So I'm making a game...

[TCPirate]

I'm currently designing an Indie RPG game and I wanted to know what key features you believe are extremely important to an RPG.

It will take me a while to make (as it's a solo project) but I want to get the key features understood first of all.

So please tell me. I want to know exactly what features you love about RPG games.

 

[Mad1Cow]

Moral choices but not the jesus kitten hugging and demon baby roasting options only. Dragonage pulls this off nicely (the first one that is).

Oh and strategy. Say like you have an enemy who's just landed himself in a lake and he's still wanting to rip your guts out, a quick lightning bolt is an insta-kill, or at least high damage. Simple strategic things like that, that involve the environment wouldn't go amiss I think...

 

[Gammaj4]

If the combat is turn-based, make it engaging.
There are lots of ways to do this, but I suggest Active Time a la Crono trigger, or Timed Hits a la Super Mario RPG.

 

[Llil]

I assume it's going to have turn based combat. In that case, make sure the enemies are strong enough, and that there's enough skills or spells, so that the player won't/can't just choose "attack" all the time.
Also, think about having front, middle and back lines that you can move between in mid combat. This gives more choices and makes the combat more interesting.

The combat is a big part of almost all RPGs so it should be done well.

EDIT: One more thing: if the game has some kind of instand death or status effect spells, make sure they're worthwile. Avoid giving the player the kind of "useless useful spells".

 

[otakon17]

Lay off with enemies cheesing classic aggravating status effects like poison or paralysis. Also, if going with the tried and true random encounter system of battle, borrow the concept that Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves The World has. Make it so the player can force a battle, or after getting into 25 fights in the dungeon, random encounters turn off. If it is or course possible to do those things with what ever your making. Good luck, can't wait to hear when it's done.

 

[Tesral]

Not exactly a feature but good music is really important. The soundtrack to Disgaea is good enough to make me keep running the item world over and over. Something catchy for the battle theme, since in an RPG you will be hearing the first dozen or so seconds of it a LOT.

As for features, having your characters abilities and even stats change in battle (a la Golden Suns Djinn system to FF13s paradigm shift) keeps the combat varied and interesting, and gives much more scope for tactical battles.

 

[redisforever]

Lay off with enemies cheesing classic aggravating status effects like poison or paralysis. Also, if going with the tried and true random encounter system of battle, borrow the concept that Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves The World has. Make it so the player can force a battle, or after getting into 25 fights in the dungeon, random encounters turn off. If it is or course possible to do those things with what ever your making. Good luck, can't wait to hear when it's done.

That is exactly what I was going to say! I love those two games.

OT: It depends really on the type of RPG. You should probably give some more details, like what kind of RPG.

 

[ramboondiea]

as your going solo, i recommend lightening your load and create all the characters yourself, but to make up for lack of customisation, try to make well rounded characters, dont try to shoehorn a story into the game, think up exactly what your aiming for, make sure you know how you want to start and end, then work form there to make them connect

 

[Gammaj4]

Forget what the others say, do not focus that much on the combat. What you want from an RPG is an actual roleplaying experience. Customizable characters, choices that matters when it comes to skills/abilities and an engaging story with several arcs. Focus your time here and polish it and you will have a win.

While I concur that this is very important, dull combat can be a game killer. Just be careful and you'll be fine. Just don't be afraid to ditch the combat altogether and rebuild it if you find it just isn't working.

 

[HHammond]

Choices aren't really important. People like choices because most Western RPGs have them but they're not integral. As long as you have a really good story and really good characters your narrative should be engaging enough.

So focus on the combat system, your story and your characters (the last of which I think is the most important).

EDIT: When I say choices I mean as in story choices or moral choices.

 

[Llil]

It would be interesting to know if the game is going to be more story driven, or more like a dungeon crawler.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Plenty of options. The most important feature in a role playing game is allowing the player to play how they want. If at all possible make a stealth feature and implement crits and the like in case someone feels like being a bit sneaky.

 

[Dalek Caan]

I always found customization to be must. If this is your first game then i doesn't have to be the greatest thing ever. Good luck.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

As a good friend of mine said, a good RPG needs to things.

1) A good battle system. It doesn't need to be overly complex, just good. Remember, the player will be fighting a LOOOT of battles. If they're not fun, they'll get tired of the game and maybe quit.

2) A good story, or at least good characters. The story is like the carrot on the stick, urging the player to keep playing so they can see what happens next. And the characters help draw them into the world and make them emotionally connect to it. Having a good story and/or characters can really pull an RPG forward.


Here are some examples to illustrate my point.

ex1: Breath of Death VII (on steam). This is a straight up super-retro RPG. The story is a bit lacking, but it's meant to be a silly humorous game, and it pulls that off well. And the characters are fun and quirky. As for the battle system? Damn good. It's super simple, but very effective. As a result, it's good all around.

ex2: Eternal Sonata. Ugh...The combat system is BRILLIANT. Turn based meets action based. And it's REALLY fun to play. .....But the story, characters and delivery are all terrible. The game takes ten minutes to slowly describe a town for you, when you can see it right there. It just isn't well told. As a result, most people I know played it for the battle system, and then gave up later because they felt no motivation to continue.

ex3: Earthbound (SNES). Simple battle system, but well balanced. Good, quirky story. Everything came together perfectly in that game.

ex4: Mass effect 2. We all know the action was good, so there. The story wasn't quite as good as ME1...but ME2 made up for it with really good characters. They managed to draw me into the world, and keep me interested.

