What "Could" Be the Perfect RPG?

The Vault Dweller

The Vault Dweller

always looking for water.
I want you to take as close a "perfect" RPG and fix/expand it to be perfect. Here are some examples and my personal choices:

>Fallout

-Needs to be longer and larger.
-Needs better tactical options and effects like X-com.
-More Joinable characters and interactions with them.

>Arcanum

-Needs game balancing to fix useless or overuseful abilities and skills.
-Needs some dungeon re-design.
-Just turn-based.

>Morrowind

-Needs legitimate C&C. The "choices" are there in writing, but the consequences are lacking.
-Needs some balancing.
-Have a new route and ending where if you're a dark elf you get treated as a native and can join the Sixth House Cult.

I'm sure you guys can think of more.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
Seems like you covered a lot of it, for me. Just off the top of my head:

>Fallout

-As above, plus, if at all possible, fix the economy. Applies far more to Fallout 2.

>Fable (2, 3)

-Needs to have delivered on everything Molyneux promised.
-Needs to offer "deeper" C&C and character interaction. Everything about the game somehow ended up seeming superficial.
-Less "good & evil," more "shades of grey" would be nice.
-More quests and far less linear game design/less constrictive maps.
 
Nothing specific, as perfection is mostly down to personal preference, but here's some general things I'd like RPGs to do/stop doing to make them closer to that perfection

-Make level grinding mandatory
I'm often leaving RPGs unfinished when it ceases to be a challenge. I want bosses 1/3rd and 2/3rds in where I need to "train" my character in previous areas in order to progress. I feel much more satisfied after training for six hours to beat a boss than from striking him down as soon as I come across him.

-Unlimited inventory space
Having limited inventory space makes action/adventure games a bit more exciting and interactive. In an RPG it just produces useless juggling. This is what ruined baldurs gate for me. Having strength limits on what you can carry is enough of a limiter, IMO. A necessary limiter. But to only be able to carry ten items is just stupid

-Make middle and ending areas live up to the beginnings
I know that developers need to make killer beginning areas to draw people into the story and gaming experience, but that's no excuse to half-ass 70% of the game.

-Better economic design
Like the guys up there said about the fallouts. This is one of those things that's very difficult to do and takes either a restrictive approach or very skilled designers. But, one thing is for sure, I shouldn't have millions in cash and the best equipment unless I've worked my ass off for it.
 
Arcanum

-Absolutely needs to have the background affect your character in dialogue, character interaction, etc. I chose being a blacksmith, and I hoped to meet my master, i.e. in Tarant, or even talk about the job more with fellow blacksmiths, and get quests from them when otherwise I wouldn't have.

-Dialogue needs to be less 'polite'. Often enough I can't even express my character because it ends up me getting into a fight. I can't just agree on everything with everyone.

-Quests line could be slightly changed depending on your actions and your background. Perhaps you boarded that IFS ship because you were looking to trade for interesting objects for your merchandise - so why not find them now? Now you roleplay even further, and your character is far more lively, trying to correct the past and fulfill the future.
 
Formerk said:
-Make level grinding mandatory
I'm often leaving RPGs unfinished when it ceases to be a challenge. I want bosses 1/3rd and 2/3rds in where I need to "train" my character in previous areas in order to progress. I feel much more satisfied after training for six hours to beat a boss than from striking him down as soon as I come across him.
Click to expand...

THIS. Is why I leave a lot of JRPGs unfinished. The challenge of a certain encounter should be something inventive rather than a pure timesink. Requiring you to spend X hours grinding boring random battles in order to "qualify" for a boss battle that's still a breeze after you've reached that "required" level is poor design IMO. The only good boss design is where the only "training" required is repeating the boss encounter until you memorize the pattern, learn the weaknesses, etc., because artificial difficulty is artificial and just as boring as overly easy content.


Anyway, on topic:

Temple of Elemental Evil w/ Circle of Eight Modpack

is pretty much perfect aside from the residual bugs. But since we're dreaming:

- Expand the dialogue interaction a bit and make a combat-light approach viable (already almost viable, but expanding would add a whole new dimension to the game)
- Allow more opportunities to use non-combat skills, bring (back) the puzzles (the original module seems to have had a plenty clever trap rooms and such, which are completely gone from the PC games).

Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader

could be the perfect aRPG. All it needs is:

- Rebuilding the bare-bones of the last few areas and bring the same level of interaction as seen in Barcelona, Montaillou and Toulouse. Would help make the story a bit less confusing as well.
- Traits/races could have more of an impact. It's already nicely done, but could be better.
 
Well, I think the point of the thread is to discuss these preferences, no? :wink:

TOEE needs not so much more, but better interaction. The original early-game fedexing was downright atrocious for the most part, the new Co8 dungeon alternative is very much welcome. Some of the more complex fan-made quests and conversations also show that there's definitely room for more creativity, be it the absolutely hilarious tongue-in-cheek "Desperate Housewives" module from a while ago, or some of the more complex Verbobonc intrigues.
 
sea has a point.

the more options you add to combat the more complex it becomes going through all the options even to do a simple fight.

i think fallout 1/2 did it well. you had tactical options without getting silly crazy with options/considerations.

my average fight time for like a 4-5 radscorpion in fallout was like 4-6 mins.

my average fight time for 4-8 aliens in xcom is like 15-20 mins.

that dichotomy would put a lot of people off for xcom.
 
I think the balance in TOEE is perfect for the combat, actually. It has a wealth of tactical options that are entirely optional - especially for the simple fights. Killing 4 weak monsters takes no more than a couple of minutes, but in the tougher fights you can disable your enemies in a multitude of ways with the appropriate skills, spells, and "prepare action" options.

FO1/2 combat wasn't bad but rather clunky. Though IMO, the biggest issue was not that there weren't enough tactical choices, but that the A.I. wasn't smart enough to use any of them.

Although, FO is inherently limited tactically since you only have one character to play with.
 
I always enjoyed Fallout's combat in its own right, But I think you nailed it. "Better/More Robust AI" definitely goes on the wishlist.

Honestly, I don't understand all the talk of "strategy" that I've seen regarding the game, the noobs that've had trouble with it or the vets on these boards that advised them to "fight smarter." You could choose to bring strategy into the game, and it was satisfying to do so, but it actually made the game harder when all you really needed to do to win any battle was stand fast and burst or aim for the eyes/legs/groin, according to preference. The only times I ever had to fight smart were when I intentionally underpowered a character for RP reasons, which is actually fairly hard to do imo. I think the game could definitely benefit from a few combat fixes:

*Tougher fights wouldn't go amiss. I know you can ratchet up the difficulty at your leisure, but "normal" should be harder, and "hard" should be... hard.
*Better Party command and control would be nice. "Stay here and shoot any enemies that come through that door." "Cover Sulik." "Actually pay attention to your distance settings instead of charging headlong or standing toe-to-toe with the grim reaper as I haul ass for the exit grid."
*Fixing those frustrating sequencing and positioning issues would help a lot, too.
 
The trouble with this is that modern rpgs don't feel like rpgs. They usually feel like fpses with crap controls and skills. I tried to love FO3, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. But, its all about glitz. Let's take Mass Effect. cause I love Sci-Fi. If you're gonna give me a ship let me do more with it than walk around and talk to the crew and point at markers on a map. Don't tell me I'm gonna be getting a strategic squad combat system when I'm not. Pointing at cover and telling my party to go there, come back to me, go there now, etc isn't strategy. Let me go into a top down map and direct them with waypoints or something. Like telling my soldier to go over here, take cover and lay some surpressive fire down, while mr sneaky over here will go this way, avoiding combat, until he can get behind the baddies and blast em. And that rover was way too squirrelly. felt like I was driving a light ass sports car instead of a big hulking rover. The humans could come down on you if you go the renegade path, since you are a test case, and it seemed like plenty of species hated humans. On the other hand, loved the settings and characters.
 
