My opinions what a good RPG should have

[Madscientist]

I have played many RPGs and other computer games and I think that the best I can do to have better games in the future is to tell you what I think. I know PoE is already far in developement, but maybe this helps for other games in the future. I hope this is useful for developers and players alike. Sorry that my first post is such a wall of text. This is about game mechanics, so no story spoilers please.

Those are my suggestions:

1.) Do not make it to complicated. I am in the gog forums and for the Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) games (Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, . . .) there are tons of questions like "I am new to this game. How do I create a good char?" I am a scientist and it took me lots of reading of character creation guides and several tries to make a character that finished NWN2. Please do not make things such as ECL classes or EXP penalty. You should not get punished for taking the class you like or a race that looks cool. Tons of classes, races, skills and feats with tons of requirements for each doesn´t make things better. Sometimes a smaller amount of choices is better if you show that there are significant differences between those choices.
Bad example NWN2: You are so overwhelmed with options and a new player has no chance to tell which of them are good or bad.
Good example KOTOR 1+2: The DnD3 system has been simplified so it is easier to understand. It had a great story and it didn´t feel too simple, even though you have only 3 classes in the beginning and 3 classes later.
Good example Divinity Original Sin (D:OS): You have no classes at all and you can learn any skill you like without getting a penalty in things you already know.

2.) I think that PnP rules are not the best bases for a computer game. There are many good DnD games, but the rules are often very complicated and many PnP things cannot be implemented in a computer game correctly because in PnP you are only limited by your imagination but in a computer game you are limited by the game engine.
Bad example DnD 2nd edition: Please try to explain to a new player, why your hit chance, armor class and saving throw should be as low as possible while everything else should be as high as possible.
Bad example Realms of Arcadia series: You have all the skills and spells of the PnP game but most of these things can never be used in the game. But you can waste your points into them. Examples: You have the swim skill but you can never cross deep water in the game. You have a spell to purify bad food but there is no bad food in the game.
Good example KOTOR: You have a small set of skills and spells but each of them is useful at many points in the game.
Good example D:OS: The whole system was designed for this game so there is no skill that cannot be used in the game.

3.) Please explain things in an understandeble language and units. Things like This:
"The spell will last x seconds or minutes per level." instead of "The spell will last 1d6+3 rounds per caster level."
"The weapon does 5-20 damage" instead of "The weapon does 3d6+2 damage."

4.) Please seperate hit chance and damage. In the DSA system armor absorbs damage but it hinders the char (reducing his hit and parry chance). The result is, when 2 fully armored knights fight, they rarely hit each other and when they hit most damage is absorbed by the armor. Battles can last forever this way. DnD tried to solve this and so armor reduces your chance to get hit. But now a naked char takes the same damage as a char in full armor.
Good example World of Warcraft: A char has a dodge, parry and block value to avoid hits and an armor value to avoid damage when you get hit. Most classes have abilities that improve one of these abilities for some time.

5.) I think that random equipment is good. When I played D:OS and saw the items my first thought was: "A good RPG but when you look at the items you can see that it is derived from a Diablo clone." (Note: I don´t like Diable or hack&slash games in general.). But I realized that this avoids a bigger problem.
Bad example Baldurs Gate 2: There are some extremely powerful items in the game and it is known where to find them. This leads to the effect, that people who know the game spend their points in regard of what items they expect to get. A paladin must use Greatswords (holy avenger), a fighter should be a dwarf with hammers (chrom fayr and the throwing hammer). You are new to the game and you think that your paladin should use a sword and a shield: The red dragon proves you wrong. A new player who does not want to read spoilers cannot make the char he likes but he must guess what super powerful weapons the game will give him. And it can be very disappointing when you guess wrong.
I admit that random items give another problem: You save and reload before every chest or boss until they drop things you like. If you do not like random items than do not create items that are much more powerful than everything else. Here is the BG2 (inclompete) list of things you should never give to a single item in the game (or not use them at all): dispell on every hit, raise a stat to the maximum possible value, add many different kinds of elemental damage at once, become invisible when equipped, kill enemies on hit (this includes devastating critical in NWN1, it allowed me to kill a boss with a weapon that was unable to damage this creature.)

