What is missing in RPGs today?

Variety in location, genre etc.

In oldschool text rpgs and basic 2d ones there was an rpg for EVERY possible situation. Now all devs work from the same fantasy freeware model, texture and sound pack it seems.

The one thing I miss from older games is how tile based maps let developers create unique maps easily or even allowed random map generation. Nothing ruins exploration quicker than discovering a new area that's a literal copy paste of a previous one.

I'd always like to see more procedural generation. "Action RPGs" (e.g. Diablo) take this to an extreme, but I think even in story driven games PG could have a place. Area layouts, items, even small details such as names could be generated on a per-PC basis. Perhaps the constraints available to the generators would adjust slightly to the choice of class or difficulty level.

Of course, I can foresee this adding challenges with balancing, eliminating exploits, and fitting a complex story into the generated world. However, even a small number of PG content could add replay value, I think.

Charm.

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Variety in location, genre etc. In oldschool text rpgs and basic 2d ones there was an rpg for EVERY possible situation. Now all devs work from the same fantasy freeware model, texture and sound pack it seems.

Elaborate on this. I think I agree, but I want to make sure I understand. What do you mean "every possible situation"? Yeah, it does seem that most teams produce clones of the same exact game.

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The one thing I miss from older games is how tile based maps let developers create unique maps easily or even allowed random map generation. Nothing ruins exploration quicker than discovering a new area that's a literal copy paste of a previous one.

I love dynamic map generation. I really do want to see more RPGs use this tool. It intrigues me that you make this comment because I've heard some big dawg devs claim that hand-crafted terrain was superior to randomly generated areas. Apparently, they don't know all their fans too well. :)

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I'd always like to see more procedural generation. "Action RPGs" (e.g. Diablo) take this to an extreme, but I think even in story driven games PG could have a place. Area layouts, items, even small details such as names could be generated on a per-PC basis. Perhaps the constraints available to the generators would adjust slightly to the choice of class or difficulty level. Of course, I can foresee this adding challenges with balancing, eliminating exploits, and fitting a complex story into the generated world. However, even a small number of PG content could add replay value, I think.

Noted. I am a huge Diablo II fan myself, but I hated how big the Durance of Hate would become as you got closer to Hell difficulty. XD

I think the solution is to allow dynamically generated chunks but not allow every step of the area to be random. That make sense?

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Charm.

That stat? Like from the game L.O.R.D.? :)

Compare Fallout to Fallout 3. Do I really need to elaborate on this point further?

I like to have a big world with lots of different optional stuff in it. Stuff that fits the story and the setting. For example, if the story contains a ancient culture that once thrived etc. I expect to see marks of this culture when I stroll through the woods. It can be a stone poking out of the ground with some text on it, such as "[text worn off] ... the battle of Calamdier where pla pla..." Having one temple left of the once-great such-and-such civilisation doensn't cut it if the game has free-roam.

I also dislike that when some random grandmother tells of a legend of the Elephant-faced man who appears at night and sucks out your innards if you burn 10 crow feather praising his name and you cannot really go and do it showing the Elephant-man who's the boss. In short, I like in-game legends and lore that can actually happen in the game. That you could listen to people talk and gather REAL information this way. "My uncle always told me the reason he moved here was because of the screams he thought he heard near Egtema Falls. I never believed him, really. He said no one else ever heard anything. My uncle has been dead for years, but just last summer I heard the village near Egtema Falls has steadily lost it's population. Now it's almost a ghost town. It was such a thriving village back then..." Then you could go and take a look. Or something similar.

I get a strong sense of exploration when I can just and explore. A good example for this could be Morrowind. After a few minutes of constrained gameplay you can just take a hike into the wilderness and get killed. You can take a safe ride into the big city or walk. Or you can find that one dude's ring and kill the bandits or not. On the other hand, it's also silly when you come back at level 30 and the same guy still hasn't found his ring and the bandits are still holed up in the cave.

I have nothing against combat really. It just cannot be too easy or too hard. For example, when you every 10 seconds fight a monster that you can slay in one strike in an RPG Maker -game it's just completely pointless and annoying.

