Original post by fyhuang Ok, I'm sorry I haven't read the entire thread but that comment just REALLY, REALLY made me want to reply (not in a negative way). I just had this brilliant idea - like, say in the middle of the game you learned how to use a skill that you would use extensively through the rest of the game (on consoles, maybe a combination of buttons or something). Beginners could never figure this skill out (or even if they did, how to use it). It would not be tied to your character. In the beginning of the game, there could be 'shortcuts' to the 'actual game', that are activated by this skill/key combo. That would allow experienced players to skip the hassle and get straight to the playing.
What do you think?
I think that's a really good idea, and it avoids the cheese of having the player have to know about some location or back-door exit that the character would not. The exit into the actual game that you refer to could be triggered only by the player's knowledge of how to activate that "hidden" skill, so the exit pathway itself could be in plain sight. I feel like this would keep the player from feeling railroaded or out of character.
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Also, on the subject of unique spells, who here has played Golden Sun? BEST GBA RPG EVER (aside from Zelda of course, but the latest Zeldas aren't that good if you ask me). It had unique non-combat spells (push, lift, 'rain' (which could be used in combat IIRC), etc.) that you used to manipulate the terrain to solve puzzles. I don't think there was enough of that, but it was a great unique idea IMHO.
Yeah, this is one thing that really needs more attention from us if we are RPG developers. It is a great idea, if implemented properly. Magic shouldn't be just a glorified sword. Players should be able to use it creatively to solve problems indirectly and/or nonviolently if they so choose.
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Also, Jedi Academy. The Force used in Jedi Academy is both combat and non-combat, as when you're playing in levels with a lot of pits, you can Force pull and push enemies into them and stuff. But there's not enough of Force pushing and pulling environment objects.
There is the potential for a great deal of subtlety here on the part of the programmer and the player. You could really tell an experienced player from a newbie because the veteran player would take full advantage of their surrounding environment. They would know how to achieve optimal strategic positioning by altering the configuration of surrounding "movables" and "destructables", and by using environment objects as weapons or shields. They could also conserve their character's energy and resources much better -- why struggle to bring fire down on an enemy, when you can bring the enemy down onto a fire?
Original post by Trapper Zoid One of the hardest tasks a game designer has to do when designing their game is to set priorities. If I was you I'd make three lists of game design ideas. List A can be the game design elements that are simply essential to enjoying your game. List B would be the design elements that are highly desirable, and would add a lot to the game, but if forced you could (regrettably) do without. List C would the design elements that you think would be cool and you want to implement if you find the time.
Then, if you actually want to implement the game, throw out List C immediately. And you'll most likely have to throw out List B as well.
I appreciate this advice. I will take it to heart when wanting to be completely in the spirit of saving my time and increasing my chances of completing my game. I know I talk a lot on here about how I think people are lazy if they don't push themselves to do their best etc etc but that's not all of who I am. I agree with the saying that works of art are never finished, only abandoned. I could probably keep adding features, content, and refinements to my game until sometime around the end of the universe. There will always be so much to do, and the more I do, the more I will see that I could do. So no, please don't think me a complete fool (only partially One). :) I will eventually have to "face the music" as far as deciding how much game is enough.
~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:
p.s.--For those who will understand this: Being the Fool is not so bad, for it leads to being the Magician. And yet we are latently both already. 0=1=oo
Ok, I've gone about condensing the meat of people's various comments into one post. This is something of an addendum to my original post of 23 things, only these are the summary of everyone else's ideas. I hope no one minds me taking a little paraphrasing license here for the sake of consistency and elaboration. I like how we've been able to come up with almost double the total number of items compared to what I first posted. I know several of you posted some really good ideas that are not included here, but this compilation only covers what we haven't liked in RPGs thus far vs. what we would do about it, and not what we would like to see in general (as removed from what has been done wrong first). I do plan on making a separate thread soon that will cover what we would like to see. I expect it to end up having at least twice as many pages as this thread! :)
1. Spell variety and random spells. Most RPGs or MMORPGs seem to have a lot of spells that do the same exact thing. There should be spells for levitation, moving objects with mind power (telekinesis) etc. And what about having spells that you find randomly that are completely unique? I heard that WoW does a little of that. There is a lack of non-combat orientated spells. Magic usually seems totally geared around either damaging monsters, combat protection, or healing. Sometimes you get a few extras, like 'identify' spells, but combat is what it's all about. Where are the spells to do other useful things like make it rain, or forecast the future? The few examples I can think of are things like Morrowind which had door-opening spells and levitate. (Levitate was really all I ever used.) One of my favourite series of all time, the Quest for Glory games, even gave the combat spells like Flame Dart and Force Bolt non-combat uses (like lighting torches and knocking things over).