6.) Be careful when crafting items. If you can easily craft items that are better than anything you can find, finding items becomes useless unless they are crafting material.
Bad example NWN2 Mask of the betrayer: The game is great, but you can create as much as you want of weapons+8 with 3 different elemental damage and armor that improves all of your stats. Finding equipment is only good if you find something with an ability you cannot craft and than improve this via crafting.
Suggestion: You can only craft items that are similar to what you can buy (Do you want to pay 1000 gold for a new sword or do you want to search some caves for an hour to get some ore to make a similar sword?) Or you could improve each equipment exactly once and you must must choose between several different bonusses (You found a new sword. Do you want +2damage, +2%crit or +1 fire damage? It has a price, you can do it only once and you cannot undo it.)

7.) Use the EXP and level system (unless you find something better). The alternative that is used most often is learning by doing.
Bad example Final Fantasy 2: You get more HP/MP when you lose HP/MP in battle. Your strengh goes up when you do physical attacs and you intelligence goes up when you use magic. This means the best way to get stronger is to start a fight against an easy enemy and the group members attack and heal each other until they run out of MP. Then you kill the enemy, look how your stats go up, rest and repeat. Attacking oneself to get stronger is not good gameplay.
Bad example The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim): You can increase your skills by repeating useless actions. You heal yourself, step into a fire and heal yourself again (and so on) to increase your heal skill. You walk against a wall behind a shopkeeper (they don´t move) forever to boost your stealth skill. You let yourself hit for hours by a weak enemy to improve your defense skill. There are infinite other examples.
Good example Drakensang: You get EXP. You can spend your EXP to increase whatever stat or skill you like. Different skills require different amounts of points and each rank in a skill needs more points than the one before. There is a level, but all it does is to determine the maximum allowed skill rank for each skill.

8.) Do not use level scaling.
Bad example Oblivion: I have beaten lots of demons without problems but than I had an epic battle with a rat and I was unable to defeat 2 goblins at once.
Good example Gothic 1+2: The enemies stay as they are but you get stronger. You can explore the entire map from the beginning on if you survive. In the beginning a lone wolf is a deadly threat but you get stronger step by step and in the end you will be able to beat an army of orcs.

9.) I want group members and not henchman. My group members should have a personality and they should react to the things you do. They should say if they like or dislike your actions and they should make suggestions what to do next. You should be able to control your party members like your own char. The party members should interact with each other.
My example: You see a burning house. You have the option to get some water from a nearby lake or to run into the house and rescue the people inside or do nothing and watch. The mad rogue in your group says that looks great and you should burn the other buildings too (and you have the option to do so). The knight in your group says that you should rebuild the town with houses made of stone because his castle never burned down. The sage will answer that this is too expensive and there is no mine for making big stone blocks nearby. The priest says he can summon a cloud and the rain will stop the fire (You have the option to let him do this and it works). The mage says he can summon wind to blow out the fire. (You have the option to let him do this but then the wind takes the fire to other buildings and the whole town burns down). The mage will feel very bad because of this but the mad rogue congratulates him.
Bad example NWN1: Somebody follows you all the time and does whatever he wants. Usually his actions are much less efficient than yours and you get the feeling that all he does is to steal your EXP.
Good example BG2 and NWN2: It is not perfect but a good beginning.

10.) You should be able to use the skills of your party members. It makes no sense that all merchants in the universe deal with exactly one person in the world (thats you).
Good example: NWN2 Storm of Zehir: All party members can use theirs skills any time and you can choose who of them acts how.
Bad example: D:OS: All the people in the world will refuse to talk to your party members because they are not the ones who are destenied to save the world. Do the people who live in a town ever talk to each other?

11.) Create significant choices. Do not make it in a simple good vs evil way.
Good example The Witcher: You have to make several choices and all options are plausible and they are not clearly good or evil. When you face the consequences of your choices later you are reminded that you could have acted in a different way. This increases the replay value as well.
bad example: All the games where you have the option to accept a quest and get a reward or refuse the quest and get nothing or kill this person and lose reputation.

12.) Use a point buy system to create chars. Higher values should need more points. There should be a minimum value for each stat.
Good Example: NWN1+2, Kotor1+2
Bad example BG1+2 and IWD1: re roll until you have max values for all the stats you want.
Bad example IWD2: You can reduce dumb stats to 3 or 1 in order to push all other stats to max.

