I love choice in RPGs...but hate "role-playing". *WALL OF TEXT*

[Onyx Oblivion]

I was just sitting here, finishing up Persona 3 Portable (one of the few JRPGs with "role-playing")...And it hit me.

I fucking hate managing social links. And going to school. And anytime the main plot isn't racing forward. Hate it in 4. Hate it in 3.

I still love P3P, but mostly for the main plot and dungeon crawling. Persona 1 sounds fucking perfect for me, btw.

I love choice.

I love class selection and character building in RPGs. I love Legend of Mana, with it's many weapon styles, many pets, golem creation, and the way you built the world map. Quests were mostly linear, with the occasional little moral choice throw in. And a good number of dialogue options, but none of any real consequence. I love Borderlands, with it's easy respecing allowing for easy testing of new builds and strategies. And how every character can use every weapon, with it's "weapon proficiency system". Time and patience are the only things stopping you from making a Berserker into a solid sniper. The various shields, from high capacity/low recharge tank shields, to low capacity/fast recharge skirmisher shields, added to the choice as well. I love Oblivion, with it's enemy scaling and everything. Creating a character, and having the choice to go anywhere in the world! Nothing too tough for you will ever stop you, thanks to the scaling. I love the freedom it offers.

I love Pokemon...I love how with the hundreds of Pokemon, I can use many diverse and different teams of 6. So much choice...So much replay value...

I hate "role-playing".

I love a good story in games, but I hate having too much control over it. I like my stories linear.

I like Fable, because you have no dialogue trees, and only make choices at the end of 1/2 the quests. Usually with only 2 options. All of the character classes are rolled into one. Two short 8-10 hour playthroughs, and you've seen and done it all. And had a fun time, because of the witty writing and humor throughout the series. And the main plot is usually the same until the ending.

I like Oblivion a lot better than Morrowind, because the questlines are mostly linear. With little-to-no room for deviation. I hate how Morrowind has conflicting questlines, with only mages able to do Mage's Guild and Telvanni (and even those conflict with each other!). I hate Fallout 3/New Vegas because of the Karma and Reputation systems.

I hate the heavy emphasis on talking/role-playing in Bioware games. Fun the first time, boring as hell the second time through. How people play Bioware games more than once or twice is beyond me...I love Dragon Age for the combat and stat management. The story is nice, though. I'll play it again, but the story isn't my motivation. The chance to play with a new character build for combat is.

[HEADING=2]I'm looking for RPGs that offer tons of choice, but linear stories. Know any?[/HEADING]

Most JRPGs don't cut it. The character are often designated with roles. "The Healer". "The Warrior". You know. The main character is rarely offered a choice in his role in the combat.

I've been told MMOs are my thing, but the games' communities have heavily suggested "best" builds, and that's not really fun for me...

 

[Defense]

The only RPG that is like that which I actually played a lot is Chrono Trigger, and we all know how unknown that game is.
I didn't play Record of Agarest War, but I'm sure that game has a fair bit of choice. Tactics Ogre comes to mind too.

And I think Dragon Valor on the PS1 is a bit nonlinear as well. That's honestly all I can think of.

 

[Savagezion]

Titan Quest? It is more of a hack and slash but has extreme freedom in character building. When you make your guy all you do is pick male or female. It is Diabloesque style. Diablo aint bad either.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

I agree with pretty much everything you said. Though, I do like the idea of being able to change the story via quests or decisions, unfortunately this has never been executed very well.

You might want to give The Witcher a try, while fairly open, it's easy enough to simply follow the main story arc which is always marked in your quest log. Also, there's a pretty wide variety of builds you can use. If you do, probably best to go with the easy setting since you won't be getting levelage via side quests.

Of course, there's also Deus Ex. Torchlight as well.

Also, I feel the exact same about MMOs. The builds aren't nearly as flexible as you're lead to believe, and generally your forced to follow a cookie cutter build.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Titan Quest?

Not really looking for loot-n-wanks, to be honest.

Fun games, don't get me wrong. But this isn't what I really meant.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

You might want to give The Witcher a try, while fairly open, it's easy enough to simply follow the main story arc which is always marked in your quest log. Also, there's a pretty wide variety of builds you can use. If you do, probably best to go with the easy setting since you won't be getting levelage via side quests.

Can't run it. Do want it, though. Maybe in 5-10 years, PCs that aren't built for gaming will finally be able to run it...

 

[Phlakes]

Most JRPGs don't cut it. The character are often designated with roles. "The Healer". "The Warrior". You know. The main character is rarely offered a choice in his role in the combat.

It sounds like you should try FF7. I remember in that thread you made about which game to get, one of the choices was one of the FF games, and 7's Materia system allows for COMPLETE customization as far as combat abilities.

If you haven't already played it, that is.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Most JRPGs don't cut it. The character are often designated with roles. "The Healer". "The Warrior". You know. The main character is rarely offered a choice in his role in the combat.