I like multiple endings if they are derived from the player actions throughout the whole game. Multiple endings such as whether you write the future with Dark Savant or just kill him are nice (especially given Dark Savant's history) but they add very little to the game. I mean, by the time you get your multiple ending, the game is almost over. Derived from this I also like if I feel my actions in the game make a difference in some way.

I guess that comment was directed more at jRPGs (Final Fantasy, et. all) rather than CRPGS (Diablo and the like), though it could apply -- Torchlight is a recent CRPG with "charm" -- which is a property of the game, not a stat.

By charm I mean a sort of whimsical attitude toward the material. It could be a unique art style, quirky characters, humor, or a storyline out of left-field. I would define it as the sum total of that which makes the game unique and "fun", as opposed to being overly realistic or "serious". Take Overlord (which is a sort of CRPG/RTS hybrid) -- it absolutely oozes charm.

Hi, newbie here :D


I think what I really miss is the game treating me like I have a brain.

Really, I think that nothing is better to ruin a RPG than a quest system to guide you throgh EVERY DAMN quest. Or even worse, a RPG where there is not even quests, you just have to walk forward and kill monsters/level up.

Ive been playing Final Fantasy XIII, the graphics are gorgeous... but damn, so far all I did was reading and pressing X (L1 sometimes)...

I know the Final Fantasy series was never meant to be open ended, and they ARE linear, but this is ridiculous. They should have made a movie out of it. So far, Im just pushing my way through battles just to see how the history unfold, the battles are plain boring.

The most imersive game I ever played was Ultima V. Graphics were good for the time, but compared to Final Fantasy XIII they are plain trash. It wasnt open ended (you had 2 endings depending on just one item). Some people give credit to the non linear system and the fantastic NPC schedules. I really dont think thats it either.

What I really miss from the Ultima series is that the games actualy expected some effort from the players, you had to think, take a few notes if you wanted to (no quest system to just walk you through the game as if you had no memory or couldnt think by yourself). The game was gorgeous, with short but interesting dialogs with the NPCs. And by all means, all the data that could be hidden from the players WAS hidden. I mean, really, how immersive is a "+55atk,30def double speed" sword? Is there really any need for all this info? Do I need to know the exact amount of damage points Ive done to a monster or even have a bar that shows the health monsters have? If we are using a computer why not let the machine handle the numbers and show this info in a more human friendly way? Do you see people with health bars on the street? Do you see movies/mangas/comics/ with heroes that have a +30 atack bonus?

Ultima V had a nice and simple health system for the monsters, If you took just some of the HP, it would say the thing was "lightly wounded", you took more, "barely wounded", some more, "heavily wounded", a little more, "near death". Weapons didnt have all stats saying how much damage they did, instead, you had a guide telling you which weapon did which kind of damage. You see, the game had the data, monsters had a discrete ammount of hit points, it was simply hidden.

I dont suggest a system where monsters would say in text "HEY YOU, IM LIGHTLY WOUNDED", but, if it is possible to do games with the level of graphics detail that final fantasy XIII has, Im sure its quite possible to implement graphics solutions to show when a monster is half way dead, with scars and blood showing it, I dont really need a visual health bar for it (this also opens a lot of possibilities).

There is one thing in Final Fantasy XIII that I really liked and I think it is the best improvement Ive seen so far in the game. When you load it, it gaves you a small resume of what happened so far in the story, but it does it like it was TELLING a story, not just a bunch of triggered/untriggered events. Too bad you never need it, you could just follow some lights on the map, kill the monsters on your way and it would be just the same.

Im not saying that they did a poor job with the game, Im sure they did the best they could to please their audience, and the graphics and the storyline is good. I just used it as an example. Nor Im trying to put the blame on the audience or imply that those who like Final Fantasy XIII are worse persons in ANY way. Its just the way things are. And Im sure that those things do not help to create an immersive game.