13.) Please try to make a good story. The world is full of "An ancient evil threatens the world and YOU are the only one who can save it". An interesting setting is also good.
Good examples: Planescape Tornment, Mask of the Betrayer

14.) Please try to make a good AI for party members (I know that this is very difficult because the game does not know what the player wants to do next). I will present some examples I have encountered. I have seen so many nonsense that my motto is: "expect nothing and you will get it"
Bad example 1: A weak enemy is nearby and a boss is at the other end of the room and has not seen you yet. Your mage friend will use a fireball against the near enemy, almost killing himself and you in doing so. Then he will run to the other end of the room and attac the boss with a knive.
Bad example 2: You are on a big map. You tell your party to attac a nearby group of enemies. Once the enemy group is down each party member will run after the the next enemy, each one running in a different direction. Your party is scattered all over the place and each party member fights several enemies alone. All attempts to gather your party fail.
Sometimes I think no AI is the best. Unless they are under attac they should do nothing at all once they finished the task you told them. I had much less problems with my party in the BG games than in the NWN games. At least you should have the option to turn off AI. NWN2 had the option to put them in puppet mode and sometimes that was the best way to save the day (or at least your nerves).

15.) Do not use achievments. If really want to use them give the option to turn them off. Doing something in the game should give a reward in the game. You beat the black dragon because it is important for the story or because it is an epic battle but not to see a text pop up like: "ACHIEVMENT: Beat the black dragon. You have gained 20 achievment points. Now you have 285 points and you are rank 28752 of all players."
Most useless achievments are those you gain anyway such as getting to a point of the main story or killing 50 enemies. Things like "beat the black dragon while standing on your head and juggling with 5 grenades without being hit." do not make any sense too.
Those things kill immersion and distract the player from the game. This is most true in a single player game.

16.) Please make a "timeless graphic"
I played NWN1 lately and I found it very ugly. There it was tried to make a realistic 3D graphic but the developement is very fast. "Beyond Good and Evil" on the other side is also more than 10 years old but it looks much better today because it uses a cartoon graphic.
Today Baldurs Gate 2 and even some super Nintendo games (e.g. crono trigger) look much better than some old (and even some new) 3D games.
I want to note that impressive graphic effects are sometimes more distracting than helpful, especially when there is strategic combat.


Final words:
-These are my thoughts and I want people to think about it. If you find something better than do it and tell the people why do you think it is better.
-I have a terrible reaction speed so I am pathetic in action games. I like adventures and RPG with a turn based system or at least combat you can pause any time. This is something that surely influences my suggestions above.
- my favourite character: Kreia from KOTOR2. She is interesting and mysterious. Even if she was betrayed by everyone and is betraying everyone herself: What she says and does makes some sense.
- my favourite combat system: Divinety Original Sin
- My favourite setting: Planescape Tornment, Arcanum (Industrial revolution in a fantasy world was a great idea)
-My favourite story: Planescape Tornment, Mask of the betrayer (Don´t save the world, save yourself)

[Marcvs Caesar]

"Do not make it to complicated. I am in the gog forums and for the Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) games (Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, . . .) there are tons of questions like "I am new to this game. How do I create a good char?" I am a scientist and it took me lots of reading of character creation guides and several tries to make a character that finished NWN2"

 

 I never had to read anything in order to play and finish any of the D&D computer games, not even the manual and I had never even touched a PnP RPG before much less D&D so it wasn't that complex.

 

 

 

 

"Please do not make things such as ECL classes or EXP penalty"

 

I agree that the EXP penalty is absurd in singleplayer.

 

 

 

 

"You should not get punished for taking the class you like or a race that looks cool"

 

If you're playing a very short race like gnomes then you shouldn't be able to use unwieldy weapons like the great sword. It's all about context and logic.

 

 

 

 

"Tons of classes, races, skills and feats with tons of requirements for each doesn´t make things better. Sometimes a smaller amount of choices is better if you show that there are significant differences between those choices"

 

Those are there so you can shape your character to your specifications. It's customization at it's best. Why would you want limitations?

