What do YOU want out of an RPG?

Vorpy

Because you know, most RPGs suck.

snowbull

Play Fallout.

Or Fallout 2.

Komodin

Fun.

DonZabu

An engrossing world, like in Morrowind.

Great writing, like in Planescape.

Fun gameplay mechanics, like in Fallout.

ClockworkUniverse

Generally, explosives.

Gelzo

How about... a JRPG with a ton of options, no grinding, reasonably high difficulty, and no random variables.

Oh, and multiplayer.

DYRE

A game that's fun and doesn't try to be an FPS or Gears of War clone.

Turn-based games are more fun than real-time games or semi-real-time games.

Grinding is acceptable, as is randomness in the various calculations of things.  Random encounters aren't, but most modern RPGs don't really have them anyway (or, not in the same way as older RPGs) so that's not a big deal unless you're playing older games.

Animations for attacks should not be longer than a few seconds, unless it's an attack that isn't going to be used very frequently.

Characters should, like, actually have defined personalities.  Preferably non-annoying ones.

Wizards are a necessity because magic is always cooler than non-magic.

Chagen

Animations for attacks should not be longer than a few seconds, unless it's an attack that isn't going to be used very frequently.

I think a better idea was in Disgaea 3; by pressing R2, attacks would automatically skip their animations and just do the generic attack animation, which was only about a second. So you could choose to skip them, or watch them if you have time to burn.

DYRE

Oh, also... there should be more than one strategy required throughout the game.  Because "have all but one member of your party use their most powerful attack every turn while the healer uses a full-party healing spell every turn" should not be enough to beat every boss of a game.

Chagen

Given the way RPGs are designed, there really isn't much other strategy to do than that. 

That's why I prefer action RPGs. Infinitely more scenarios during battle. 

DYRE

Nah, there's plenty of potential for other strategies.  It's just usually there are minor things that make those other strategies irrelevant.  Like, maybe a boss can inflict a lot of different status effects, but then the game has equipment that protects you from any status effect, so it doesn't actually matter.  Or it's a SRPG where one of the character classes is able to cast spells for free that can hit all the enemies or all of your allies wherever they are, so you basically just have all your characters do that (Final Fantasy Tactics...)

Vorpy

I would like an RPG Where/that:
* The basic attack or counter/multi attack combos don't eventually become the most essential way of killing an enemy and completely renders magic useless in the end. (Disgaea 1, Final Fantasy I, II, and XII)
* You don't have to spend hours leveling up, or even half-an-hour to continue through the story.
or
* Most of the story enemies or all enemies are scaled to your level so you don't have to put up with chopping a bunch of weeds (level 2 onix) or chopping down a bunch of city-sized weeds (onix 20+ levels over you for no reason).
* There are no pointless weapon/magic tiers, and you can get good with what you have without having to buy a ton of shit you don't need to, in order to get there (broadsword, longsword, vorpal sword, deathbringer, a reasonably good sword you won't throw away) or (weak fire spell, kind of better fire spell, awesome fire spell, the main fire spell you will use for the rest of the game)
* No crappy abilities that are rendered useless against stronger enemies and bosses (Paralyze, Stone, Mind Controlling)
* Access to Instant Death does not exist
* Multiplayer or at least semi-multiplayer (player's trained units are controlled by a CPU)
* Multiple avenues of gameplay other than battle (mini games).
* NPCs feel important, no pointless villagers.
* Full character cusomization (you know, clothing, armor visuals, face....race and other options are fine but not needed)
* Not devoted to realism or logic. Weird shit is fine.
* Replay value. I can replay the game when I beat it and not have to avoid going to the last boss out of fear of ending the game forever.
* Extra content - Super bosses, super items, new areas to explore, mini-quests, sidequests, character development filler, whatever.

inkblot

Fighters that aren't so overpowered that everyone else is reduced to supporting them.

Red Mages that don't learn all level 1-7 spells, rendering the Black and White Mages nearly pointless.

Thieves that can do something other than run away really well and learn weak black magic.

A way to recharge your MP that doesn't involve finding your way to the nearest inn and braving enemy after enemy with the ability to poison your entire team before you even get the chance to run.

if you can't do the above, at least make it so that my Black Mage can cast the only moves that aren't weaker than the Fighter's basic attack more than 3 times.

