Your perfect RPG

[McNinja]

Since the release of Skyrim, everything has been talking about Skyrim. But I found Skyrim a bit lacking in a few places, most notably the ability to quickly switch between spells and weapons and back and forth and etc.

Anyway, I was thinking about what Skyrim did right and what ti did wrong, then I got to thinking, what would be the perfect RPG? For me, there would be a few things:

1. It would offer complete freedom of movement (i.e. a sort of Assassin's Creed and Ninja Gaiden amalgam of jumpy-climby goodness), no invisible walls or too-steep slopes or being stuck on rocks that are just barely too tall to jump on.

2. And open world. As "open" as Skyrim is, there seem to be loading screens every six feet, esp. in dungeons or towns. Background loading was put to good use in Mass Effect, where elevator rides and decontamination routines replace standard loading screens. Simply the act of opening a door and walking into a house could be a loading screen.

3. A better spell exchange system. See Fable 1. While a tad cumbersome at first, it worked. It worked really, really well. And besides, if we're talking cumbersome control schemes, we gotta bring up Darksiders (or, really, any of the terrible controls for the Armored Core games). Fable got this right, yet no one seems to realize this. Heck, a Mass Effect/Dragon Age style wheel is faster and better than a list we have to scroll through, but Fable (with the exception of the ranged weapon controls) had controls that worked.

4. A freakin' sweet soundtrack. See Bulletstorm or Mass Effect (for those of you thinking "wtf Bulletstorm?" go listen to the menu theme on youtube. It is fantastic). Or Simply just have Ensiferum or Equilibrium do the soundtrack. Have you listened to Equilibrium's instrumentals (Kurzes Epos and Mana)? You should. Have you listened to Twilight Tavern by Ensiferum? You should. Do it now.

5. Characters I give a damn about. See Mass Effect (1 & 2). Really self explanatory. Also, a protagonist I care about. I'm having trouble really caring about the Dragonborn in Skyrim.

6. Actual people populating the world. Just... no sliding people, people that move like people. Also, I don't know a single person who volunteers even a quarter of the info the people of Skyrim do. For some reason, they feel like sharing their life's story if I get within a few feet of them. It doesn't help that they wander, so if you're trying to watch something, a guy could walk up to you and begin spouting on about Dragons. My care meter is critically low, please stfu.

7. A well-though out, thoroughly epic story. Skyrim is fairly vague with the overarching plot, but not too much so. DA:O does a fantastic job of setting up the main story and making it something worth investing in.

What about you all? What features would you want an RPG (or, really, any game) to have that would make it perfect?

Also, that Kingdoms of Alamur game comes out in Feb. Hopefully it won't suck.

 

[nyysjan]

Solid character creation, well written quests and plot, large semi open world, choices that matter and do not come of as preachy/stupid, deep and well writtn NPC's, plenty of side missions.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Here's the problem with OP's idea: Open-world gameplay isn't that conductive to story-telling. The problem is that if you spend too long dicking around then you lose sight of the plot, and if you just rush through the story missions then you lose out on the game's "main" draw: its openness. So while the others may be possible (just expect your game to spend longer in development than Duke Nukem Forever and cost more than food and rent for the next two months), those two are mutually exclusive. Every sandbox game I know suffers from that: Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and yes, nearly every Bethesda RPG.

 

[The Madman]

Built using an updated version of the Temple of Elemental Evil engine with a plot and dialogue written by Obsidian and overhead management from Bioware who'll do the overall polishing and bugfixing as well as voice casting. I'd pay a lot for that, a lot.

Hell I just want Obsidian and Bioware to actually work together, not just handing projects between each other. Both studio have flaws the other balances out and so if they worked together, preferably on a classic PC DnD style rpg, I'd be in absolutely gaming heaven. For all I care the game could be about puppies and poker, I don't care, I'd buy it!

 

[Jedoro]

Give everyone a name. EVERYONE. Even random guards, give them a random name. It'll make everyone feel a bit more like a person than some pixels.