2. Concerning quests, I hate having to run across the whole world twenty times. In all reality, when someone goes on a quest, they don't leave from Britain, go to Japan, go back to Britain, go back to Japan, then go to South America somewhere. I don't like running everywhere; why can't there just be more obstacles per unit distance instead of having to travel for miles to come upon a quest?
3. Bad combat systems. Since most CRPGs use combat as the bread-and-butter of their gameplay, it pains me how bad they can be. This seems to summarise a lot of your list. Usual characteristics are: ___A. Bad to non-existent combat AI. ___B. Hack-and-hack-again (not even advanced enough to have slash) no-brainer combat. ___C. Tough guys being tough purely by having increased damage and health, not skill (ties into A. again).
4. Bad role-playing. This should be the core of these games, but most of these games have the same failings: ___A. Linear plot lines ___B. Lack of interaction with the environment and NPCs. If my character is a burly guy with a sledgehammer and is faced with a locked wooden door, there is an obvious solution that is not "find the key"! This goes double if my character is a mage armed with the "armageddon fireball" spell! ___C. Inappropriate NPC reactions. For example, if I'm an armoured knight with a massive broadsword crackling with lightning-based magic, and the NPC is a thug dressed in rags armed with a stick, the NPC is going to have second thoughts before trying to attack me!
5. Lack of variety in combat when using spells or skills; typically it's a numbers game involving the target having a weakness to certain types of elemental damage that may modify a base damage number. Occasionally, ice spells will freeze/numb/slow, or flame will cause some kind of burning, but that's about it. It's nothing more than a glorified melee or ranged weapon that happens to do more damage. Such spells could be replaced functionally (if not visually) by a sword with a high-percent-chance proc.
6. Storyline. Players need to be given more ability and opportunity in-game to develop their character(s).
7. Questing systems. There need to be better motivation techniques to encourage players to pursue quests. This relates to having a better quest log system that includes "where you left off last time", lists unfinished main quests separately from unfinished minor quests, and can search for quests meeting only certain criteria. Quest development should include the character more completely, making NPCs react differently to the character according to reputation and/or fame and permitting creative responses to situations. Quest development should allow the player to be more proactive, determining his or her character's personality with every quest.
8. Interface design. Poor menu design, and combat information access.
9. How games don't weaken an enemy when they are close to death. There needs to be some way that a monster with 5,000,000 HP is at least slightly weaker when it only has 1 HP left.
10. The ubiquitous focus on leveling and powerups as the point of play. Isn't it time we moved the RPG hobby past adolescent power fantasies? Games keep dangling the carrot of character skill/power advancement to keep players artificially interested. Focus on advancement gets in the way. Games have uniformly catered to the 'steady-climb-to-godhood' as the central, game-supported mode of play.
11. Grave, obvious mismatches between story/scripting and gameplay. In scripted sequences, people may get killed from getting their throats slit, yet during gameplay, it's more often than not impossible to kill with a single cut, even if the opponent is unconscious. I can understand that single hit kills are often avoided for gameplay concerns, but when they occur anyway at specific, predetermined points, I really feel cheated. In KotOR, it gets downright ridiculous. Thermal detonators are talked about like they are mini-nukes, capable of obliterating anyone within a sizeable area. But later on, you can have them explode right at your feet for only 15% HP damage.
12. If you're using cut-scenes for explanatory transition, they should not be cooler than your game. An example (not RPG) is Red Alert: You get to see some really cool, somewhat realistic video clips, but actual gameplay is totally different. I would have liked the game better if it didn't have those action clips to remind me of just how limited and unrealistic the game is.
13. A lack of balance between story and gameplay. Integrate the story seemlessly but interruptably and keep the action coming.