Towns that consist of anything, anything other than the same 4 shops and inn.

Buff and debuff spells that actually work, or at least can be used on more than one creature who shows up only once in the game.

Not having to wander around the entire world map, making sure to check every single area to find out that I have to defeat a pirate so i can get a ship so I can go to a swamp cave so I can get a crown so I can fight a dark elf so I can retrieve a crystal for a sage so she can wake up a sleeping king so he can give me TNT to give to a dwarf so that he can blow up a wall so I can actually start the main plot. I didn't choose to roleplay as a goddamn delivery boy.

Turtle

-No grinding.  Tedium is bad.  Length should come from the amount of content, not preparation.
-No off-screen numbers.  I want an easy way to calculate damage values, critical hits, and drop rates.  Something like Paper Mario's "your Attack stat is the damage you deal minus the enemy's defense."
-Make it replayable.  Not "start a new game" playable, or even "New
Game+" playable, but "select a portion of the game, and only that
portion, to replay."  Kingdom Hearts: Re:coded excelled here with its
episode replay option, as well as adding a score attack mode to go
straight to each episode's boss.
-Sidequests are cool, but if they're all basically the same bounty hunt or fetch quest, I'd rather the developers didn't bother.  Give some backstory, or elements unique to that quest.
-Bonus menus.  Cheats both practical and aesthetic as rewards for completion.  Concept Art Galleries.  Sound Test.  Alternate costumes.
-Last, but certainly not least, make it skill-based, if not just plain real-time.  If I'm playing a game for the gameplay, I prefer that it has actual gameplay.

BaronGrackle

The ability to customize the names of my party members. This sort of fell out of favor with the coming of voiced cutscenes. Now you can name your main character if you're lucky, but that just means no one will use his name in conversation. In contrast, I could create a Final Fantasy VII team based on LucasArts game characters...

Cloud = Guybrush (from the Monkey Island games)
Barret = Weird Ed (from the Maniac Mansion games)
Tifa = Sophia (from the Indiana Jones games)
Aeris = Fleece (from Loom)
Red XIII = Glottis (from Grim Fandango)
Yuffie = Miranda (from Full Throttle)
Cait Sith = Sam and Max (from the Sam and Max games) (massive imagination required)
Vincent = Zak (from Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders)
Cid = Boston (from The Dig)

To the point that one of the areas was actually called: "Fleece's House". It's the little things, you know? Like naming the people you know are going to die in the Oregon Trail game.

glennmagusharvey

I like what Golden Sun did with PP (their version of MP)--it regenerated slowly as you walked around on the world map and in dungeons.  and maybe towns.  This was somewhat of a necessity since they had psynergies (i.e. magic spells) with mobility uses.

I would like to see HP also recover, but much more slowly.  I know Nethack does that.

I'd like to see a tactical RPG that's based on hitbox detection rather than a grid.  So, basically, think Chrono Trigger, but where you can move your own characters.

> * No crappy abilities that are rendered useless against stronger enemies and bosses (Paralyze, Stone, Mind Controlling)
> * Access to Instant Death does not exist

Oh yes.  Useless Useful Spells really suck.

> Oh, also... there should be more than one strategy required throughout
the game.  Because "have all but one member of your party use their most
powerful attack every turn while the healer uses a full-party healing
spell every turn" should not be enough to beat every boss of a game.

HECK YES.  I have long been bored by "damage race" bosses--in other words, just try to smack them around as much as possible before they kill you off, and keep on healing.  That gets tedious after a while, and then you just get superbosses who have completely cheap spells and keep on producing TPKOs unless you do insane stat-pumping.

In fact, I'd much prefer games where exact stats are not as important as abilities themselves.

I'd also love to see magic systems whose differences between less powerful and more powerful spells are MORE THAN just "does less/more damage".  A basic feature should at least be more powerful spells cost more but do more damage per MP than lesser spells do (such as in Final Fantasy IV, as detailed here: Fire1 does 16xB damage for 5 MP, Fire2 64 15, Fire3 256 30).

However, one cool thing you could do, especially with tactical games is this:
* Low-level spells are much more customizable.  They can be directed toward only all enemies, or only all enemies in an area.
* High-level spells deal more damage but are more unwieldy--they must target an area, or maybe they target the entire battlefield at worst.  Possibly, there may be high-level spells that targets multiple enemies specifically, but that targetting had better cost you through the nose.

glennmagusharvey

The customization-versus-characterization battle--in other words, the WRPG vs. JRPG argument--has been played out in many RPG discussions already.

