IGN's Top 10 Ways to Fix JRPGs...

[Internet Kraken]

Save points as well, I'm just not happy letting most game players decide that every game should have save everywhere. This feature has really ruined the difficulty levels in some PC games and is one of the last things that should be made universal IMO. A save point at least every half hour or so might be reasonable though.

Please explain how being able to save at any point outside of combat fucks up difficulty. Having save points does not change the difficulty in any way. All it does it make things take longer if you die.

Multiplayer and realtime combat? IGN doesn't understand the genre.

Last time I checked, there are many JRPGs that have real-time combat. The genre is not exclusively turn-based.

Secondly, how does "Battle Systems: Kick It Up a Notch" translate to "get rid of turn-based combat"? They didn't say that in the article. Hell they used a game that had turn-based combat as an example of adding something new to the genre's combat. So they certainly don't mean that they think all turn-based combat is bad. They probably just want some developers to try doing something new with it.

I get the feeling that several of you just started bashing them after briefly skimming over the article.

 

[GloatingSwine]

1)JRPGs don't all use one combat system. And Disgaea beats any WRPG I've ever played in terms of combat.

You've evidently not played Baldur's Gate.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Save points as well, I'm just not happy letting most game players decide that every game should have save everywhere. This feature has really ruined the difficulty levels in some PC games and is one of the last things that should be made universal IMO. A save point at least every half hour or so might be reasonable though.

Please explain how being able to save at any point outside of combat fucks up difficulty. Having save points does not change the difficulty in any way. All it does it make things take longer if you die.

It also means that you frequently have to grind away at some dungeon or other annoying bit of game, when what you really want to do is go to bed, because the save points are some ungodly distance apart.

Fucking Lost Odyssey, fucking temple of the fucking Ancients.

 

[squid5580]

Remove turn based combat is really the only thing I'd change in JRPGs.

And IGN needs to stop cumming over everything that has multiplayer and shitting on everything that doesn't

Fuck multiplayer.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Now the White Knight Chronicle boards are going to be filled with the emo tears of unbalanceness.

White Knight has real time combat, right?

If so, I'm definitely picking that up in February

I thought ti looked more like a FF12 type game but I could be wrong. I have only seen Japanese gameplay and it is hard to get a good handle on what is going on when you can't read Japanese

 

[Julianking93]

Remove turn based combat is really the only thing I'd change in JRPGs.

And IGN needs to stop cumming over everything that has multiplayer and shitting on everything that doesn't

Fuck multiplayer.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Now the White Knight Chronicle boards are going to be filled with the emo tears of unbalanceness.

White Knight has real time combat, right?

If so, I'm definitely picking that up in February

I thought ti looked more like a FF12 type game but I could be wrong. I have only seen Japanese gameplay and it is hard to get a good handle on what is going on when you can't read Japanese

True but I'm pretty sure it has a battle system similar to that of Kingdom hearts.

 

[Axolotl]

1)JRPGs don't all use one combat system. And Disgaea beats any WRPG I've ever played in terms of combat.

You've evidently not played Baldur's Gate.

I have and it is on the oposite end of the list. Horrible combat, 2e wasn't very good and works even worse as video game never mind a bad conversion into real-time.

 

[NeutralDrow]

1)JRPGs don't all use one combat system. And Disgaea beats any WRPG I've ever played in terms of combat.

You've evidently not played Baldur's Gate.

I hated Baldur's Gate's combat. The only game I've ever played where I didn't mind the Infinity engine was Planescape Torment.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Save points as well, I'm just not happy letting most game players decide that every game should have save everywhere. This feature has really ruined the difficulty levels in some PC games and is one of the last things that should be made universal IMO. A save point at least every half hour or so might be reasonable though.

Please explain how being able to save at any point outside of combat fucks up difficulty. Having save points does not change the difficulty in any way. All it does it make things take longer if you die.

Well, what should be a moderate challenge for a player, working though a series of easy/mediumish challenges without failing becomes trivial if the player can save after each challenge. I have played some turn based games where developers, who realise that their game needs to have save anywhere and also needs to have risk to be at all fun, have stacked every dice roll towards insta killing the player. Play enough of that and you get pretty sick of saving and reloading. Save anywhere is an anti-game mechanic and it doesn't surprise me that it gets so much support as it seems that many players would rather play through all games with cheat codes.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Role playing would be nice. It is a ROLE PLAYING game after all.