14. Games in which I do not have to get close enough to reach my hand out to push buttons, flip switches, etc.
15. The limited gameplay and combat focused around a reverence for antiquated board game RPG rules. Game designers need to come into their own, in terms of creativity. We need to think more outside the PnP "box."
16. Critters shouldn't drop coins or equipment. Where was the dire wolf hiding that +2 longsword? I'll give you a clue: his proctologist hates him.
17. Unclear stat meanings. When I'm given my stats and choices on how to distribute the stats, but unclear information on what they do. If I need to decide whether or not to put some points into Dexterity, I want to know what concrete effects that is going to have, not just "Dexterity represents how dextrous you are." Everquest in the early days was a good example. The instructions and in-game text gave no clues as to what all the stats actually did, so it took a few months of players figuring it out and posting it on the net until people actually could build the characters they wanted. And in EQ, Dexterity ended up mostly being a stat that increased the percentile chance that a magic weapon with an on-hit ability (a "proc") would be set off when you were using it. To me, that has next to nothing to do with the description "how dextrous you are."
18. When I'm given the "choice" of being good or evil, but for some ridiculous reason, all the evil choices amount to just being a dim-witted greedy bully, which is in the end useless since the good characters get almost as much, if not more, XP and GP. Games shouldn't have obvious moral leanings toward benefitting good characters over evil ones, or making evil characters stupid and pointlessly mean. Real evil people who are smart generally discover that it is more selfishly beneficial to help people and to appear good sometimes. Being the DnD equivalent of chaotic evil is a good way to get yourself killed IRL.
19. Save/reload as the main gameplay balance. Saving and reloading should be something that I do when I want to stop playing and then start playing again later. I'm sick of all the new games that expect you to save before every fight and give you no choice but reloading when you die. I'd rather have some kind of respawn/resurrect; I don't care if it's unrealistic... so is my character's ability to reload and mysteriously know everything that's about to happen to him. At the very least, if you're planning on setting up battles that kill the player the first time and make him reload and try again until he figures out the "trick", you'd better autosave me before the battle, because I hate quicksaving every five minutes.
20. Magic is often employed as an arbitrary "rabbit out of the hat" to get the world-builder out of a corner (I don't care if the rules are fantastic, I just want them to be dependable -- or to be told that they're not dependable).
21. Inconsistency of gameworld physics and properties.
22. Having arbitrary limitations or restrictions regarding a certain aspect of the game, such as magic users, wherein a character cannot wear armor heavier than cloth and still cast spells. There should instead be a beneficial reason to wear cloth.
Remember when contemplating possible features that "people may say they don't like something, but dislike the effects of its absence even more."
~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:
The following posters are responsible for contributing the ideas above, and they have my sincerest thanks:
Jeez, what an enormous topic.. I didn't read past the first couple of posts on page 2, so bear with me if this has been said... (I'll read the rest when I get the time - topic bookmarked..)
In my opinion the focus should be on the main character. In games like KOTOR I spend far too much time trying to optimize the various characters skills, feats and powers to make as efficient a team as possible. As a result it almost turns into a strategy/spreadsheet game and distracts from the story. If I only had to worry about my own character's abilities and let the game handle the rest of the team the game would be much more fluent. The other people's strengths could perhaps be based on my play style, but just having unique characters such as a heavy gunner, sniper, assasin, swordmaster, healer and battle-mage would be just as great. The new Bard's Tale game did an ok job of doing this. The strengths of the summoned companions were based on a single skill on the Bard's character sheet, and the "version" of the tune. It became perhaps a little too simple, but at least I didn't have to spend a lot of time trying to customize the individual companions.
BTW: It also made an OK job of removing the inventory problem. If you got a better weapon than the one you have, it's instantyly equipped. If the found item is worse than one you have it's value is added to your cash.
Original post by Ranger Meldon I appreciate this advice. I will take it to heart when wanting to be completely in the spirit of saving my time and increasing my chances of completing my game. I know I talk a lot on here about how I think people are lazy if they don't push themselves to do their best etc etc but that's not all of who I am. I agree with the saying that works of art are never finished, only abandoned. I could probably keep adding features, content, and refinements to my game until sometime around the end of the universe. There will always be so much to do, and the more I do, the more I will see that I could do. So no, please don't think me a complete fool (only partially One). :) I will eventually have to "face the music" as far as deciding how much game is enough.
