Favorite game mechanic you wish more RPGs would use?

[mondblut]

Which is what I don't really understand. For me, I would rather have the journal record EVERYTHING. Like, the entire conversation related to the quest. Like how you can review chat histories in your favourite chat programs.

No, thanks. How the hell are you going to find anything in there?

ROA2 (and 3?) had it done well, there was a button to dump an NPC's response into journal. If you think there is a useful clue, you click it and the words are saved for posterity, if it's some useless fluff, you ignore it.

Unlockable prewritten "journal entries" is consoletard crap (thanks, BIS/Bioware/Troika) not unlike quest compass.

 

[MetalCraze]

Eh I don't think unlockable journal entries is the problem. There is nothing wrong with the quest description being nicely written - as long as it doesn't point you to the very place where you need to do/get something - like text quest compass - providing hints and clues that caused this entry to appear instead.

 

[soggie]

I believe journal entries should not be too vague unless you allow the player the capability to review the entire conversation that led to the quest in an archive.

It's a pain in the ass to have a journal entry that is being vague for the sake of being vague - that's not challenging, that's downright sadistic. Not the fun kind of sadism, mind you.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Satisfaction bonuses and collectible harem a la Rance

 

[Zeus]

I believe hand-holding should be entirely optional. That being said, there are a lot of reasons for an (optional) full transcript of dialog and other text at the player's disposal.

The most obvious: if you quit playing a game for a few months, it's really hard to get back into the game. Even if the quest descriptions aren't vague and are generally helpful, it's still easy to forget all the little details; things that were too fresh in your head to bother writing down, now suddenly important and impossible to remember. Just try finding that one guy who sells potions at a wicked discount, when you can't quite remember his name or the town he's in, etc. Quest logs aren't going to help you, because it was never a quest in the first place. That's where a full text log comes in handy.

How would the player access this information? Fortunately, computers have been pretty good at text searches for a while now. Instead of paging through the chronologically ordered transcript, you could just punch in a few key words, +potion +discount, and be taken straight to a log of the conversation you're looking for.

There are other reasons, my second favorite being, sometimes it's just really cool to be able to go back and read a nice quote or particularly cheesy line of dialog. There are hundreds of movie transcript sites if you're looking for a movie quote, but nobody transcribes games (for obvious reasons, the long ones rival a novel). A searchable text log would basically give the player total recall.

People complained about automaps, too. Not forcing the player to draw the map on graph paper--the very nerve!

 

[soggie]

I think as far as "streamlining" goes, mechanics that simplify a task but do not simplify (or cheapen) the game experience should be encouraged.

Things like quest compasses cheapens gameplay; automaps don't. Quest entries that magically knows the solution to the problem cheapens gameplay; full dialog records and a summarized quest entry don't.

 

[Zeus]

Yup. All automaps and text logs do is tell you what you already know.

 

[Mystary!]

Not so much a mechanic, but I love text descriptions of the enviroment. Graphics alone cannot set a mood correctly, you need to be able to examine your surroundings and find something that hints to more than what you can see.

 

[visions]

Not so much a mechanic, but I love text descriptions of the enviroment. Graphics alone cannot set a mood correctly, you need to be able to examine your surroundings and find something that hints to more than what you can see.

Seconded.

 

[soggie]

Not so much a mechanic, but I love text descriptions of the enviroment. Graphics alone cannot set a mood correctly, you need to be able to examine your surroundings and find something that hints to more than what you can see.

And also text description of NPC body language when in conversations. Or even better, link it to a stat like cold reading or something, that if you successfully perform a skill check or a challenge vs the NPC's deception skill, you gain extra information on the NPC's body language which might hint towards the NPC's true intentions.

Kind of wish some RPG would implement Bene Gesserit-like epic observation skills.

 

[nomask7]

Avoidable monsters that don't attack straight away, but only after a period of hesitation and threatening growls if you're still too close to them afterwards. (see Gothic 2: Night of the Raven for a perfect example.)

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Not so much a mechanic, but I love text descriptions of the enviroment. Graphics alone cannot set a mood correctly, you need to be able to examine your surroundings and find something that hints to more than what you can see.

 

[nomask7]

No leveling for a change. Fuck, when my wife sends me on quests to the supermarket after doing them all I don't suddenly level up and magically get stronger.

I don't believe I'm saying this but Bethesda was on the right track in Morrowind with many skills getting better when you used them.

That might also decrease rewards for killing monsters, which would be a good thing, since it's a new thing and would increase variety, not to mention make it more realistic, which was one of your own arguments. No more incentives to kill rather than to avoid monsters ... of course, the avoiding part would have to be challenging enought often enough to make it interesting, as in NotR.

 

[J1M]

Turn-based combat.