Check out the Persona Games then, there heavy on the role playing

As long as Persona stays the same, im ok with it.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Addressing the point of removing ATB/Turn-Based combat... SO MANY RPGs which are made in Japan no longer use the ATB system. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, Valkyrie Profile 2 and Persona 3 were three of the best JRPGs made in the last console generation. Of those, only Persona 3 has turn-based battles, and I use that term VERY loosely, since you could get more and more "turns" by fighting in a clever fashion and exploiting weaknesses. Also, you only controlled the one character, so the turns went by REALLY fast.

But yeah, Dragon Quarter still has the best combat system of any RPG I've played ever, ever. I defy anyone to find a better combat engine for a role-playing game.

 

[Pyode]

Save grinding. Enough said.

I don't think I know what you're talking about. Could you please explain?

I've never heard it referred to as "save grinding" so I may be thinking of something else, but I'll give you my explanation as to why save points aren't bad.

When you play Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Mass Effect you can literally save anywhere as long as you aren't in combat. This allows you save after every single enemy encounters so, when you get to the next encounter, you can just keep fighting that one battle as many times as you want without any fear of losing any progress.

With save points this isn't the case. You are forced to fight a series of battles before being able to save again, making each battle much more intense and satisfying.

Now, I noticed in a previous post you though it might only "artificially" increase the difficulty. This is entirely possible. But if the enemy are balanced properly, and the save points are placed correctly, it creates a gauntlet that forces you to use all of you skills and items in the most efficient and effective way because you may need them for the next fight.

Edit: After posting I noticed some problems with my argument so I am going to clarify.

I'll use Oblivion and Mass effect as examples of how the save anywhere system can work and how it can be messed up.

In Oblivion, like in many JRPGs, you have a manna bar. The entire purpose of having a manna bar in a game is to not only effect individual fights, but to also make you think of the next fight. You don't want to use all of your manna on that awesome fire spell, only to face the next fight with nothing (Granted, in Oblivion, this is thrown out the window by the stupid sleep 1 hour thing but lets ignore that little problem for our purposes). This is where the problem with "save anywhere" comes in. Because there is no real consequence for loosing, you don't have to worry about being at a dis-advantage for the next fight or you can handicap yourself for the current fight to make the next one easier.

On the other hand, Mass Effect is specifically balanced for the "save anywhere" system. It uses cool downs and regenerating health instead of manna, so no matter what you are pretty much at full strength for every battle, making any "gauntlet" pointless.

In other words, it all comes down to what the combat system is balanced for. Either system doesn't necessarily make a game better or worse, it simply complements or hinders the combat system implemented in that specific game.

 

[Axolotl]

When you play Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Mass Effect you can literally save anywhere as long as you aren't in combat. This allows you save after every single enemy encounters so, when you get to the next encounter, you can just keep fighting that one battle as many times as you want without any fear of losing any progress.

That's not really save grinding, or at least not the worst form of it.

Say you're playing Fallout 3. You need to go through Little Lampplight. You can either do a quest or succeed at a speech check, you can simply save and then reload if you fail the check, it's a tactic with no chance of failure and it makes speech a worthless skill because it can be done with any speech check. This is partly due to the problems with PnP to digital translations but saving anywhere agravates the problem.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Save points as well, I'm just not happy letting most game players decide that every game should have save everywhere. This feature has really ruined the difficulty levels in some PC games and is one of the last things that should be made universal IMO. A save point at least every half hour or so might be reasonable though.

Please explain how being able to save at any point outside of combat fucks up difficulty. Having save points does not change the difficulty in any way. All it does it make things take longer if you die.

Well, what should be a moderate challenge for a player, working though a series of easy/mediumish challenges without failing becomes trivial if the player can save after each challenge. I have played some turn based games where developers, who realise that their game needs to have save anywhere and also needs to have risk to be at all fun, have stacked every dice roll towards insta killing the player. Play enough of that and you get pretty sick of saving and reloading. Save anywhere is an anti-game mechanic and it doesn't surprise me that it gets so much support as it seems that many players would rather play through all games with cheat codes.

Again, how does being able to save anywhere outside of combat make battles any easier? You haven't really answered this.

The battles do not get any harder. The enemies do not get any weaker. Being able to save anywhere has no influence on combat difficulty. A boss is still going to rape me if I am unprepared, regardless of whether or not I have a save right outside of his domain. The only difference is that I don't have to spend 20 minutes fighting the same enemies all over again.

I really don't see your logic.

