Most missed feature in RPGs

D

DArtagnan

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What do you miss the most in RPGs of today?

Personally, I really miss cerebral puzzles and riddles using wordplay.
 
Strong character development.
Tactical party based combat (current games don't seem to be very tactical in their approach, there are exceptions though).
 
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Turn Based Combat (or Phased) where tactics, not twitch wins the day!!
 
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What do you miss the most in RPGs of today?

Personally, I really miss cerebral puzzles and riddles using wordplay.

That... and I would have loved to the see an expansion of the world simulation aspects of the first Gothic like the property/stealing features, running around with a drawn weapon, wildlife animals fighting each other and a multitude of other advanced AI stuff.
It is almost unbelievable that in spite of ever growing computing power, we have seen zero progress in this area or actually quite the opposite of progress since even PB have continually dumbed down their own games in that regard, calling advanced AI "nice to have" but not a selling point.
I find that truly sad. I mean Gothic is a 2001 game FFS. Just imagine the possibilities of 2011 if someone would actually explore them.
 
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Turn Based Combat (or Phased) where tactics, not twitch wins the day!!

This.

If nothing else, realtime RPG combat is very difficult to do right and requires a tricky balancing act between player skills and character skills. The Witcher 2 does have fairly excellent "twitch-based" combat, but there's a nagging feeling that CD Projekt RED "solved" the problem by drawing inspiration from punishing third-person action titles like, say, Ninja Gaiden rather than start from the fundamentals of RPG design. Apart from being less stressful and physically demanding, turn-based combat remains a perfect fit for the genre.

The old school RPG puzzle, though, is something I can definitely do without. At the very least the implementation of puzzles in every older RPG I've personally played have been horrible and characterized almost entirely by pointless "pixel hunting" and contrived, illogical solutions.
 
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I love a good turn-based combat system myself, but I don't actually think it's necessarily better.

In fact, I think whether it's turn-based or real-time is largely irrelevant in many cases, as long as it's GOOD.

That said, I'm a big immersion fan - and most games that "take you into their worlds" would fall apart if combat was turn-based. At least, it would take away the feeling of actually being there doing the fighting - and become more of a "puppetmaster" experience.
 
Turn-based works ok, but you have to be careful the fights don't drag on... and on. Wizardry 8 springs to mind.
 
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I always miss options to turn quest markers of any kind off.
 
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Quality :biggrin:


No but seriously, well thought fantastic worlds.. with diverse cultures, beliefs, races.

One of my favourite gaming moments was messing in the Underdark with the drow, a race with a distinct look and culture with a lot of rituals, distinct art and architecture. Its inspired, well thought worlds and worlds withing worlds that made me wish I was a hero there…

I know much people dont consider Mass Effect a RPG but it had more to be discovered in this aspect than any recent RPG. I enjoyed finding out about the many races (Krogans rule).
 
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I'm with the majority in missing turn based combat or at least less twitch/reflex based combat the most. I've been playing a little simple old style JRPG for Android on my phone and am surprised how much I've been enjoying. I think a lot of that is due to the turn based combat.

These days when I am playing so-called "RPGs" I almost feel like I am playing Mortal Kombat sometimes. :p
 
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I'm missing Wizardry / Might & Magic - style games most:

party management
turn based challenging combat
complex character building
difficult dungeons
 
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I always miss options to turn quest markers of any kind off.

This, sort of. What I really miss is quests being designed in a way where quest markers are not needed. You can mod the quest markers out of Oblivion or Fallout 3 for example but then no one tells you where to go, so you're lost all the time. They say "go kill her" instead of "go kill her, she's in the third house on the left."

Quest markers are my biggest pet peeve in all of gaming. They're horrible in open world games which are designed for exploration and immersion, but they're even worse in linear games. Call of Duty is literally a tunnel you walk down now but they still think people are dumb enough to need a big "go this way" marker on the screen ALL THE TIME.
 
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I don't know if this is "missed", but I'd love to see an RPG where you don't immediately identify a monster on site from 20 meters away in a dark dungeon.

Like when you're in the initial dungeon in BG2, and you enter the sewer area. You immediately, without fail, no matter what your stats are, identify the monster as an Otyugh. Even if all your intelligence and wisdom are 3s, you just know it's an Otyugh. Why not have a skill check for identifying creatures, especially in a dark dungeon?
 
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You can mod the quest markers out of Oblivion or Fallout 3 for example but then no one tells you where to go, so you're lost all the time.

It depends. Are you talking about the marker on the compass, the one on the map screen, or both?

I modded out the one on the compass, and that made the game a lot more immersive to me. I didn't use the map marker unless I absolutely had to, and that was rare.
 
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I modded my compass location/quest markers out of Fallout 3 as well. A -LOT- more immersive. The downside is that it made me focus on the other negatives of the game even more though... like the elementary school dialogue.
 
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It depends. Are you talking about the marker on the compass, the one on the map screen, or both?

I modded out the one on the compass, and that made the game a lot more immersive to me. I didn't use the map marker unless I absolutely had to, and that was rare.

That's what I ended up doing, leaving them on the map but removing them from the compass. Still I had to check the map pretty often, they literally never give you in-world directions.
 
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