Hello, I am designing a game for college and would like some primary qualitive input for some of the features. The game will be a Steampunk Action-RPG. So I would like to know, what was your favourite feature from a previous RPG and one feature you would improve? Thanks Kai

If this is for a class and you want to do well, don't make an action RPG. They take too long and they're too hard to get working well. Aim for something simpler that you can make completely and make consistently. You don't even necessarily need to throw out the steampunk or the RPG aspects, really. Just... aim for maybe an adventure game or something that controls a bit more like a roguelike since both of those are turned based and not nearly as fiddly.

But if you're dead-set on it, I'd say get rid of leveling entirely and reduce stats to the bare minimum (Strength, Defense, HP, and MP should be plenty) and for the love of god don't even THINK about making it grindy. Simpler rule sets that interact in interesting ways are almost always better than large, complex rulesets.

I was a massive fan of the original Fallout games (1 and 2) - I dont know if this classes as steampunk but they had a "funny" feeling to them.

Here's some of the reasons I enjoyed the games:

1. The story - no matter how many times I played the game I always felt like I was trying to save the world!

2. Adult content - before these games were out there was only final fantasy that I enjoyed playing - these were good but I wanted to blow limbs off.

3. Gameplay - I loved how your decisions made an impact on how you play the game. You see it a lot these days but Fallout was my earliest memory of this type of gameplay.

I would de-emphasize specialization. Having multiple skills to switch between makes combat more fun. I didn't like Diablo II's skill system for that reason. Successful builds were based around maxing out one skill's damage. Don't include artificial synergies, make REAL synergies.

Have LOTS of customizable options. Give the player creative choice wherever possible.

My two...cents?

I would trust MeshGearFox on that, unless you have the resources and game engine ready an action RPG seems a bit ambitious. But, if you still care, I like a game that doesn't screw around with the battle system. I don't like to be able to be able to beat every battle by just pressing attack repeatedly (I'm looking at you SquareEnix, Nintendo). Out of my own personal philosophy I think that the game would be much more interesting if there wasn't any battles at all, rather the action is in running away from larger bad guys who could tear you to shreds, but that might be a bit ambitious to plan and execute for a student project.

Maybe you could spend all your time developing one interesting gimmick and go with that. See: Narbacular Drop, and it's spiritual successor Portal.

This is for college? Given the month, is this like a final? Keep in mind that someone is going to have to play this and grade it. They might not be good at games, and they might not have time to play through much of it. Also avoid adult humor unless you know the person grading it very well.

On the other hand, if they're expecting a game and won't have trouble with it, I would be your friend forever if you decided to restart the canceled masterpiece, The Zybourne Clock:

It's the final project for the year but i'm not making the game, only designing it. The game will contain very adult humour but I have discussed it with the person who is marking it and they approve.

Cheers for your answers, please keep em' coming.

Quote:

Original post by MeshGearFox If this is for a class and you want to do well, don't make an action RPG. They take too long and they're too hard to get working well. Aim for something simpler that you can make completely and make consistently. You don't even necessarily need to throw out the steampunk or the RPG aspects, really. Just... aim for maybe an adventure game or something that controls a bit more like a roguelike since both of those are turned based and not nearly as fiddly. But if you're dead-set on it, I'd say get rid of leveling entirely and reduce stats to the bare minimum (Strength, Defense, HP, and MP should be plenty) and for the love of god don't even THINK about making it grindy. Simpler rule sets that interact in interesting ways are almost always better than large, complex rulesets.

I am only designing the game for college, not making. So it will be tricky to get the combat and adventure balanced, but it will be ALOT easier than if I were to actually produce the game.

I hope this isn't supposed to be a detailed design doc, because if it is then they are teaching you bad habits on how to design a game. If this is more of a pitch, or high level concept doc then no worries.

That being said, feature-wise, action RPGs tend to be very similar depending on whether or not they are first or third person (even then the differences are mainly in how they treat the features not what features are present), and you've already broadly defined what your content will feature (A Steampunk theme)

VATS (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) was a nice feature that allowed the player to slow down the battle to make it more manageable. This was a nice bridge between the skill elements of the game and the underlying RPG system. This feature would only ever work in single player however.

Torchlight had procedurally generated levels in the same mold as Diablo, which is nice for replay.

Those are two the come to mind off the top of my head anyway.