 

 

 

 

"I think that PnP rules are not the best bases for a computer game. There are many good DnD games, but the rules are often very complicated and many PnP things cannot be implemented in a computer game correctly because in PnP you are only limited by your imagination but in a computer game you are limited by the game engine"

 

Nonsense. You only need to find a way to make those "PnP things" work in the game engine and problem solved. The best games I've played were based on PnP RPGs and usually the ones that aren't tend to be shallow. I consider D&D to be the "soul" of the old IE games.

 

 

 

 

"I think that random equipment is good"

 

I completely disagree. Most of the equipment and loot should be static unless there's some sort of progression system for the NPCs.

 

 

 

 

"Be careful when crafting items. If you can easily craft items that are better than anything you can find, finding items becomes useless unless they are crafting material"

 

Then in turn crafting becomes useless, if you're going to waste your precious level up points in crafting then you should be rewarded for it. And if you reach the maximum level in crafting then you should be able to create items on the same level as the most powerful items in the game.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Marcvs Caesar

[jones092201@gmail.com]

I read war and peace once. couldn't read OPs post, too complicated.

[Luridis]

 

The one little bit I stopped to read said something about PnP rules not being ideal for computers. The beginning said something about don't make it too complicated.

 

You do realize that they use PnP systems in CRPGs precisely because they're easier to follow than multibyte values of some kind? The first CRPG I ever played, Might & Magic 2, had characters where the stats were decided by byte values:

 

Level 1-255

Attributes 1-255

Hit Points 1-65535

Etc.

 

I'm glad they gave that up in subsequent games. I for one didn't like the time required to grind through 512 Devil Lords at the end of the game.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Luridis

[Nakia]

I have seen many discussions of what a RPG is.  It is a broadly used term for simply playing a role.   You take on the persona of someone either created by you or set by the game.  You are acting .  What makes a good role playing game really depends on the player and what he or she likes.  My first CRPG was Betrayal at Krondor based on the Riftwar series. then moved on to the Infinity Engine games and later played the TES games.  There are also the Assassin Creed games and many others.  All are RPGs and they vary a great deal.

 

There are no set rules for RPGs and in my opinion should not be as that would destroy the possibility of creativity and inovation.  AWhat I like in games may be disliked by someone else.  Millions of people play games so there could well be millions of ways to play a RPG game.  The reason I avoid walkthroughs until I have completed a game is that a walkthrough is that person's style of playing.  They are fun and good to look at after I have played to see how someone else played and to see if I missed so

[Althernai]

Wow, that is a really long post. For some of them I agree with you, for others I do not. I will only reply to some since I don't have much time.

 

1.) Do not make it to complicated.

But also not too simple... which is kind of difficult to do when we don't agree on what "too complicated" means. I played BG2 when I was a teenager without ever having seen D&D before and while I missed certain aspects of the ruleset on my first playthrough, it was quite playable after reading the manual and going through the tutorial. KotOR was too simple for my tastes.

 

2.) I think that PnP rules are not the best bases for a computer game.

Well, they're not in PoE. I agree that it is probably possible to do better without them, but in the past, when people have said that they're making a ruleset specifically for the computer, it has not necessarily worked out better. Also, KotOR, which you seem to like, was based on the same D20 rules as the D&D games.

 

5.) I think that random equipment is good. When I played D:OS and saw the items my first thought was: "A good RPG but when you look at the items you can see that it is derived from a Diablo clone." (Note: I don´t like Diable or hack&slash games in general.). But I realized that this avoids a bigger problem.

I disagree. The problems with random equipment are intrinsic and cannot be solved without making the items bland whereas the Carsomyr problem from BG2 is specific to BG2: it's a combination of overly narrow weapon specializations and too great a disparity between the best weapons for each specialization. Having pre-set equipment allows for much more memorable pieces and also solves the issue with crafting being either useless or overpowered.

 

12.) Use a point buy system to create chars. Higher values should need more points. There should be a minimum value for each stat.

I believe every game in the past decade has used point-buy and PoE will do the same. I think rolling the states was kind of fun, but this is a settled issue.

 

Points 3 and 4 are specific to older games and I think newer ones are more clear about this. The rest of your points are mostly non-controversial -- I don't think anyone is against a good story or good AI, the problem is execution.

