What makes a good Action/Adventure RPG?
Hello, this is my first time posting to the forum!I've been lurking here for quite some time, and decided to finally make an account and ask you all a question.
To give some background as to why I'm asking, a few of my friends and I are working on a game. The graphics are going to be low-poly hand painted textures using UE4. We're using blender to model/paint/rig/animate everything.
For the gameplay, it's mainly going to be an exploration and dungeon crawler. We're not decided on if we want to give it an overall story or just want to keep you, as the player, an adventurer wandering around the world we build. The reason behind that is because in games like Skyrim we find that the main story isn't as good or as fun to partake in as the side quests or exploration. I feel like it may need a main story, though, and I've written a few out, but I wanted to get some outside opinions first.
What are your favorite aspects/mechanics in an RPG?
Crafting, exploration, bosses, etc?
For instance, I personally dislike having to gather materials and craft my own armor. I dislike my adventurer being a jack of all trades. I just want to go out, ransack dungeons, kill monsters, etc.
Any suggestions at all are more than welcome. We're at the ground floor with this and building basic assets that we'll use no matter what and then we're going to build upon that.
Thank you in advance, I truly appreciate it.
Also I figured this was the best place to post this, I hope I'm right :O
To give some background as to why I'm asking, a few of my friends and I are working on a game. The graphics are going to be low-poly hand painted textures using UE4. We're using blender to model/paint/rig/animate everything.
For the gameplay, it's mainly going to be an exploration and dungeon crawler. We're not decided on if we want to give it an overall story or just want to keep you, as the player, an adventurer wandering around the world we build. The reason behind that is because in games like Skyrim we find that the main story isn't as good or as fun to partake in as the side quests or exploration. I feel like it may need a main story, though, and I've written a few out, but I wanted to get some outside opinions first.
What are your favorite aspects/mechanics in an RPG?
Crafting, exploration, bosses, etc?
For instance, I personally dislike having to gather materials and craft my own armor. I dislike my adventurer being a jack of all trades. I just want to go out, ransack dungeons, kill monsters, etc.
Any suggestions at all are more than welcome. We're at the ground floor with this and building basic assets that we'll use no matter what and then we're going to build upon that.
Thank you in advance, I truly appreciate it.
Also I figured this was the best place to post this, I hope I'm right :O
Replies
- Loveable character design.
- Simple game play mechanics. Offered complexity in the form of puzzle and strategy.
- Some customization/specialization. Give me some choices but not so complex that the game becomes a stat/skill calculation game like Titan Quests.
- And I think animation plays a big part here. Most action RPG these days just use consistent animation timing through out, which I don't enjoy so much. Back in the 2D era when your attack hit there's this little freeze-frame effect just enough to make the whole action much easier to read and feels a lot less like a mindless, button mashing, endless action thing that games these days feel.
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This is NOT the same as the overused, overexploited annoying bullet-time, slow-mo, Ryse, animation. Think Street fighter 2.
I'm not sure what you mean by the freeze-frame effect to be honest, if you wouldn't mind to elaborate a little I'd appreciate it! And don't worry, we had no intention of including a bullet-time or slow-mo effect
As far as puzzles go, we want to include them and are going to try to do our best to make them good ones.
For customization/specialization we're still going over how we want to do this. At least right now we don't want to do any skill trees or over the top attack skills. We mainly wanted your weapon to dictate how your attacks work. So for an axe it attacks different than a sword and you may find the axe easier to kill a certain monster because of that difference.
EDIT: fixed the embedded video
Deus Ex Series
- Choices matter and the consequences reflect your personal play style (ie. stealth VS brawler)
- Character customizability. Between this and play style, every player will have a slightly different experience.
- Large open world with multiple paths
- Characters with unique personalities. For example, Pritchard in DE:HR could have been a generic tech guy, but he's written to be particularly annoying and snarky. You don't always like him, but he's memorable. By contrast, most of the bosses are utterly forgettable cookie cutter cliches.
- A story that as (overlapping) identifiable arcs
Dying Light
- High replayability. I competed the main quest rather quickly, but still managed to log in 80+ hours due to the countless side quests.
- Achievements. This makes sense even in RPGs. Sometimes finishing the game isn't enough. Rewarding the players for discovering secrets or reaching oddly specific goals can be fun.
- Allow for experimentation. DL can be tense and even a little scary at times, but you're never really afraid to fail. This is in large part to the fact that you respawn and there's no perma death.
- Day/Night cycle that can affect gameplay and open up different quests
- Character & weapon upgrades that actually affect the way you play.