The only conclusion seems to be that people want a good mix of both types of products in the marketplace.

What would be nice: not just a good mix, but a good continuous mix.  In other words, at one end you have games with WRPG-style fully-customizable characters, on the other end you have games that are basically interactive stories with deep characterization and story direction planning, but in between, I'd love to see a wide range of games, including such ones as:
* main protagonist is fully customizable but the rest of the protagonists are predetermined characterization-wise
* independence between gameplay style/customization and story (this was done VERY effectively by Final Fantasy V)

Vorpy

* main protagonist is fully customizable but the rest of the protagonists are predetermined characterization-wise

That's what I wanted. I don't care about Voice Acting much because I tend to enjoy the music and SFX more than the voices of the characters.

Icalasari

I know that my plans for my game involve an RPG where the creatures have an intelligence stat (smarter they are, the better they are able to take care of themselves without needing micromanaging, but the harder they are to convince to do what you want - Would be tricky to do in a way that isn't annoying, however

It would have hidden stats and everything, sure, but if you're good at strategizing, you could get one of the weakest creatures to beat a god in the game. Sure, it would be cherry tapping and using statuses and all that, but by getting your creature to weave and dodge, use abilities that affect the terrain in a way that hinders the foe while benefiting you, and generally being smart, well, randomness would be an almost non issue and it would come down to skill

Maybe a multiplayer mode that allows you to disable luck based things (e.g. Critical Hits), so it is pure skill (if the main game is ever enough that you are essentially depending on Critical Hits to make or break the battle, then obviously the designer of the battle is doing it wrong)

glennmagusharvey

@Vorpy: Yeah, I tend to enjoy the music and care little for voice acting too.

@Icalasari: Sounds like you'd need very good AI to accomplish that.

RedEyedAbyss

No random drops. Important items are dropped based on a performance rating of the battle.

Icalasari

^^ Yeah. I'd probably need to make conscessions until AI can get that good

Although part of the point is that the AI will never be as good as an actual human, meaning too intelligent of a creature and you have something that refuses to listen to you that would struggle against boss ai and would be slaughtered by a decent human opponent

There would likely have to be someway to make a creature more obedient though, and smarter for the dumber ones, but only to a point else it would become a case of "Why the fuck would you use that!? It's weak! I have this superpowerful creature with awesome ai that is perfectly obedient!"

Also still wondering if Deities should be battle only or capturable (with them making it clear - sometimes snarkily - that they can leave the person at any time and that the capture was only allowed because the player amused them). After all, Deities would be pretty much banned from competitive play (since, well, creators of the universe. They would be broken as fuck), but they could make a very nice 100% completion reward

Vorpy

I thought of Deities is strange, which is why most of the time if they are all reality benders it would feel too out-of-place for a player to capture them.

Icalasari

^ It's canon in all material so far that they sometimes allow humans to capture them because they like the human. In essence, the human can throw everything they have at the deity, the deity is unscratched, but they go, "Good battle!" and allow the capture. They even have things like limited omnipresence and the ability to release themselves from the cards to do their jobs, and they have been known to outright ignore the human with the human powerless to do anything. They even cap their power if the human uses them in battle like how they capped their power in the battle with the human, as a deity at full power, even a weak one, could essentially have nigh light speed battles with attacks that stress the very laws of physics themselves

The issue here is allowing capture of them in the game or not due to the fact that, even at capped power, they would be monsters (think generation 1 Mewtwo in Pokemon) due to the sheer fact that, well, you don't make it so a deity can be beaten by a non deity without a lot of effort

Vorpy

Which was one of the reasons why Esper battles on FFXII and catching Arceus with a Master Ball bugged the shit out of me so much.

Icalasari

^ I know. It's just... Gah, the hell? The material for my game was designed with that in mind so that stuff like that makes sense. Instead of, "Did I capture God?" it's more, "Oh... God thinks I'm a cool guy and wants to hang out and makes it clear that he can kill me at any time... Joy..."

Hmm... Guess I'll disable capture of them for the sole reason of, "Alphight! Attack Alphi-Wait, is this self abuse?", and just have them give something awesome as a sign that the human accomplished an amazing task