[Bryy]

In my opinion, we've been bred to think that shoddy and over-cumbersome mechanics in RPGs are somehow a good thing. That the game itself being unbearable to play somehow means it is "smart". How many times have you heard someone complain about an inventory system being dumbed down just because it is not a list of 500 items, or that you're supposed to "go slow and look at everything" as if that will enhance your fun?

 

Good RPGs have to cater to being a good game first and foremost, and worry about any pre-conceived notions the player has as a second. Leave that to marketing.

[PrimeJunta]

Reactions ...

 

1. Complication for the sake of complication, or complication which comes from attempting to make a bad design work is bad. Depth, however, is good, and depth arises from complexity. There should be lots of things to play with, and it should be possible to combine them in lots of interesting ways. 
   
   I agree that DnD character mechanics are, generally speaking, complicated rather than complex. However IMO KOTOR is not a good counterexample; it keeps much of the complication while losing a lot of the complexity.
   
   I like the fundamentals of character design in P:E quite a lot actually. I have quibbles and criticisms about the particulars, but overall it's fun, there's a quite a lot of scope for creativity, synergies, combinations, and such, and the components themselves are fairly easy to understand.
    
2. I agree, but here your examples are bad. AD&D2 is just a bad system, full stop. It's not really even a system rather than a collection of unrelated systems flying in loose formation. It's rigid, obscure, has no internal logic to it, and is wildly unbalanced. 
   
   Numenéra would have been a better example: it has rules that are designed to be as lightweight as possible, to give structure to storytelling, but if they were implemented directly in a computer game it would be incredibly dull. (The system has major problems for PnP also, but that's a different topic.)
    
3. Related to 2.
    
4. Why?
    
5. I like a degree of randomness. I would like chest abuse to be designed out, though, e.g. by fixing the RNG seed so that the contents can be different for different playthroughs, but are always the same even if you reload and try again.
    
6. Crafting vs finding. I like both. P:E's approach is to combine the two: you can use crafting to improve items you find. I think that's a pretty sweet way of doing it. Another good way to implement crafting is to make it possible for you to make an item tailored to your personal requirements, not just objectively the most powerful item.
    
7. I prefer level-less systems where you buy abilities directly with the XP (or whatever you call it) you've earned. Learning by doing is generally a bad, grindy mechanic. Levels are OK though.
    
8. Agree.
    
9. Depends on the game. I liked IWD a lot, and it had pure henchmen. I also liked KOTOR2 a lot, largely because of the companions and their stories.
    
10. Yep, SoZ had a really good implementation of party skills. Not for every game, but at least some could benefit. I think P:E is doing something like this with the CYOA panels where you can send the right party member to do his thing.
     
11. Oh so very much yes. Choices and consequences is where it's at.
     
12. Point buy is good, but higher costs for higher scores only make sense if higher scores are that much more valuable. If all you get is a flat bonus, say 1 point of damage per 1 point of Might, why would going from 17 to 18 cost more than from 10 to 11?
     
13. Yes, good story is where it's at.
     
14. Mmm... no. I prefer simple party AI with a predictable default action. So no auto-casting of spells for example. I want to play the game, not watch the game play itself. (Of course, if it's a first- or third-person perspective game, then you do need decent AI for the party.)
     
15. Neutral about achievements. Don't care but not bothered.
     
16. Yep, art style is much more important than technical quality.
     

 

[Nakia]

What makes a good role playing game really depends on the opinion of the player.  I have two friends playing DLOS.  One seems to like the game fairly well and the other has issues with it.  Skyrim is considered an RPG but I see it as an adventure game and play it that way and enjoy it as long as I ignore the RPG aspect.  

 

For me a good story is important, a theme that runs through the game and is important to it.  Choices that have consequences.  I consider Arcanum a good RPG because what you do does matter.  I also look for good protagonists and antagonists.  For me a RPG should be immersive, I want to care about what I do, about the people I meet or dislike some of them.  In games that have companions are they interesting, do I like them or dislike them as people?   What happens if I play a very good, kind, benevolent character or if I play a more self-centered one or even an evil one.  Do the people in the game come to life for me?