Final Fantasy Series
- A large, diverse cast of characters
- A willingness to be quirky and funny
- Genre fusion (eg. steampunk or cyberpunk)
- Multiple vehicle types
- Small side games to break up the monotony
- Memorable villains
- Multiple endings
Anachronox
- Funny
- Nice fusion of tech & fantasy
- Clever world design
- Characters that stand out from one another
Zelda Series
- Controls that are both easy to learn and deep
- A solid soundtrack
- Bosses that require a little bit of strategy to defeat
- Strong visual style with a signature look
Ultima series
- Vast scope
- Traditional RPG sensibilities & design
The RPGs I don't like generally share the same traits.
- Main character is unlikable or unrelatable
- The bad guys are cookie cutter cliches
- The game is too linear
- Story arcs don't close off properly or plot points get dropped
- Controls that are too easy or too clumsy
- The visual design is too generic
- The action has no depth, amounting to little more than a hack/slash affair
- The music or voice work sucks
- The difficulty level doesn't scale with player growth. IOW, as you get better, the game doesn't get harder. It either remains consistently easy or painfully hard.
- Bad graphics (eg. muddy textures, blocky characters, or stiff animation)
- Game that try too hard to be unique or edgy
Whether the RPG is action oriented or JRPG, you really need to put the world, the characters, and the story first. Gameplay is critically important, but it can't make up for boring "meat." To me, the best RPGs are the ones I can go back to over and over again. I can replay them and find something new, however small, even years later.
Also, I'm not a fan of using the same formula over and over again.
Like, for the last 10-20 years, we been doing the same AOE spam, tank n spank, range kiting, mob pulling and so on... over and over in countless games for countless times.
As for what makes a good RPG, to me personally the most important things are a challenging and rewarding combat system along with a story that doesn't necessarily put the attention of the world on the player. My favorite RPG franchises are the Souls series and the SMT series. In both franchises, the player feels like just another person in the world. They aren't some kind of super OP hero, but the player can work towards achieving that kind of status if they want to. As for gameplay, both franchises also have very enjoyable combat mechanics. In both games, it doesn't really matter what your character level is, if you make a series of poor choices you will get punished severely for it. If you happen to make a series of good decisions, then you can potentially fight any type of enemy in the game, regardless of actual level difference. While not everybody may like gameplay in that style, I find it enjoyable because it always keeps the game interesting no matter how many hours you put into it.
[ame]
For the most part, this means that you simply don't have the resources to do a great job on a 'standard' sort of action/rpg. For a small team to do something that is really appealing, you will have to find a small niche that is under-served (in terms of gameplay, visuals or something else) and create something that is really good at it's own unique aspects while ultimately being really small in scope.
Getting the sort of feedback you are asking for is still a good idea. Just be aware that you aren't actually going to be able to implement all the cool suggestions.
But, I think, for a lot of people the difference between a shitty ARPG and a decent one is starting with having the basics implemented properly. Common complaints are collisions and hitboxes that don't work right, controls that feel shit, cameras that hate the player, pathing that goes bonkers, etc. So even if you only have the resources to do a simple ARPG, doing the basics right can make a huge difference.
For the resources side, look into modular asset creation. Perhaps you can cut down costs if you create frankenstein monsters, palette swaps or even do tricks with the proportions to bring some variety.
Also, game play should be fast and fluid. To me, Diablo holds the bar on this. Any time a new game comes out with the diablo style, it always feels slow and clunky to me. attacks take too long. Breaking barrels takes too long. etc etc
We are planning on having one character model for the main character, but with the option to change hair style/facial hair but limiting it to that. But, if we have extra time and everything else goes well, were planning on implementing different classes (with their own unique models as well as combat methods).
How we plan to do the quest system will be more along the lines of achievements. Youll have a full quest log of locked portraits, one for each quest. You can get a brief idea of where to start the quest and what it entails. Once you start it, going back into the menu and selecting it will have information thats updated with your progress, giving hints as where to go or what to do next.
Our death system is intended to be forgiving, with little to no penalty for dying. Youll have the option to respawn at the nearest town or at the last checkpoint for that area you crossed, with boss fight check points being right before the boss.
Were still fleshing out how we want to do a day/night cycle. Right now were kind of agreed on the further you are % wise into the game the later it gets in the day. At the beginning of the game youll start at midnight and eventually ending the game at midnight again. Depending on how long/big we make the game that may change, but thats where were at right now.