-snip-

Okay, I do see your logic. You have convinced that save points do serve a purpose in some RPG's.

However, It's still frustrating to have your progress wiped away not because of your failure, but because you had to go do something outside of the game. So I say that these games should at least have a temporary save option. A temporary save could be used anywhere, but doing so immediately exits you out of the game. When you choose to reload the temporary save, your progress is resumed but the save is deleted.


I don't see any problems with that.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

Again, how does being able to save anywhere outside of combat make battles any easier? You haven't really answered this. The battles do not get any harder. The enemies do not get any weaker. Being able to save anywhere has no influence on combat difficulty. A boss is still going to rape me if I am unprepared, regardless of whether or not I have a save right outside of his domain. The only difference is that I don't have to spend 20 minutes fighting the same enemies all over again.

Seconded. You can save practically anywhere in Dragon Age, and I've lost count of the number of times that game has kicked my ass. As for the argument about how save points add to the suspense: they do, but in the "please, God, don't let me lose these last two hours of effort!" way, not the "wow, I wonder how the heroes are going to make it this time!" way. Way #2 I'm fine with. Way #1? No, thank you.

 

[Axolotl]

Okay, I do see your logic. You have convinced that save points do serve a purpose in some RPG's.

They serve a purpose in any RPG with consequences (i.e. any good WRPG). Because with saving anywhere all negavtive consequences go out of the window, my mistakes have no impact.

To provide examples from RPGs I've played. I buy a magic item in PS:T not knowing what it does, if I don't like it then reload. A follower dies inn Fallout 2, reload. I get caught stealing in Oblivion, reload. I make a bad dialog choice in Bloodlines, reload. I fail a speech chek in Fallout 3, reload. Any of these situations could potentilly have interesting consequences but they don't because I can reload any mistakes easily.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Okay, I do see your logic. You have convinced that save points do serve a purpose in some RPG's.

They serve a purpose in any RPG with consequences (i.e. any good WRPG). Because with saving anywhere all negavtive consequences go out of the window, my mistakes have no impact.

To provide examples from RPGs I've played. I buy a magic item in PS:T not knowing what it does, if I don't like it then reload. A follower dies inn Fallout 2, reload. I get caught stealing in Oblivion, reload. I make a bad dialog choice in Bloodlines, reload. I fail a speech chek in Fallout 3, reload. Any of these situations could potentilly have interesting consequences but they don't because I can reload any mistakes easily.

Well then here's a crazy thought; don't reload.

And you can do the same thing in an RPG with save points. The only difference is that it takes longer. If you're dedicated to "cheating" your way through the game, it's certainly still possible to do so. And most of these consequences are rather benign anyways. If faced with a massive consequence, players are probably going to reload regardless of the type of save system in the RPG.

 

[Pyode]

Okay, I do see your logic. You have convinced that save points do serve a purpose in some RPG's.

However, It's still frustrating to have your progress wiped away not because of your failure, but because you had to go do something outside of the game. So I say that these games should at least have a temporary save option. A temporary save could be used anywhere, but doing so immediately exits you out of the game. When you choose to reload the temporary save, your progress is resumed but the save is deleted.


I don't see any problems with that.

Yea, I've played a few games with that and it is almost always a good idea in just about any game, not just RPGs. I think some developers forget that, sometimes, we only have 15-30 mins to play a game.

That's not really save grinding, or at least not the worst form of it.

Say you're playing Fallout 3. You need to go through Little Lampplight. You can either do a quest or succeed at a speech check, you can simply save and then reload if you fail the check, it's a tactic with no chance of failure and it makes speech a worthless skill because it can be done with any speech check. This is partly due to the problems with PnP to digital translations but saving anywhere agravates the problem.

Yea, I had completely forgotten about that. You can do something similar in Mass Effect where you save right before talking to a shop keeper and grind for the weapon or armor you want. It's not as big of a deal in that game but still an exploitation none the less.

 

[PxDn Ninja]

Clearly that article is not written by anyone with game development experience and who prefers American titles over Japanese titles. JRPGs don't need to be "fixed". They are their own type of game and people pick it up with certain expectations.

I'm not saying ALL his comments are bad (in fact, some I agree with that I would like to see), but just because a game isn't online multiplayer, or has a traditional story, doesn't mean it is broken.

 

[Axolotl]

Well then here's a crazy thought; don't reload.

I don't but saying "you don't have to use it." is a bad rebuttal for a feature that removes consiquences, reduces difficulty and encourages stupid decisions.