[hollowcrown]

All I'm coming into say is that randomised equipment is bad.

 

Baldur's Gate 2 was bad initially for Paladins, for example, but the expansion back rectified that with some of the new Paladin swords. Either way, the unique weapons and armor with lots of personality make the game worthwhile and fun to play. Better than getting boring randomised equipment. Getting legendary weapons makes you feel legendary and makes the game feel much more handcrafted.

[PrimeJunta]

There's random and there's random, though. I think some randomness within categories is fun and adds interest especially to replays, but if it's completely random and it's not a roguelike, not so much. Legendary items should be hand-placed, but having cool stuff turn up semi-randomly can be fun too. 

[Guest 4ward]

for me a good rpg should have support for mouse + keyboard control only and BG2 combat, that’s it. I’m willing to play mickey mouse in such a game. A good tutorial like in BG2 is important as well imo. BG2 was my first cRpg and i didn’t know how to move, converse, let alone fight in that game. So i first went through the tutorial to learn that and the UI. While i was still easily dispatched by Illyich and his duergar gang at the start of BG2 i learned from it and got better, tried out things and what i still missed i got from gamefaqs and Dan Simpson’s faq. I think that after finishing the tutorial in BG2, the player also started with more xp (if i recall that right). If i’m not mistaken PoE is to have a tutorial as well. But i never read d&d rules or anything and still had great fun with BG2.

[Madscientist]

 I like to thank you all.

 

I really like what I know about PoE and some of the things I mentioned are already implemented in a good way.

 

about items: Maybe you are right and the problem that some items are completely overpowered is a BG2 specific problem.

All I want is to avoid a scenario where all guides say: "If you play class X then you must do it like this because you find the completely overpowered item Y at point Z.

I re played BG2 some time ago and I build my char with the knowledge what items I will find at what point.

 

about the class and combat system: I really like what I see. The way how you select abilities and talents seem good to me.

I like that the stats are linear (one point more gives the same bonus as the point before, not like DnD2 where only very low or high values did something.)

I see only one thing that may be a problem.:

All attacs are determined with ((accurency - defense) + d100 ). If accurency and defense are the same, you have 5% miss, 45% graze, 45% hit and 5% crit.

This means if your accurency is 5 points lower then the defense you will never crit and if it is 5 points higher you will never miss. The base values of the classes differ by 20 points.

I fear that enemies will miss tanks most of the time and crit all others most of the time (In another thread somebody showed that a fighter who focuses on defense can have a deflection that is over 100 points higher than somebody who does not have talents that boost defense. I hope the devs get the balance right.

 

Maybe I am used to the DnD system too much, where you always had a 5% miss and 5% crit chance. ( Those 5% were minimum values, both could be higher, but never lower.)

[illathid]

Well originally there wasn't going to be a miss chance at all. There would only be Graze, Hit, and Crit. This only changed after there was a big out cry on the forums.

[Formal Foreign Forum Fool]

If you take the time to write more coherently then maybe your point will get across.  If you just spew nonsense like that then your intentions get lost in the frustrations you give your readers.

[kalashnjkov]

How about Necromancer class? A interesting class which contribute to the success of Diablo II and has a impressive title... Necromancer !!! 

 

There aren't many legit playable Necromancer characters in RPGs of this gaming generation, why couldnt we give this class a chance to show its attraction to RPG fans ?

 

A necromancer will uses dark magic (such as necromancy and witchcraft...). He will raise the dead ( zombie from corpse, skeleton warrior from pile of bone) or summon wraith and ghost to create his army, he will uses soul magic as attack spells( soul spear...) and some witchcraft type magic like curses.

 

 

From a guy prefer D2 than D3 just because of the necromancer class.

[BrainMuncher]

@MadScientist

 

I think you will like PoE. Obsidian have designed it to resemble Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc. in terms of the feel and level of customization, while trying to remove a lot of the unnecessary or superfluous complexity. Almost all the things you mentioned regarding the game ruleset have been adressed to some extent, so far as I can tell.

 

- Character stats are point-buy

- Lots of dialogue choices, not just good or evil.

- Much simpler leveling/character creation than NWN

- Designed for computer game, not PNP

- Semi-random equipment. Not as random as diablo, but not entirely static.