 

[Paladin Anderson]

1: A crafting/task system like in the one in Star Ocean 2. Powerful, fun, but not overly complicated and grindy. I like crafting but I balk when ingredients require hours of monster grinding to attain.

2: First and foremost, Action based combat system, like in Star Ocean 2 but deeper and less spam the same attack

3: Interesting characters like the ones in DA:O

4: More than 3 characters in your party. Makes NO sense when you have 7 people in your group but only 3 of them fight. Four at the very least, five is ideal. Any more and battles become a clustered mess. Or at least have a system where the characters who aren't in use contribute to the battle in some way like in Thousand Arms. (Even though the combat system in that game SUCKED)

5: No voice acting. Leaves a lot of time and money open to invest into story, game play, and most importantly actions your character can take. With voice acting each action needs its own set of dialog and that gets expensive. Fast. So character options are kept limited.

6: Strong female characters. Not the melodramatic, emotionally dysfunctional, and annoying ones in most JRPGs.

7: A job system that you can break with planning. Example: Ninja/monks in Final Fantasy Tactics. Unstoppable machines of death.

8: Open world. Even if it's the illusion of an open world. No endless hallways like in the recent Final Fantasy games.

9: Over sized weapons and attacks. JRPGs have this area nailed.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Here's the problem with OP's idea: Open-world gameplay isn't that conductive to story-telling. The problem is that if you spend too long dicking around then you lose sight of the plot, and if you just rush through the story missions then you lose out on the game's "main" draw: its openness. So while the others may be possible (just expect your game to spend longer in development than Duke Nukem Forever and cost more than food and rent for the next two months), those two are mutually exclusive. Every sandbox game I know suffers from that: Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and yes, nearly every Bethesda RPG.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. For instance a lot of players really didn't care about Fallout 3's plot and just went around raiding and exploring everywhere and stealing everyone's stuff, but a lot of them loved it anyway. And people don't remember GTA for it's plot, they remember it for being able to do crazy shit like steal an old lady's car, run over a bunch of pedestrians, do a bunch of cool jumps then get chased by the FBI, and that's before they move on to the really crazy stuff.

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1, Dynamic weather effects. While there are games are which might have fog that cuts a unit's sight line in half or things like that, they're pretty much never a major gameplay thing and just a bit of small, often tacked on addition (with exceptions such as From Dust). Having weather that dramatically changes as you play would be downright awesome, especially if it was crazy weather patterns and random seasons rather than boring old Earth weather.

2, Not a medieval fantasy or post apocalyptic setting. While the gameplay itself might be different they always feel like the same damn thing because there's just so many of them. I'd rather some kind of Sci-Fi-ey setting with crazy technology and lots of bright colourful far out places to roam around.

3, Parties which be either more traditional smaller 2-4 person groups or be more like a 4-8 person squad, with a wide range of potential party members to recruit with a ton of abilities and upgrade potential.

4, Nice mix between melee, ranged and tech/magic combat. Way too many games seem to go for just one of them.

5, Several factions constantly openly fighting each other, sort of like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but more full on and on a larger scale.

6, Air, ground and sea based vehicles.

7, Crapload of different environments, from cities to mountain ranges to tunnel networks to vast open plains...

8, Instead of directly levelling up the player's health and damage and what not, they instead choose skills along the way similar to Bethesda games which they can respec at certain areas. Damn devs, haven't we moved past 'kill dude pick up sword kill bigger dude get bigger sword' yet?