So, in a resume: graphics details are good, as long as the game is still challenging in other ways than just hard strategic battles (which is good TOO). Also, it should have lots of data and stats for all its weapons and characters, lots of triggers and events all around the world, but thats for the development team use only: the player should have access to more solid models with only the data he needs and the rest should make its way out in more subtle ways.

If this worked with the poor 16bit 320x240 low res graphics in Starflight, im sure it can work just as well with the level of graphic detail we have at our disposal now. Events and triggers should not be treated as a quest list, its dumb to develop a whole dialog system and lots of NPCs interactions if the player doesnt need it, he just have to follow the journal which has just a list of the game triggers.

Anyways, its my 2 cents, sorry if I got carried away. Im not trying to teach anyone how to build and SELL games, but thats what I miss and I know it would work well with me;

Role Playing Games should focus on the Role. Even if it is a linear game, if you make the player feel like he made a choice, it will feel like he has control. Instead of great story-bending choices, give the player small rewards, like stealling food, turning lights on and off... simple stuff just to make the player feel like he is really taking part on the events, instead of just fighting and watching.

PS:Sorry for the poor english :P.

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Original post by TheBuzzSaw Quote: The one thing I miss from older games is how tile based maps let developers create unique maps easily or even allowed random map generation. Nothing ruins exploration quicker than discovering a new area that's a literal copy paste of a previous one. I love dynamic map generation. I really do want to see more RPGs use this tool. It intrigues me that you make this comment because I've heard some big dawg devs claim that hand-crafted terrain was superior to randomly generated areas. Apparently, they don't know all their fans too well. :)

Handcrafted content definitely has some advantages but if your going to claim your game is non-linear by having a completely linear main story peppered with side quests to travel through uninspired terrain and clean out copy paste dungeons I done see why the second string content couldn't be random.

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Original post by MrMorley Compare Fallout to Fallout 3. Do I really need to elaborate on this point further?

Actually, yes, yes you do need to elaborate on that point. (I never got Fallout to work properly, and it would always crash on me.)

The last modern RPG I've played was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines...More RPGs like this please.

Not to say it was perfect. But it was more in-tune with my RPG tastes than most anything I've sense seen.

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Original post by kvee I also dislike that when some random grandmother tells of a legend of the Elephant-faced man who appears at night and sucks out your innards if you burn 10 crow feather praising his name and you cannot really go and do it showing the Elephant-man who's the boss. In short, I like in-game legends and lore that can actually happen in the game. That you could listen to people talk and gather REAL information this way. "My uncle always told me the reason he moved here was because of the screams he thought he heard near Egtema Falls. I never believed him, really. He said no one else ever heard anything. My uncle has been dead for years, but just last summer I heard the village near Egtema Falls has steadily lost it's population. Now it's almost a ghost town. It was such a thriving village back then..." Then you could go and take a look. Or something similar.

Oddly enough, I've always had the opposite problem with RPGs. Often times, every single piece of NPC dialogue is either "Hi there", or an incredibly obvious quest hook.
Why can't they every say anything that isn't plot related?

The last rpg I played was Fallout 3 and it was so awesome I can't really say anything was missing :P. What I would like to see is long term goals with really open solutions. Not the odd choice now and again along a linear path to maybe a multiple choiced out come but proper long term freedom of how you achieve victory.


I'm finding this difficult to explain. Most stories seem to go A->B->C etc with maybe multiple choices to go from A->B and B->C. What I would like is huge variety to go from A->C. Opening up more story as you go along and more options based on what you've already done etc. I want to solve the big problem entirly my own way rather than be guided along.

There was a part on fallout3 that I remember, after listening in and reading notes etc you find out that some of the bandits have been trying to get into an old safe (but their getting eaten by killer ants). Even past the ants they can't get in as they have no explosies. So throughout the game I was always looking for a way to clear out the ants (a few things along the way mentioning possible ways) and also how to blast my way in (tact nukes). In the end I never could get in much to my disappointment (no idea if your supposed to be able to or not) but thats the kind of thing I would love to see in an rpg.

I havn't played many older RPG's, so I can't say much on them, but I will say things that I liked/hated from some modern games.

