side quests. Because that's what real people would do, of course.

Skill trees: Everyone knows that if you learn how to shoot a sniper rifle (or use a bow) you are forever after incapable of putting on "heavy armor".

Parties: How can I play a role when I'm micromanaging an entire party (usually under ridiculous party size constraints... why can I only have 2 (or 4 or 8) people in my party?).

 

[J-Val]

More interactivity, less violence. Oh, don't get me wrong, mass alien genocide is fun and all, but must we do it OVER and OVER again? Why can't I launch a coup and take control of the Generic Ruling Party? Why can't I become a fisherman? Why can we not parley with the aliens, instead of just glassing their planets from orbit?

 

[Duck Sandwich]

Let's take this to its logical conclusion, shall we? Let's say you played an RPG with no random battles at all (As in, every time you played you would fight Battle A here and Battle B there, and once they were over they were over) and after every one of these pre-determined battles you would receive a pre-determined amount of EXP, and the exact same item or items no matter how many times you played the game. This EXP would be doled out in quantities sufficient enough to make sure that if you didn't do any side-quests at any point, your character or party would always be capable of handling the next fight, but that if you were to do every single side-quest, you would reach the maximum level cap just before the final boss fight.

And, of course, if you actually didn't want to help Mrs. Windy Oldbag get her cat Fluffykins down from that tree, I suppose getting the same amount of EXP or whatever no matter the conclusion to the quest could ward against forcing every single player, regardless of 'alignment', into doing every single quest for every single peasant incapable of solving their own problems.

It would, however, result in players choosing the easiest possible way to their free experience, whether that be from murdering Oldbag in broad daylight or immolating Fluffykins and the tree.

Well, in KOTOR, usually doing the good guy/helpful thing (getting Fluffykins down) is harder, giving you more light side points, where as the dark side (immolating Fluffykins) makes the game easier.

A lot of times in KOTOR I did some goodguy thing, and then an NPC offered a reward of some sort. One of the dialogue options that I would pick was always much more pleasant sounding that what I actually meant to say. (ie, "No reward is necessary. I'm just here to help", as opposed to "No, I don't want that shitty sword. Give me my fucking lightside points, *****!" I like the whole "being a good guy is harder" thing. It actually gives you an incentive to be the bad guy, aside from getting the Hitler ending and putting Oldbag in her place.

Aside from the whole alignment thing, sidequests were just an optional challenge that you could get some gold from, or a cool weapon. But unlike grind-heavy RPG's, they weren't something you HAD to do, lest you fall in battle before Lord Badguy and his Blade of Having a High Percentage Chance to Critcal Hit.

AlohaJoe, regarding the side quests thing, I whole heartedly agree. They're like filler episodes of (insert anime here) There's one RPG I've played, Exile 3 - where if you waste too much time on sidequests, bad stuff will happen (cities will be slowly destroyed, item vendors will die, etc.)

I remember this one annoying sidequest I did in Phantasy Star 4, that had NO reward at all. Interestingly, the main character felt the same way I did.

Back to the whole alignment thing again. There should be more than just the Jesus/Hitler dichotomy. Why can't I be only quasi-evil, or the diet coke of evil?

 

[General Ma Chao]

I've played a lot of RPGs over the years. JRPGs, Western RPGs, and table top games. You name it, I've probably played it.

You may want to settle in as this is going to be long.

The "emo-ness" of heroes is attributable to the fact to two things: 1) most of them are teenagers or are just barely out of their teens 2) these games are marketed primarily to teens. When you were a teenager, you were on an emotional roller coaster. We ALL were. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. A teenage hero on a huge emotional roller coaster is very easy to empathize with. When I was that age I empathized easily with Cloud in FF7 and Terra in FF6. On top of that, many of these protagonists experience some very real emotional trauma. As cliche as the actual event is, having your village burned and your parents murdered in front of you is going to affect you, especially at that age. One favorite "emo" whipping boy I've seen is FF10's Tidus. ((SPOILER ALERT))The guy was beginning to enjoy a good life as a star blitzball player, but he constantly found himself in the shadow of his father. His father,Jecht, was an abusive and narcissistic drunk. His sudden leaving made his mother die of heart break. Then, he gets dragged away from everything he's built for himself because his father suddenly needs him to clean up a mess he couldn't fix. ((SPOILER ALERT OVER)) I don't know about you, but I don't think I would be happy if all that happened to me. If you WOULD find yourself unaffected, than you can only be a robot.

Giant colorful hair and swords: These are just visceral aspects that appeal to teenage minds. It's the same thing as Ash's chainsaw arm, Wolverine's adamantium claws, or the Punisher's many implements of death.

Levels and character micromanagement: Every game in existence has a learning curve. RPGs tend to have higher ones. I wish more games at least gave people the option to fix their "mistakes" with minimum frustration. However, if a system is too arcane to you, you really only have 2 choices.
1) Rise to the occasion
2) Play a different game
Some people hate complexity and some love it. It's just a matter of preference.