- XP gain based on progress through the campaign and quests. No XP for combat, so no grinding. And no accidentally over-leveling by OCD killing every monster on every map.

- Plenty of companion NPCs with individual personalities and dialogue. Option available to make your own companions if you prefer them not to have personality or want a specific character build

- Limited level scaling, with high and low limits. Not everything has level scaling applied, there will be plenty of enemies with no scaling, or very small  scaling range.

- Graphics are 2.5D, should be pretty "timeless". Backgrounds are 2D, pre-rendered and touched up by hand. Characters 3D.

 

 

I don't know anything about the crafting or AI, so can't tell you anything about that.

[Hassat Hunter]

In my opinion, we've been bred to think that shoddy and over-cumbersome mechanics in RPGs are somehow a good thing. That the game itself being unbearable to play somehow means it is "smart". How many times have you heard someone complain about an inventory system being dumbed down just because it is not a list of 500 items, or that you're supposed to "go slow and look at everything" as if that will enhance your fun.

Didn't read the OP due to "wall of text" syndrome... but did read this.

 

The funny thing is, in BG2 you actually only have a few items with you. In KOTOR, I do have a 500 item list to drag through. They made it slightly more bearable in KOTOR2 with allowing specific subtypes to stride through, but still an unbearable list of items.

And compare that to a one-eye sight of everything a character possessed in one eye-look.

 

So I really have no idea what you're talking about since our inventories are actually small, and the "dumbing down" is the 500 itemry lists... :/

[teknoman2]

in my case for 14 i would prefer to have something like DA:O's tactics... without the needless stat

have a set of conditions, and actions to be performed by each character when the condition is met and customize them. let's say 5 for each member otherwise you could make the game actually play itself

examples would be

if you lose 50% stamina, drink a potion.

if the ranger uses mark, the pet will target that enemy

if the wizard takes ranged damage, activate arcane veil

etc

small things that free you from having to keep track and micromanage every single action of your party, and also to keep things from going wrong if you concentrate on something and forget to check all characters all the time (in IE games, i often concentrated on the spell casting of my wizard and forgot to check what my fighter was doing... he was standing there and had lost 90% of his hp)

[Larkaloke]

There's really only one thing that makes a good or bad RPG in my opinion, and that is how successful the game is at allowing you to create and play a wide range of characters with very different personalities. To be sure, there are many other considerations for whether or not it's a good game, but I count that separately.

 

I tend to judge RPGs on three separate issues: how well can I make and play whatever character I want; how good are the plot, the story, the characters, and the world; how good are the mechanics and the actual gameplay. While I certainly value all three, the first is the most important to me, followed by the second, and fairly distantly by the third. I can enjoy a game that is very good at the first two but terrible at the third. Not so the other way around (assuming it's ostensibly an RPG at all, of course; if it's a shooter or possibly an RTS or something, that's a whole other kettle of fish).

 

 

1 -- The problem with NWN 2, and indeed NWN and KotOR and Kotor II, wasn't that it was difficult to figure out how to make a really good character -- it was that it was actually impossible to make a really good character due to the absurdly small point buy pool.

 

Tons of options don't necessarily make things better, it's true. 3rd edition D&D has ended up with far too many classes and feats and races, in my opinion, and I ignore almost all of them when I play. On the other hand, variety is important. One needs to be able to differentiate their characters from other characters.

 

2 -- It does make more sense to design a computer game with new rules from the ground up, unless you're specifically trying to emulate a pen and paper game, I agree. That said, I think that 2nd edition D&D (and even 3rd edition D&D) work better as a CRPG ruleset than some that have been designed from the ground up for computer games. A ruleset for pen and paper is far less likely to fall into some of the common pitfalls of CRPG systems (absurdly wide number ranges, for instance).

 

3 -- Fair enough. No particular reason not to.

 

4 -- Really, hit chance, damage deflection/absorbtion, and damage taken should be three entirely different things that are not necessarily related to each other at all. Hit chance ought to be dependant not only on the character's skill but also on the opponent's skill at parrying, damage deflection/absorbtion should be entirely dependant on armour and interact with attacker's weapon, and damage taken ought to depend more on precision and where the character was hit rather than strength and the sheer power of the hit. Nobody should have particularly many hit points (or the equivalent there of). Crippling wounds and mortal wounds should be possibilities. All of this would be complicated to deal with, but easier in a CRPG than in a pen and paper game, as the computer can of course keep track of and calculate things better than any GM.