I'll start with Oblivion/Fallout 3. My comments are the same for these two as they are basically the same game. My biggest problem is the utter brainlessness of the enemies and the combat; you are walking along, and some bad guy comes running up and starts attacking. They don't say anything, they don't seem to have any reason to attack, they don't retreat, they don't even behave differently based on species. They just run at you till they are in range, and then attack till they die. This makes some sense for zombies, but for humans and animals that have mouths to feed and survival to consider, this is just dumb. I really like these games for the exploration of the big world and all the little quests and such, but I can't suspend disbelief when the enemies are so dumb.

Mass effect and mass effect two really did it for me. I liked how the character had an existence and personality that was seperate from just me playing the game. I liked being able to influence the details in the story. One thing that sucked in mass effect one that got fixed in mass effect 2 was the huge number of basically similar items that you would get filled with. to make matters worse, the interface for dealing with them was not suited for that kind of volume. I found Mass effect to be a great example of an RPG.

As far as combat, Two games have really stood out for me as being great: Halo, and Nox (diablo 'clone' from creators of C&C). The thing that makes these games so fun to fight with is that they are fast paced and based very much on player skill and dexterity. For example, most attacks in these games did large amounts of damage, but playing them efficiently and accurately was difficult. One thing that I prefer that these games unfortuneately don't have is the emphasis on takeing cover like in mass effect or gears of war.
On the other hand, turn based and tactical systems can be quite good, depending on how well they are done. Systems like Diablo, where combat was based mostly on stats and how fast you can consume potions, are very boring for me. Oh and I almost forgot, one of the best combat systems I have seen is the Z-target sword-fighting in the N-64 Zeldas.

As for story, I really like having a good 'ambient' story. By ambient, I suppose I mean that it feels like there is a lot happening in the world that you can imagine but maybe can't quite see. I would say it is a lot better to have a limited view into a really rich world than a very clear view of a bland, empty world. For the actual main story, theoretically I would like to be able to arbitrarily affect the world, but games that allow this must sacrifice quality of content to allow for the huge number of possibilities, which leads to the 'highly detailed view of an empty world' problem. I don't like playing games that are too linear either though; I like my charachter to be able to have a rest and explore or do side-quests for a while until I want to continue with the main story. Majoras Mask is a good example of this, Gun is a bad example.

For exploration, I really like to be able to explore, but again, the game designer has to be careful to not let it spread the content too thin. One thing that really makes this problem worse is minimaps, espescially ones that tend to tell you what parts of the area you've seen or havn't seen. They really make it clear how small the game world is, which just makes it harder for the game designer to satisfy the players need for content. I think it is a lot more immersive and it makes the world seem bigger if you don't have a minimap, of course, the world has to be designed a bit differently to avoid getting totally lost.

I hope these ideas help you!

EDIT: spelling and clarified a few points

[Edited by - apefish on May 31, 2010 5:39:14 PM]

Content that is interesting to an adult woman. :P I'm seriously tired of playing the role of monster-slaying hero. I'd love to see an RPG or RPsim that's like an interactive science fiction romance novel, or an interactive regency comedy of manners, an interactive journey through a magical Labyrinth ala the Jim Henson movie, or even an interactive discovery of a portal to Narnia.

Whoooooa... information explosion! This is fantastic! Thank you all for such great input! I will respond to as much as I can. Forgive me for not quoting posts. There are simply too many for me to quote.

@MrMorley -- I have never played Fallout. I've only heard good things about those games. I need to play them eventually.

@kvee -- I've heard both sides of this. Many people say it is painfully cliche that every single myth, legend, or story in a game is absolutely 100% true. Granted, there is a balance issue here of wasting the player's time with stories that are false, but perhaps some balance could be achieved where checking out the truthfulness of one story at least leads to a clue regarding a different story even though that first story is false.

I like your comments regarding exploration. Also, I totally hear ya on the issue of passing time. The world needs to feel like it is progressing. I wonder if I could work some of those elements into my upcoming design. That could have big role in determining multiple endings as well. Thanks for sharing!