Heck, I don't conisder it a fool to be ambitious in your game design (otherwise I'd be the biggest fool of all!) It's just you've got some really great ideas that would push the boundaries of RPGs that I'd like to see; however given a choice I'd prefer to see you implement just one of those ideas implemented well in a game, rather than you attempt to implement two dozen and never getting the thing finished.
Actually, from what I've read in game post-mortems, and from my own (brief) experience in the commercial game industry, I'd say the number one reason for failed or broken games is from the team being unwilling to compromise and sacrifice game design ideas in order to get the game finished. It's just human nature to not want to abandon your ideas. Most of us independent and hobbyist developers have a slight advantage over the commercial guys and gals as we don't have a time limit, and make our living through other means.
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p.s.--For those who will understand this: Being the Fool is not so bad, for it leads to being the Magician. And yet we are latently both already. 0=1=oo
Heh, I think I made an account here years ago under the old nickname 'The Hierophant', but I lost both my password and the email account that it was linked to.
I haven't read through all of the replies. So just ignore any questions / concerns that have already been addressed.
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Original post by Ranger Meldon I'll start this question off with some answers of my own. I don't like:
Maybe it would have been easier to write a list of things you do like [wink]
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5) How games that use weight-based carrying limits don't offer any recourse to physically wimpy mages. There needs to be some kind of "magic bag of holding" or something, that only mages (or characters beyond a certain level of magic skill) can make and equip that allows them to carry somewhere near the same amount of stuff a warrior can. I also think a packmule and/or wagon are good ideas too.
Later on (#19), you argue that different classes should offer much different gameplay experiences. But here you're saying the opposite; that we should try to make this one skill equal for vastly different character types. I believe it already suits the character types, as is. For example, warriors have to carry swords or guns, where mages carry a staff or some paper. I also doubt most players are going to accept 'magic bag' as the reason. What other choices are there to present, if a designer actually wanted to make his character classes less unique?
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8) How uncustomizable the weapons are in practically every game I've ever played, especially if it's an FPS RPG. I want to be able to forge my own custom sword that has a large chance of looking unique even in an MMORPG setting. This would just be an issue of mixing and matching different weapon subparts, i.e. hafts, handles, blades, blade tips, edges, guards, pommels, runes, effects like glowing or flaming, etc. This would be so extremely cool, and if you coded it right, it wouldn't have to be that much more complex.
Customizable weapons sounds great. But it sounds like you're talking about having the player build the model of the weapon. Isn't that taking it a bit far? Even if you offered a thousand combination possibilities, most players are going to regard the same look as 'cool', and so most players will be weilding the same identical weapon anyways. I like the idea of building / designing the weapons, but I don't think it should be based on looks or model parts. The whole purpose of a weapon is to kill. Only kings and emperors care about how pretty their weapon is.
Perhaps if it was based on metal types and forging ability. It would also be possible to draw the shape of a blade and handle (this would be mostly unreasonable in any MMO type game). The color and look of the weapon, other than it's shape, should be from the metal types. As well as it's weight, damage, and other little details.
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13) Game engines that handle reputation stupidly. Say you kill some monster that's harassing some village, completely by yourself out in the middle of nowhere, and by the time you can make it to the nearest town, everybody somehow magically knows that you killed the monster, as if they were watching it on TV or something. Right.
I think all games of any decent length must handle reputation stupidly. What is your suggestion in handling this situation?
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15) Games (such as Diablo 2) when they give numbers (especially percentages) for an item that don't really tell you any more than you knew to begin with. Example: What does 10% faster hit recovery even mean? 10% faster than what? .. Annoyingly vague.
10% faster means you recover in 90% of the time. Makes sense? Whether it's stackable or not isn't really an issue with displaying percentages, as any type of representation would be just as vague. Perhaps a suggestion on how to improve this as well?
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16) How in games like Diablo 2, your skills give you less and less additional benefit each time you put a new level into them. After a while, it's almost like, what's the point? Especially since the monsters don't seem to gain skills in such a diminishing fashion.