 

Well, that's what I'd want, anyhow. I'm sure there are many who disagree; such is the nature of preference.

 

5 -- I disagree here. There are two main problems with random equipment, to me: the first is that it almost always means that there is very little unique or interesting equipment, and I like to find such things; the second is that I prefer for it to make some sense where you are finding things. If my character kills a bandit chieftain clearly wearing plate armour and carrying a glowing bow, I hope and expect to find plate armour and a glowing bow on his corpse, not a halberd and leather armour, no matter how cool that halberd and leather armour may be. It matters less for equipment that's found in crates and such, but sometimes random equipment can get weird there as well (oh, so this ancient sealed chest found in the tomb of a necromancer-king contains... a cool sword usable only by paladins?).

 

6 -- I've yet to see a crafting system I like. They usually err either on the side of crafted equipment being more powerful than everything else, or crafted equipment being nearly useless. Not sure what a better solution would be, though.

 

7 -- Yeah, I tend to agree here. The Drakensang example is a decent way of doing it, although really any system where you have a level and XP, and can in some way spent points/a pool of something to increase a variety of skills tends to be good by me.

 

8 -- Yes. Level scaling is annoying. I hate it. There's no sense of change, and it feels as though the world always keeps exact pace with your character(s) no matter how much they learn. It's very strange when you think about it. You also never get that feeling of running into something that's completely above your head, which is a feeling that I like to have from time to time in a game.

 

9 -- I agree with this... assuming that you're speaking of NPC group members. Those should befully realised characters that interact as much as reasonably possible with your character and the world around them.

 

However, I also want to be able to make my own characters and be left to give them whatever personality I want. I get bored of the NPCs, if indeed I even wanted to take them along to begin with.

 

10 -- Yep.

 

11 -- Probably don't have to worry about that too much in PoE, considering Obsidian's track record so far, but I agree. If there is a choice, it should be a significant one. That said, if there is no in-game reason for it to be a significant choice or to be an obviously significant choice, it shouldn't be. Not everything choice needs to be fraught with deep consequences.

 

12 -- I'm not really sure that I could disagree more, here. What I want out of a stat system is the ability to create a wide variety of characters -- that's what I want out of every RPG in terms of character creation, after all -- and point buy systems almost always hamper this. They almost always do not allow you to create a character with any significant statistical flaws, and they do not allow you to create a character who has a high stat in very many things at all, both of which are things that I often like to do simply for roleplaying purposes. Take NWN, for example; your fighter really must have a decent strength and constitution. Ideally, they would also have a decent dexterity. You're never going to be able to even get all of those three stats up to being good with the point-buy system, so good luck actually putting points into anything else if you happen to feel like playing a particularly intelligent, wise, or charismatic fighter. If you're trying to make a character in a class which relies on more ability scores, such as a paladin, you're just flat-out screwed. If you want to play an actually significantly foolish, dumb, uncharismatic, weak, clumsy, or frail character -- rather than simply ever-so-slightly below average -- you're also out of luck. I'd rather spend a lot of time re-rolling to get a pool I can work with, or just take the roll and go with it, than have to struggle against the D&D point buy system. Granted, not all point buy systems are that bad, but still. There are better ways.

 

13 -- Yeah, interesting settings and good stories are indeed good. I don't think we have much to worry about in that department, here; Obsidian's usually pretty good at these things. That said, "ancient evil threatens the world" can be a good story, even if it isn't an unusual story. A story doesn't have to be unusual to be good. However, games in general could use more variety in the stories they tell.

 

14 -- Eh, yeah, if it's there it should be good. I'd rather just control them all, personally, but it should at least be good enough that they don't do something utterly bone-headed while you ignore them for a moment. Good enemy AI is more important to me.

 

15 -- Eck, achievements. They're annoying and useless.

 

16 -- Certainly agree here, and again, we don't have much to worry about in this case. PoE's definitely going that route.