@Ravyne -- Ah, I gotcha. Charm was a hilarious stat in the old BBS RPG called "Legend of the Red Dragon". That's why I asked. I do like the charm aspect of Torchlight. That is a great example. I'm debating creating a story that is absolutely loaded with hilarious cliches and jokes just to make fun of the repeating paradigms of past RPGs, but part of me wants to make that dark serious story as well. Maybe they can mesh. :)

@shoyoninja -- MEGA POST COMBOOOOOO... Thanks for all the feedback! I am a long time Final Fantasy fan, and I cannot bring myself to touch FFXIII. On top of everything I've heard about it, the trailers just make me sick. It really does look like a movie. The thought of healing between every battle is obnoxious. It is really geared toward a different generation of players.

I am a big fan of the old Ultima series. I have the Ultima Collection on CD. Ultima V is my favorite as well. It gave your character the perfect level of influence on the world. I have to disagree partially on the aspect of weapon stats and whatnot. Part of what I love about RPGs is perfecting my combination of equipment to work with how I like to fight. I love sifting through numbers and whatnot. However, I do agree that other numbers should be buried. I feel Diablo II did a good job of this. Your own loot had specific stats, but you virtually never saw stats on enemies beyond a health bar (no numbers). I'm thinking a balance could be achieved. The MMO Pirate Galaxy did a darn good job of hiding numbers but still keeping you up to date on what did what and how well it did it.

@Kaze -- You make a great point. I will keep that in mind. Having a fixed world with a dynamic story does seem kind of silly now that you mention it. If an RPG is to boast having a "new story every time you play", the world ought to change to reflect that. Thank you for that insight.

@Storyyeller -- The problem is personal preference. Lots of gamers like to be guided every step of the way. While I agree with you that the world would be much more immersive with more "irrelevant dialogue", certain players would just become bored. It's a hard thing to balance.



Whew, I need to work on other stuff at the moment. I hope to return to this soon and respond to more people. I'll just finish off with one more:

@sunandshadow -- There is definitely room for some major innovation in the RPG space. Making a good game that does not focus on endless combat is definitely one such innvation worth aiming for. I just have to openly admit that I am not the man for that job. I like combat-oriented RPGs, and it's the only thing I'm even remotely good at designing. T_T

There's probably a lot of nostalgy about old games, but one thing I can say that feels right about them is that they usually had more content. When you can use only a handful of tilesets and maybe assign a new 16-color palette to make a new area, making content is relatively cheap and easy. Now though, with all the ridiculous standards and expectations on graphics for current-gen games, every area has to use completely new art assets, and this is so expensive that the producer has to cut somewhere to close his budget.

Final Fantasy is the most glaring example for this. FFIII had 2 world maps including one with an underwater layer, FFIV and FFV had 3 different world maps, FFVI had 2 but both were overloaded with content... But FFXIII? No towns, too expensive to make HD assets for, says project director Kitase. >_<

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Original post by TheBuzzSaw I have to disagree partially on the aspect of weapon stats and whatnot.

Yeah, I think I stated things a little too black and white :P.



What I mean is that there is a different way to do it, and that it presents a different feel to the player.

Lets say you have a plate mail and a leather vest on your game. Instead of a stats screen for it like this:

Leather:
Def: 10
Wg: 5
SPD: -2

Plate:
Def: 30
Wg: 40
SPD: -10

You could tell just this to the player:
Leather:
Designed to provide some protection while preserving the user ability to move swiftly through the battle field. The tag reads: "100% dragon scale".

Plate:
Many own their lives to the hardened protection this piece of equipment provides. While the extra load isnt suited to the average, fast moving, pick pocketing, back stabbing thief, it will surely please a mighty warrior who would rather just walk over his enemies with sheer strenght, and is too lazy to worry about their arrows and swords. Also, looks good as decoration on the living room.

And let the game worry about the numbers.

It could work well, and its been a very long time since I saw any game using this kind of item system.

Again, I dont mean that all games should be like this, its just a different approach that I miss.