The Vault Dweller said:
>Morrowind

-Needs legitimate C&C. The "choices" are there in writing, but the consequences are lacking.
-Needs some balancing.
-Have a new route and ending where if you're a dark elf you get treated as a native and can join the Sixth House Cult.
Click to expand...

Those sound pretty swell, but the only thing I wanted was a fast travel system. Arena and Daggerfall had them, and Oblivion and Skyrim had them, even if they were fast travel. Morrowind had the silt striders and boats, but god, what I wouldn't have given to just be able to fast travel back to a town.
 
I'll chime in:

Fallout new vegas:
-Buggy and old engine
-Ceasar's legion is snowed under by ncr/house/vegas etc and unfinished
-Too tightly packed and small world
-Too little impact in the game world
-Could use more quests that do not involve combat
 
sea said:
Would Arcanum really be made better by removing the real-time battles? Does Temple of Elemental Evil need more character interaction? Many of these games have legitimate problems, but whether or not they are damaging to the core experience or mesh with what the developers intended to deliver is another matter entirely.
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I agree with what you wrote after (well mostly, since I think these are still very positive to have)

But both Arcanum and TOEE aren't great examples since both of them would have improved immensly through better/more focused combat (Arcanum) to better charachter interaction (TOEE).

I recently read a very interesting interview with Tim Cain actually where he also talks about Temple where he laments the situation back then (Basically only two people Tom Decker and him worked on writing dialouge and developing Quest Lines)

I don't know if you've seen it yet (I made a post over at the Obsidian forums) but here:

http://www.amazon.com/Gamers-Work-Stories-Behind-ebook/dp/B0075QT5Q2
 
Actually, Morrowind did have fast travel - to a point. How about Mark / Recall? or either Divine / Almsivi Interventions? By judicious use of them, you could slingshot around the map in no time. Though the three strongholds were out of the transport network. Which was a bitch. I ended up teaching myself how to use the construction set just to make a nice home to live in.
 
Cool dudes would just creates ridiculous Jump/Levitate potions/spells and just jump/fly over the map with sheer awesomeness.
 
KarmaPolice said:
Actually, Morrowind did have fast travel - to a point. How about Mark / Recall? or either Divine / Almsivi Interventions? By judicious use of them, you could slingshot around the map in no time. Though the three strongholds were out of the transport network. Which was a bitch. I ended up teaching myself how to use the construction set just to make a nice home to live in.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm talking about. In Daggerfall, if you were outside, you just pressed one button to travel the map. Sure, you would have to, say, pay for expenses, but it was fast enough. I'm fairly certain that the most of my playtime with Morrowind was spent traveling to places which were harder to reach. The mark recall spell was only useful in certain situations for me, anyway; like dungeons.

Edit: Love the username, by the way.
 
I did like Morrowind's absence of fast travel. In fact, whilst playing Oblivion I hadn't used fast travel once. It breaks the whole immersion of the game and ignores the only thing the game focuses on - exploration.
 
True. But that often only happened with some quests. I liked it that way, because it felt like a real epic adventure that you'd have to spend an hour fighting your way through shit just to get to the place where the quest starts. Between most of the fast-travel types, nearly 80% of the map was within ten min's (our ten) walk. It also gave you a feel on how immersive the place was 'cause you'd see stuff on the way. I remember being a level 3-4 guy seeing an old fortress and deciding to investigate. It was the one filled with dreamers and ash ghouls. Needless to say, I died within around thirty seconds. I'll remind everyone that some of the most remote areas also contained the best loot (the vampire lairs etc) while the dungeons nearer to transport were often just generic bandits.

The Mark / Recall is only really useful if you have a way to cast it frequently - ie spell or enchanted thing. You could either mark your home to go back with a pile of loot; or you could mark a place you'd found to return there later.
 
That's a good point. Even on Oblivion and Skyrim I did walk most of these journeys because it was fun, and you could find new places. It's really the backtracking which I got annoyed with. When I get bored walking to the same place over and over again, it takes me out of the immersion.
I disagree with being able to fast travel to a new city straight from the starting gate, like in oblivion. It's just nice to be able to get somewhere quickly if you are need of hurrying.
 
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