What do you Think Would Improve RPGs?

[Clouder]

Exactly what it says on the tin. What do you think would improve RPGs if it was added?

 

For me:

 

• Every RPG should have a free play/new game + mode in them after completion, so you don't have to rush and 100% everything before heading towards the final boss.
• You should be able to run away from a battle without you having to rely on chance. Basically, mash A enough, you're home free. Not "oh mash A if you wanna but it's still based on chance lol"
• No unnecessary grinding. Let the enemies drop enough EXP. to level them up to where they need to be, yet not that you have to defeat every single enemy you find. 
• Be more interesting in the RPG settings. Steampunk Medieval is getting old.

Well, that's it for me. Tell your ideas!

[GSF]

Well, Chrono Cross attempted to fix two of your points. First of all, you can run from anything at any time. However, some bosses will just talk a bit and force you right back into battle, but this has the added effect of resetting your elements and sometimes you get the chance to open the menu.

As for the grinding, CC made every boss give you a 'star' which counts as a level - this gives you substantial stat increases. In normal battles, you get a minuscule amount of stats (if any). In the end I didn't like this too much, because it makes battles less interesting and worth getting through.

Talking JRPGs only (I dislike WRPGs, save for few exceptions), I think today's titles are varied enough to satisfy most players:

In the GRINDAN side you have Disgaea and its variants courtesy of NIS (the masters of making games crash).

Next up, in the CRAFTAN side you have the Atelier games, which are quite expansive with item creation mechanics.

For co-op real time battling, Bamco finally stopped being stupid and actually markets and releases Tales games.

Atlus is keeping most of its fanbase busy with SMT and Persona spinoffs (AND FINALLY P5 CONFIRMED FFS).

Finally in the bottom of the barrel lies Final Fantasy, which is as interesting as a passing fart for me nowadays.

Things that tick me off currently are games with lots of retarded DLC, especially if it's day-one DLC, and poorly tested games (goddamn it, NISA). I think RPGs will greatly improve if they stop being centered on cutscenes and no-input-required engine show-offs. Less DRAMA and CINEMATIC EXPERIENCES coupled with great gameplay and mechanics - that's what should be done.

[OverbounD]

I'd say more RPGs like the Mario ones. They are very easy to get into and keep the game a bit more action orientated with the timed button press attacks in battle. Plus there no random encounters which I've always found an extremely lazy design choice at least for games made in the past 15 years. Games older than that I can give a break if they are otherwise good.

[Serephim]

Oh i could do this all day.

•  Knowing the difference between "story centric GAME" and "trying to be a movie", the chief violation of games in general today but a huge violation when it's an RPG.
• Good pacing. As interesting as i'm sure your story is, I simply will not care unless i'm enjoying the damn game. You push the story AFTER the player is engrossed. This is a JRPG and WRPG prevalent problem to me.
• Keeping story elements integrated with the gameplay elements. It really helps to drive important story elements and plot points home when it directly influences how you play the game. Final Fantasy used to be great at this. 
• Interesting combat mechanics and ability progression. Leveling up should not be your only method of obtaining power in an RPG. This is another thing JRPGs in general used to be real good at. There were usually more than a few ways for getting visibly stronger and increasing your arsenal, be it through leveling, equipment or one of the many secondary combat systems in place, which were usually story-centric and sometimes character specific. WRPGS seem to rarely have any secondary elements to ability progression, instead relying on skill trees and unlocking passive abilities to enhance them, sometimes even forcing you down singular paths based on skillpoints that have to be reassigned if you want to try something different. It's not bad, just against my preference. But sometimes it's really basic and inorganic.
• Overly redundant dialogue choices are the devil, and this is the #1 reason i can never enjoy WRPGs. Every chat with an NPC does not have to be setup as an interrogation cutscene. 
•  An equally annoying WRPG problem is how dialogue is intended to be realistic, where every NPC is dreadfully boring with nothing interesting to talk about. And you're commonly expected to get information from these boring assholes, resulting in small talk i can never skip fast enough. 
• The JRPG equivalent of this would be required side exchanges between characters (usually flirty and awkward, naturally) that are intended to be funny, but just come off annoying. Or the "oh no, i lost my purse" sidequest that results in nothing but the ability to progress the story.

 

 

 

An non-engaging RPG is the worst RPG, and I feel like that's what stops me from enjoying WRPGs. Or they try to offer tons of options in a boring or shallow way.

 

Focusing too little on gameplay is what has killed the JRPG, along with how creepily awkward and niche japan has become in the last decade in regards to character design and dialogue. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clouder]

Bumping with a huge thing that would improve RPGs:

PLEASE, NO MORE SPIKY HAIRED TEENS WITH HUGE SWORDS.

[Serephim]

I'd say we could use a bit more of that, to subtract from the amount of little girls with katanas and muted guys with knives. 

[Clouder]

Or how about the brooding young mage with the colorful hair?

[Nemox]

I'm just not fond of Final Fantasy or Pokemon styled RPGs.  I just don't have the attention span to find them engaging, so I turn to either tactical or action RPGs.  While I can enjoy some JRPGs, I much prefer western ones.

 

Regarding western RPGs, I think a lot of the bigger-budget ones like those of the Elder Scrolls series should really focus more on the depth of the world's procedural mechanics.  Dynamic economies and social mechanics, a Shadows of Mordor style of social hierarchy and such.  This doesn't mean the whole world necessarily has to be procedural or anything, but it would be nice to see at least more of it as such.

 

For the most part I like what Skyrim is doing with the Elder Scrolls series.  Morrowind was not as spectacular in these regards as people like to think.  There were many instances were social mechanics made absolutely no sense and totally broke the very concepts that people say it mastered.  Skyrim is making the series smarter by cutting out unnecessary and broken mechanics and emphasizing the roleplaying.  That said, it is simply lacking in depth in many ways.

[Serephim]

I really just wish western RPGs would focus a bit more on their visual and kinestetic polish, as that's probably the biggest difference from JRPGs. I simply cannot get into the Elder Scrolls series because of how janky and utterly boring its combat looks. The environments are never very engaging at all, everything looks the same, all the NPCs are ugly, all the towns are ugly. I don't care about anything, other than getting strong enough to murder everyone on a seperate save file.

 

Now, i never beat Fallout 3, but boy did I have fun playing it. Whatever jankyness it had was subverted by the fact the game actually functioned like an RPG. I likened it's combat system to an FPS Free-roam version of Vagrant Story or Parasite Eve, where I retain full control of my character but still can slow down and approach combat from a tatical, turn-based angle. 

 

I've seen footage of The Witcher 3, and I feel like that is the direction that Elder Scrolls needs to be heading in. The game looks absolutely gorgeous, from both an artistic and technical angle. The player animates very well, the magic effects are nice, combat looks engaging. I am still no fan of the Tolkienesque vibe that western RPGS refuse to escape from, but that game looks interesting.

[DimensionWarped]

Bumping with a huge thing that would improve RPGs:

PLEASE, NO MORE SPIKY HAIRED TEENS WITH HUGE SWORDS.

Name three spiky haired teens that have had huge swords in RPG games that have come out in the past ten years.