As for levels, it was to help gauge a person's growth from a novice to a veteran adventurer. Some game stories (which cast you as a veteran) throw this dynamic off though.
It also helps players learn with simple options as they figure out the game. World blasting powers tend to be a bit much at the beginning for the wide eyed new player.

Role-playing: I agree up to a point. People want choices of who they want to be but there are as many choices as there are people. Even with the open worlds that Bethsaeda, Bioware, and Obsidian have created, there are still going to be limits. In Elder Scrolls, you have tons of customization options, but you can only be an "adventurer." You can't be a merchant. Trying to program every last thing, will result in the game collapsing under it's own weight as Yahtzee observed with Fable. Also, game machines can't read emotional responses. That's why you only have "goody two shoes or extravagant malevolence" as Yahtzee put it.

I can probably say more, but I don't want to overdo this.

Whew...Thank you.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I just had an "I don't feel like working so I'll think about video games" brain storm. I hear over and over again that fighting in an Oblivion/WoW/EQ/etc style of RPG takes away from the immersion in the game. Pushing a button to throw a fireball or swing a sword doesn't really get you into the feeling of blowing something up with a fireball or slashing an Orc across the chest so, short of Wii-style controls with ten times the sophistication what could be done to make you feel more immersed in RPG fighting?

I was thinking of the fighting system in Legend of Dragoon and how a simple button pushing combo made every attack feel a little more personal so, why couldn't we do something similar with fighting and magic in newer RPG's? I don't mean giving you a menu to choose a skill from which then prompts the button sequence but each skill could come with a button sequence that you need to remember in order to use the skill.

Most fantasy novels use something similar; a spell is accompanied by specific hand movements or chants and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to include ten "runes" in the game and bind them to the numpad. Weapon skills are a little more difficult because you want it to make sense but maybe you have one button for swing and then push the directional keys for the type of swing you want a-la Oblivion or even (to some degree) Mortal Kombat. The directions you push could correspond to the movement of your sword and your hits wound your opponent in specific ways (a hit to the leg slows your movement/rotation, hit to the arm slows your swing, head makes you a vegetable, etc).

I think it would make fighting sequences in games like Oblivion feel far more real if you're forced to remember something for each skill and I don't think it would even slow down a fight much once the player got the hang of it and once you really got used to it you could rattle off spells and combos quite quickly.

 

[General Ma Chao]

I just had an "I don't feel like working so I'll think about video games" brain storm. I hear over and over again that fighting in an Oblivion/WoW/EQ/etc style of RPG takes away from the immersion in the game. Pushing a button to throw a fireball or swing a sword doesn't really get you into the feeling of blowing something up with a fireball or slashing an Orc across the chest so, short of Wii-style controls with ten times the sophistication what could be done to make you feel more immersed in RPG fighting?

I was thinking of the fighting system in Legend of Dragoon and how a simple button pushing combo made every attack feel a little more personal so, why couldn't we do something similar with fighting and magic in newer RPG's? I don't mean giving you a menu to choose a skill from which then prompts the button sequence but each skill could come with a button sequence that you need to remember in order to use the skill.

Most fantasy novels use something similar; a spell is accompanied by specific hand movements or chants and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to include ten "runes" in the game and bind them to the numpad. Weapon skills are a little more difficult because you want it to make sense but maybe you have one button for swing and then push the directional keys for the type of swing you want a-la Oblivion or even (to some degree) Mortal Kombat. The directions you push could correspond to the movement of your sword and your hits wound your opponent in specific ways (a hit to the leg slows your movement/rotation, hit to the arm slows your swing, head makes you a vegetable, etc).

I think it would make fighting sequences in games like Oblivion feel far more real if you're forced to remember something for each skill and I don't think it would even slow down a fight much once the player got the hang of it and once you really got used to it you could rattle off spells and combos quite quickly.

The Valkyrie Profile games have something similar. Each party member is mapped to a button and you need coordinate their attacks to build up a guage to use their "finishing strikes" which are often necessary as enemies tend to have many hit points.

 

[ComradeJim270]

JRPGs would be better if they were more like western RPGs. Simple as that. If you addressed the common criticisms, you'd end up with something that no longer played like a JRPG.

 

[Money2themax]

JRPGs would be better if they were more like western RPGs. Simple as that. If you addressed the common criticisms, you'd end up with something that no longer played like a JRPG.

then they wouldn't be JRPGs they'd be western RPGs think about what you are saying

 

[Fire Daemon]

I think a turnbased RPG that takes time during combat into account would be good.

For instance your playing as a rouge so therefore you can attack say 3 times before a barbaian weilding a great hammer can get an attack in (as a heavy weapon will take more time to swing), however the rogues attacks are considreably weaker then the fucking big hammer of doom strike so you might have to give your roque the comand to do two quick strikes and then a dodge to evade the coming hit.