9, No player classes. At all. Like the basic fundamental levelling up system mentioned above they're completely archaic and are a massive and unnecessary restriction in singleplayer games. Party members might have classes but they'd be very malleable.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Here's the problem with OP's idea: Open-world gameplay isn't that conductive to story-telling. The problem is that if you spend too long dicking around then you lose sight of the plot, and if you just rush through the story missions then you lose out on the game's "main" draw: its openness. So while the others may be possible (just expect your game to spend longer in development than Duke Nukem Forever and cost more than food and rent for the next two months), those two are mutually exclusive. Every sandbox game I know suffers from that: Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and yes, nearly every Bethesda RPG.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. For instance a lot of players really didn't care about Fallout 3's plot and just went around raiding and exploring everywhere and stealing everyone's stuff, but a lot of them loved it anyway. And people don't remember GTA for it's plot, they remember it for being able to do crazy shit like steal an old lady's car, run over a bunch of pedestrians, do a bunch of cool jumps then get chased by the FBI, and that's before they move on to the really crazy stuff.

What the OP was saying was that he wanted to have his cake and eat it: a sandbox RPG with a story as epic as a sliiiiightly more linear one.

 

[Simon Pettersson]

Ok put Mount & blade warband in a Skyrim engine. It doesn´t really need more.
Maybe have 2 modes a Story mode and a Sandbox mode were you could build your own Story, Switch your settings around so you can begin in a time you want, start as a king maybe. Or even start as a farmer building a village on a plain.

 

[Benny Blanco]

Bioware does characterization, voice acting, and storyline, Bethesda does make the whole game open world and in the elder scrolls time and setting along with audio work. And the gameplay...probably also Bioware.

There, your perfect RPG. Now get it done!

All this, for the next Shadowrun game.

We're well overdue a current gen Shadowrun RPG (the FPS monstrosity doesn't count)

 

[TorqueConverter]

Action RPGs need to knock it off with fantasy dragon/elf/ork/wizard crap and replace swords and long bows with guns.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

I already got mine... it's called Skyrim. The only improvement I could think of would be have voice options for your character like in MAss Effect/Dragon Age and perhaps multiplayer co-op.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Action RPGs need to knock it off with fantasy dragon/elf/ork/wizard crap and replace swords and long bows with guns.

Deus Ex, Fallout, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Borderlands,... lacking choice are we?
Not every game hasto succumb to your desire, different games for different tastes.

 

[Capt. Crankypants]

A dealbreaker for my RPGs is the combat. The settings are nice and the story is nice, but the combat is what makes me want to play more and more. This is one of the VERY few gripes I have with A blockbuster game like Skyrim, but also plagues other titles, like the Witcher. Both games I loved to bits with the exception of hand to hand combat.

There is a gem among the rough though. The 'Mount and Blade' games are brillllliant. It has such simple, responsive and clever armed combat. Mouse-direction controlled attacking swings and timing based blocking at their finest. I have much love for all aspects of these games, the living world, where wars are fought and won around you, that you have the CHOICE of affecting, the forming and managing of your own army, and many others.

My perfect RPG would be a nice mix, but more like sprinkling 'Skyrim' on my 'Mount and Blade', rather than adding a little bit of 'Mount and Blade' to my 'Skyrim', if you get what I mean.

 

[OriginalLadders]

Fable 2 with the Fable 3 Sanctuary and property system.

That's really all I want.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

Modern day standard graphics.

Good soundtrack.

Open World like Skyrim or Arcanum.

Isometric view or 1st person camera for party based game. (e.g. Arcanum, Wizardry)

3rd person or 1st person for lonely guy game ( e.g. Skyrim, Divine Divinity 2)

NO FINISHING MOVES or VATS!

A good character system like Arcanum or Wizardry with turnbased combat.

No QTEs.

Lots of puzzles. From easy to ridiculously hard but logical.

Interesting quests and consequences, e.g. murdering a child and people know you did that = restart your character from scratch! You can easily make a child invulnerable to all damage except "murder damage".

Gods that actually are part of the world. And that can actually reward you or hurt you immensely. Being able to kill a god and become one if you are able to.

Single player only.

Better people, as already mentioned that don't reveal all within 3 minutes of meeting. I loved how in The Witcher 2 one guy wanted to haggle down the agreed reward and Geralt just punched him!

Needing to eat and drink.

Interesting setting.

Basically a mixture of Das Schwarze Auge, Witcher 2, Arcanum, Skyrim and Wizardry.