That's just life. If you start practicing with a gun right now, next week, you'll most likely double or tripple your ability. A week after, you will not make the same progress. Eventually you will not learn anything new at all. Mastering anything requires devotion and obsession. Monsters are supposed to be tough. Otherwise, everyone would be a hero [wink]
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22) When potions get used up in one drink when the player needed far less health etc than what the potion could optimally provide. Each potion bottle should "remember" how much liquid has already been consumed from it. Preferably, bottles should be able to be mixed, such that one partially-filled bottle can "top off" another partially filled bottle of the same type of potion.
Again, what are you suggesting? That the player choose 1/3 or 1/2 from a selection menu every time they down one? What if 1/8 is more than they need? I don't see much improvement over just having a hundred tiny bottles.
Original post by Jiia Only kings and emperors care about how pretty their weapon is.
Which ties back into the issues about reputation and combat-centric gameplay. If someone has a really flashy (unique) sword, then they're easier to identify on sight (unless the sword is concealed) and tales of their exploits will tend to accumulate together - having 10 stories about the man with the crimson blade rather than 10 stories about mysterious strangers. On the other hand, if the game revolves around combat, then barely anyone would bother to make their sword visually impressive (then again, one of the "wow, cool" moments in Kingdom Hearts was seeing "Leon" (Squall from FF8) change from his regular weapon to a Lionheart). Equally, people would be disapointed if, in a Star Wars game, lighting up a lightsaber didn't make the familiar noise...
On the topic of implementing a good reputation system, maybe we can't come up with any noticeable impact on existing games of replacing a slightly tweaked "good enough" system. On the other hand, once you've got a system implemented and can play around with it, it's a lot easier to see just what you can do with it. One (possibly apocryphal) example of a gameplay feature that wasn't designed in is rocket jumping. Without actually playing with a "proper" reputation system, it's very hard to be sure what the possibilities and limitations of such a system would be.
One of my pet hates in RPGs that I don't think anyone's mentioned yet in this thread is the massive mismatch between the pacing of the plot and the pacing imposed on the player by the basic mechanics - "Oh no! An extinction level asteroid is going to impact soon! We must hurry and spend everal months running round in small circles to get enough random encounters to level up far enugh to be able to take on the final boss!" The number of times in Final Fantasy games where I've got caught up in the tension of the plot, and moved rapidly through several areas, only to find that I'm sufficiently underpowered to not have a chance against the boss at the end of the section, is ridiculous! Having a role-playing game where the only way to progress is to ignore the role the game presents for you and wander off somewhere for a while is just plain wrong. And then people complain that all cRPG players are munchkins. It's because any other approach gets you killed!
Has anyone on this thread mentioned a design reliant on player 'saving' as part of its 'challenge level'?
What I mean by this is a plot/level design that oviously assumes a player will be regularly saving the game and retrying levels until they get them 'right'. Most of the games I've played lately, even on the easiest difficulty settings, outright require a regular, and careful, saving strategy just to get through the game.
The problem with this, especially in games that are intended to be immersive in any way, is the artificiality and the distraction of having to dick around reloading levels all the time. It's like paying to see a movie and then being forced to rewatch the same scene ten or fifteen times before you can go on to the next. I'd really like to see some alternatives to this sort of nonsense.
Some things I don't like are: *When I have to do a simple thing over and over again just to get to the hard part I failed with. *To travel. For example the plains in ocarina of times at day before getting Epona. *The leveling systems of all RPG's I've played. I would suggest that instead of gaining xp and suddenly when reaching a certain amount, growing to a superior character with increased hp and skills, you would gain points (or whatever) for every little thing you do or hear or see, or experience in any way, to the specific attribute(s). Some magic skills should then be learned from somewhere when you are skilled enough in the right magic type and other spells should be selflearnable either by instance (being at the right place at the right moment) or just by having the right knowledges. *The combat in some games. I have a suggestion here to that might be neat. Lets say you figure out an own melee-combat-combo for example hit-spin-kick-crouch-stab. Then you should be able to save it and bind it to a preferred key for easy access in combat and so your character can perform it without pauses between moves.
As you can probably see my suggestions need a lot of further developing ;)