For weapon/character upgrades were thinking about having a runesmith/engraving type deal where you can learn new magical spells to engrave into your weapons. This would be able to turn all your weapons damage into, for example, fire with a little bit of a damage bonus as well. This would be advantageous for fight an ice monster or a nature monster. Other spells weve thought about would be your basic elements, poisons, quick attack, etc. We also plan to have an item that you can obtain to allow you to swap these enchantments at will, instead of (at the beginning) going to a specific NPC to do it each time.
We also plan to have a lot of unique characters, but theyll be part of quests and not companions who travel with you. We do have plans for a Navi type character, but it will be far less annoying I hope, haha. Its an animal you rescue and can ride around on to help you move faster through the open-world. This depends on how big we make the game also, and if indeed there feels to be need for faster movement. Weve also discussed fast travel, but well get further into before we decided which method suits it best.
For genre fusion, we really are just planning for it to be a high fantasy game but plan to throw a few nods to sci-fi in there.
One of the main reasons were wanting to make this is to have boss fights that require a good amount of skill to beat. Some may have puzzle type weaknesses but most will require being good with our combat system.
PyrZern Were having issues on trying to think of more ways to make your character feel like your own. We plan to add some customization in appearance and different classes if we get everything else polished nicely, but aside from that were at a loss. I mentioned already our ideas for the rune-engraving/enchanting but I dont know really what else would help. I personally hate skill trees like in Skyrim, it felt unnecessary. Weve talked about rare/hard to get weapons that have completely unique attack sets. Such as a corrupted knights claymore having a shadowy aura with a completely offensive based attack style. Youd hit like a truck but take increased damage using it and the attacks leave you completely open to incoming damage. What would you like to see in a skill-tree for a game whos combat is trying to be semi-realistic, if you dont mind saying?
NegevPro We know its kind of foolish to start with an RPG but I feel like taking on a big project like this, that we know will take a long time, was kind of perfect for us. Wed not really been in touch for a while, all doing our own things. Wed always talked about making a game and finally we decided to give it a go weve gotten a lot closer to each other again.
We planned initially for your character to be viewed poorly for being an adventurer, like it was taboo, but then I replayed the witcher and remembered how much I just wanted to kill every NPC who was a shit-head to me. That made me decided against it, haha. Still, some NPCs are going to dislike you, some will not care at all about you, and some may befriend you. There will be choices in the game that you will not want to make, with no real happy answer. We have a couple of quest ideas that start after killing what appears to be a death-worthy NPC, and then through the quest you find out more about them and that youre pretty much a jerk for killing them (if you killed them when you met them). Were going to try to add emotion to the way you play the game, and mix it up so if you wish to be a virtuous knight, it may not be as black and white as it seems. Or even if you wish to be cruel and vengeful, you may accidently cause some heartwarming situations you didnt intend. We dont however plan for your character to be some bad-ass demigod who can wreck everything. We initially were going to do that, but after a few conversations we unanimously decided against it :P
DireWolf I see what you mean now, and Ill mess with that trying to get it looking natural in our game. Also, man SFV looks so good, I cant wait.
Kevin Albers We have no real time-line on how soon we want to finish it. Since were doing it in our spare time we already know it will take quite awhile to have anything worth showing anyone. Right now were rolling with some assets we made just to get things going that we know will likely be replaced. Thats why I am not as concerned with the graphics at this point as I am with the game being fun and having appealing mechanics J
Wolthera thats why were trying to get a good feeling game that we enjoy playing before we focus on making it look good. Yeah, I have been looking at the modular assets a lot lately, and I think thats how were going to do things for the most part. With it being low poly, with little effort Ive morphed our naked player model into a giant, orc, etc and have made different armor/face textures/hairstyles/etc to swap onto them to make them feel more unique.
slipsius Yes! Thats how our skill system is planning on going. Your character will level his plate armor skill by fighting in plate armor, which will make you a little bit faster, and able to get more attacks off before tiring. Some exp from taking hits, some from attacking in plate. Your sword skill will increase only when using a sword. We dont want to have level restrictions on any items, just make you a little bit better with your equipment of choice. It wont be enough of a difference to make you over-powered just by using one handed swords the entire game, but it will benefit you enough to want to go out and do side quests to gain EXP if youre struggling with a boss.
Thank all of you for your input, I really do appreciate it. Even though were making it as an excuse to hang out together, we still really want people to be interested and enjoy it when we get to a point where we can release it, haha. It makes it all the more worthwhile. As we make progress Ill be definitely posting stuff in the appropriate threads on here. Ill still be checking this thread consistently too, so if anyone wants to add more, please by all means do so J