If using a mage then your obviosly going to have a wide range of spells, some may be cast instantly and allow for many spells a turn (but are weaker) while some may take a turn to cast a more powerful spell.

However unlike your normal turnbased game you don't take turns. AFter you have put in the orders for your party the combat starts, people fight each other at the smae time but the order of attacks is decided by what attacks you unleash, your class and weapon your using.

If a Turn based RPG was made like this I know I would be over it in an instant.

 

[Blayze]

So, basically, you want a classic Wait gauge like in games such as the Final Fantasy series, but you want the speed at which that gauge refills to be based on the weight of your character's equipment, the complexity of the spells they're casting, etc? (Rather than just whether or not they have Haste cast on them)

Sounds interesting.

 

[GloatingSwine]

You mean exactly like Final Fantasy XII already does, since the rate the character's ATB bars fill is based on their Speed stat, which is modified by their equipment.

Or, indeed, FFX-2, where the actual length of the ATB bar changed as the speed stat changed, and precharge delays changed on spells to give more powerful spells a longer delay.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I think all modern RPGs should have been built upon the Arx Fatalis style of gaming. That is:
All attacks count towards hitbox impact, regardless of "target life pool". Fireball in the head? It came off! Cool... Swording a corpse? Hit every limb on the body? Torso on the ground.

All RPGs need hitboxes, fire spells and to make all skills and their sub-skills accessible but challenging. Also, I don't see enough options to be a vampire, zombie or ghost in video games... that needs changing.

 

[Fire Daemon]

So, basically, you want a classic Wait gauge like in games such as the Final Fantasy series, but you want the speed at which that gauge refills to be based on the weight of your character's equipment, the complexity of the spells they're casting, etc? (Rather than just whether or not they have Haste cast on them)

Sounds interesting.

Not quite.

Ok lets say you have a bar, and the bar is broken into 5 pieces (1 second for each piece) now a quick stab done by a rouge takes say 3 qauters of a second while a heavy swing of a hammer by a barbarian might take 2 and a half seconds.

Sceanrio Rouge fighting Barabarian
So lets say a rouge decides to do two strikes which takes up a second and a half and the decides to drink a potion that 3 seconds and then does a dodge move that takes up half a
second.
At the same time the Barbarian decides to do two light swings with a hammer that take up 2 and a half second each.
The two players have made attack choices and the combat starts. The rouge gets in two quick stabs while the barbarian is rainsing his hammer and then goes to grap the potion but while he takes a drink he cops a hit. But is able to dodge the second strike.

That round of combat is over and then the players pick what the want to do next round.

I havent played a game like this before but i don't play many JRPG's.

If you can see any flaws in this or just want to say i suck please tell me

 

[GloatingSwine]

Sounds like an unnecessarilty fiddly way to break things down, and would feel very artificial to play. If you're going to that kind of detail in action timing, use a realtime system.

 

[uberlad]

make the player feel as if they were a real member of the RPG's universe.

I haven't really felt compelled to play or be involved in any RPG since FF7 (MAYBE FF8 and 9)... everything else has just sucked to the point of pushing me away from playing any new games in the genre.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I may be one of the only FF fan who though FF7 sucked big giant balls, FF6 had every major character unique, Developed and all likable

What was it about FF7 that you (or anyone who wants to pitch in) didn't like?

I really can't think of one thing about it that I severely disliked except how easy the end was compared to how God-like you were by the end. I thought the characters were well developed, the fighting system was decent (if a little boring) and I absolutely loved the materia system.

The story was about as good as I feel I can reasonably expect from a video game and there was a ton of crap to do outside of the main quest (most of it more challenging than the main quest). Sure it was a bit easy but, to be perfectly honest, I was tired of puzzles arbitrarily slapped into my dungeon crawling and going through the same cave where every corridor was at right angles to other corridors whenever I had to go through a mountain.

 

[Melaisis]

Forced grinding to beat a giant tree boss which has nothing to do with the overall story always got to me, personally.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I can't really disagree with any particular point. It was the first big hit of the next generation of RPG's and it had a lot of new features.

Movement was far better than anything I had previously experienced. Top views and obsessively geometric landscapes were replaced by varied camera views, well done backdrops and movement through areas in three dimensions (you could go up, down, left right and toward/away from the camera).

The fighting was fundamentally the same as it's predecessors, however, it was a completely different experience because your characters actually whacked the bad guys instead of swinging the sword and the bad guys magically took damage. FF7 would have been far better if you had some amount of movement control during battles, however, it didn't and I didn't think it was a fault until other games started doing it (was it Legends of Legaia? I can't remember).

The story was only so-so and I've always felt the whole game should have been as well done as Midgar. There was a certain amount of immersion you lost once you were thrown into the world map but towns, dungeons and the like were still well done throughout.