It sounds like you should try FF7. I remember in that thread you made about which game to get, one of the choices was one of the FF games, and 7's Materia system allows for COMPLETE customization as far as combat abilities.

If you haven't already played it, that is.

Yeah. But each character is clearly suited to certain things, still.

Except with Red XIII. Red XIII could basically do anything.

I love Red XIII.

He was THE MAN. Beast...thing...

 

[mindlesspuppet]

You might want to give The Witcher a try, while fairly open, it's easy enough to simply follow the main story arc which is always marked in your quest log. Also, there's a pretty wide variety of builds you can use. If you do, probably best to go with the easy setting since you won't be getting levelage via side quests.

Can't run it. Do want it, though. Maybe in 5-10 years, PCs that aren't built for gaming will finally be able to run it...

Really? It has pretty minimal system requirements, you just need to turn down some of the settings.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

You might want to give The Witcher a try, while fairly open, it's easy enough to simply follow the main story arc which is always marked in your quest log. Also, there's a pretty wide variety of builds you can use. If you do, probably best to go with the easy setting since you won't be getting levelage via side quests.

Can't run it. Do want it, though. Maybe in 5-10 years, PCs that aren't built for gaming will finally be able to run it...

Really? It has pretty minimal system requirements, you just need to turn down some of the settings.

I'm running a Dell CHIPSET here. Not even a graphics card. I'll check "Can You Run It?".

 

[mindlesspuppet]

You might want to give The Witcher a try, while fairly open, it's easy enough to simply follow the main story arc which is always marked in your quest log. Also, there's a pretty wide variety of builds you can use. If you do, probably best to go with the easy setting since you won't be getting levelage via side quests.

Can't run it. Do want it, though. Maybe in 5-10 years, PCs that aren't built for gaming will finally be able to run it...

Really? It has pretty minimal system requirements, you just need to turn down some of the settings.

I'm running a Dell CHIPSET here. Not even a graphics card. I'll check "Can You Run It?".

Okay... maybe not =/

You'd definitely need some sort of g-card.

Captcha: Missing Mage, thought that was cool

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Some of your conclusions sound a bit off to me but your PC should be able to play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and I don't know how good the console version of Divinity 2: Dragon Knight Saga is but it should be something you would like.

 

[XShrike]

So you prefer to do everything in one shot with no additional play-throughs but, like the mechanics that RPG like games have? I can sympathize with you to some degree.

The Diablo series might be what you are looking for. I think there were even some people saying Boardlands was a FPS Diablo. Other than that I would look more into JRPGs. Western RPGs have almost always been about you getting to affect the story or world you are playing in. JRPGs tend to be linear stories with the combat being the focus.

I had played Mass Effect through twice but, then my system and games were stolen. So before ME2 came out I played through ME1 to import the characters. There was much talking to skip through. What made this a problem was the same button to skip a conversation was the same button to select a dialog choice. A number of times I have had to reload because I accidentally selected the wrong answer while skipping through the dialog.

I can also see where you are coming from with the Elder Scroll series. There is a great deal to do in the games but, if you have to do multiple play-throughs you often are forced to cover large portions of the game over and over. This can be a lot of work just to see a small part that you missed.

 

[Richter_Kleiss]

Well, have you every played Deus Ex 2: Invisible War?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Well, have you every played Deus Ex 2: Invisible War?

Heard bad things. Is it more in-line with what I'm looking for than Deus Ex 1 or something?

 

[GoWithDAFro]

FF12 fits your requirements, but the plot is rarely moved forward and there's a lot of grinding. You'll either love it or hate it. (guess which I was)

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

FF12 fits your requirements, but the plot is rarely moved forward and there's a lot of grinding. You'll either love it or hate it. (guess which I was)

Hate. HATE, right?

No one ever uses "grinding" in a positive context.

I never gave that game a fair shot. Enamored with Oblivion by the time I bought it. Got about 20 hours in. Enjoyed that bit, though.

 

[banthesun]

I don't know about the portable version, but Persona 3 doesn't really have that much roleplaying in it. Case in point:

Spoiler

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I don't know about the portable version, but Persona 3 doesn't really have that much roleplaying in it. Case in point:

Spoiler

The dialogue trees aren't really the role-playing part.

Going to clubs, classes, and managed your schedule are.

Some people find that immersive or some shit.

What you find immersive, I find annoying as fuck.

 

[Richter_Kleiss]

Well, have you every played Deus Ex 2: Invisible War?

Heard bad things. Is it more in-line with what I'm looking for than Deus Ex 1 or something?

I think it's fairly interesting, actually. There is always more than one way to approach a situation, And a variety of outcomes to them. It just depends on what you like doing.

There are things that I think could definitely be improved upon, but hindsight is 20-20, right?

It's a good game. Try it out. Better yet- ask Yahtzee.