Hopefully you found that helpful.

EDIT: Also, Random encounters are not usually looked upon that well, so if you ARE using it and not the earthbound/crono method of bumping into enemies to engage them...Try using a system that lowers the enemy encounter rate based on battles won, or based on party level. It'll allow the users to reach the level you want them to be at for each boss, and allow them to explore your dungeons more easily. NOTHING is more annoying than trying to explore a dungeon, only to get into a long battle every 4 steps (I'm looking at YOUUUUU Black Sigil! )

 

[Nexus4]

For combat, repetition is unavoidable. So make your combat system interesting and engaging. Doesn't have to be original, but rather present it in a unique way that is familiar and enjoyable enough that people will not mind the repetition.

 

[Lilani]

I'm currently designing an Indie RPG game and I wanted to know what key features you believe are extremely important to an RPG.

It will take me a while to make (as it's a solo project) but I want to get the key features understood first of all.

So please tell me. I want to know exactly what features you love about RPG games.

I think the most important feature of anything that wants to call itself an role-playing game is SOME way to, well, roleplay. There are many ways to do this, but you don't necessarily have to include all of them to make it feel like a roleplaying game:

-Characters start as a "blank slate" in which the player imbues a name and personality (works best as a silent protagonist, but you don't always have to)
-An open-ended sandbox sort of setup rather than a rigid story arc
-A huge world players can freely explore with lots of nooks and crannies for the player to delve into
-Avatar customization
-Moral choices, or a system which the player's actions directly affect the world around them
-Lots of ways for the player to interact with the environment and setpieces
-A fun and engaging battle system

Incorporating just one of those properly can successfully fulfill that "roleplaying" element. And it's hardly even roleplaying, really. It's more or less the freedom of choice for the player. That is why so many people hated FFXIII. You are told who your characters are, what their goals are, who their enemies are, and where they are allowed to go. No player choice whatsoever.

 

[HHammond]

Can I ask what sort of RPG you're going to make? Have you got a basic plot or idea? Like is it going to be a JRPG or a WRPG or a D&D style game?

 

[mireko]

Tactics. For me, tactics are essential to RPGs. Especially the type you're making.

Whether this comes down to elemental weaknesses/resistances, squad positioning, whatever, I'll leave it to you. Another thing I like a lot is when you get to control how your party develops. Assigning skills and the like. You can even use it to replace class-based combat, since the player will pick those roles on their own.

The other thing is the cast. We have to like the characters. They can be cute, ugly, smart, stupid, anything just as long as we like them. Playing an RPG full of characters you hate is unbearable. What's worse is that it kills any hope of us caring about the storyline, removing the possibility of having any meaningful choices in the game as well.

In other words, OMG SO DEEP story choices are good and all, but realize that it will amount to nothing if the core game doesn't work or we don't like the cast. If you're stuck between writing a fun character and giving a player a choice, write the character. Or do what professional developers do and write the character while convincing the player that their choice matters when it doesn't. It'll require some more smoke and mirrors, but hey, maybe you could pull it off.

 

[Hagi]

Keep it simple.

You're running solo. This means a few very simple things:

You're not going to have great graphics, plan your art style around this. Keep it simple and effective, probably 2D. Try to avoid close up humans, they'll just look bad. Try to avoid complicated looking objects, they'll just look bad. Try to avoid very organic looks, they'll just look bad. etc.

You're not going to have a big and deep game, plan your gameplay around this. Don't try to make dozens of different systems to do a dozen different things, you'll end up with a dozen crappy systems that nobody likes. Focus on one aspect of gameplay and make that aspect extremely good. Again, keep it simple.

You're not going to have a deep and engaging storyline. Chances of you being an extremely talented amazing writer who knows how to deal with interactivity are slim, very slim, basically nonexistent. Keep your story basic and simple, involve some humor. Don't try to craft some big epic, you'll very likely fail and ruin whatever other good factors your game had. Take a basic story, add some humorous twist and go with that.

I hope you get the basic line of thought here, keep it simple. If it takes more then a single paragraph to describe whatever you're creating then chances are it's too complicated. With a AAA budget you can do complicated, as a solo dev you can't.

I mean take about the most popular game created by a single person: Minecraft. It can be basically summed up as:

"You have bricks. You build stuff with those bricks. Oh, and at night there's zombies."

 

[LittleWings]

Make sure you avoid too many of these: http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html
Try and give realistic dialogue,and make sure there's plenty to do outside of the main story (Minigames and fun exploration). Try and keep the main game more than just dialogue/fight/dialogue/fight/dialogue...