 

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

Avoidable monsters that don't attack straight away, but only after a period of hesitation and threatening growls if you're still too close to them afterwards. (see Gothic 2: Night of the Raven for a perfect example.)

Huzzah!

I don't believe I'm saying this but Bethesda was on the right track in Morrowind with many skills getting better when you used them. Though implemented badly, I'd rather something like this where you get better through training your character and using skills than putting in skill points and leveling.

Huzzah!

Not so much a mechanic, but I love text descriptions of the enviroment. Graphics alone cannot set a mood correctly, you need to be able to examine your surroundings and find something that hints to more than what you can see.

Nonsense. They are a crutch.

 

[visions]

Nonsense. They are a crutch.

Nonsense.

 

[Mystary!]

Nonsense. They are a crutch.

There is a bunch of stuff you cannot express with graphics, like how something smells or feels to touch.Even if they started using smell-o-vision, text is far superior, because it sparks your imagination.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

No leveling for a change. Fuck, when my wife sends me on quests to the supermarket after doing them all I don't suddenly level up and magically get stronger.

I don't believe I'm saying this but Bethesda was on the right track in Morrowind with many skills getting better when you used them.

That might also decrease rewards for killing monsters, which would be a good thing, since it's a new thing and would increase variety, not to mention make it more realistic, which was one of your own arguments. No more incentives to kill rather than to avoid monsters ... of course, the avoiding part would have to be challenging enought often enough to make it interesting, as in NotR.

True. I liked the JA2 use and training system more than most of levelling systems.

 

[Yggdrasil]

No leveling for a change. Fuck, when my wife sends me on quests to the supermarket after doing them all I don't suddenly level up and magically get stronger.

I don't believe I'm saying this but Bethesda was on the right track in Morrowind with many skills getting better when you used them.

That might also decrease rewards for killing monsters, which would be a good thing, since it's a new thing and would increase variety, not to mention make it more realistic, which was one of your own arguments. No more incentives to kill rather than to avoid monsters ... of course, the avoiding part would have to be challenging enought often enough to make it interesting, as in NotR.

In VtM Bloodlines there was no XP rewards for killing ordinary enemies (though that does not mean it was possible to avoid them). It wasn't neither especially irritating nor especially interesting element of the gameplay - soon you just forgot about it.

In Gothic, on the other hand, hunting wild animals was one of the fun parts in the game, and I'd hate to see it made less appealing by decreasing the rewards for killing.

 

[nomask7]

In Gothic, on the other hand, hunting wild animals was one of the fun parts in the game, and I'd hate to see it made less appealing by decreasing the rewards for killing.

Hides could be made more precious. And hunting skill would increase after a certain amount of game-animal kills. (Not just by shooting a bow, as in the TES games, if any of them even have a bow.)

 

[Zeus]

Survival.

I always hated the inevitable starvation/dehydration death in labyrinthine dungeon crawls. But take the player out of the dungeon and the concept suddenly becomes appealing.

Exploration doesn't just mean finding a treasure chest hidden in the weeds, in means securing sources of food and water. Killing animals doesn't just mean EXP (how *does* stabbing rats better prepare you to fight off the king's guard, anyway?), it means getting something to eat, using the hides to craft new armor.

As an added bonus, you could have boss monsters move into the player's favorite hunting grounds.

You don't need some old man with a yellow exclamation mark hat telling you to slay the dragon; you slay the dragon because he's camping on the only clean water source in the whole damn forest, and the sooner you do something about it, the better.

 

[nomask7]

Survival.

I always hated the inevitable starvation/dehydration death in labyrinthine dungeon crawls. But take the player out of the dungeon and the concept suddenly becomes appealing.

Exploration doesn't just mean finding a treasure chest hidden in the weeds, in means securing sources of food and water. Killing animals doesn't just mean EXP (how *does* stabbing rats better prepare you to fight off the king's guard, anyway?), it means getting something to eat, using the hides to craft new armor.

As an added bonus, you could have boss monsters move into the player's favorite hunting grounds.

You don't need some old man with a yellow exclamation mark hat telling you to slay the dragon; you slay the dragon because he's camping on the only clean water source in the whole damn forest, and the sooner you do something about it, the better.

Yes!!!!!!

Honestly, I think the only way to save the adventure RPG genre and let it grow into full maturity is to take the "adventure" part and combine or replace it with survival.

It's not long ago that I was trying to think of a good survival game to play, but I realized I wanted the RPG elements too, so I stopped thinking and forgot about it.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Survival.

I always hated the inevitable starvation/dehydration death in labyrinthine dungeon crawls. But take the player out of the dungeon and the concept suddenly becomes appealing.

Exploration doesn't just mean finding a treasure chest hidden in the weeds, in means securing sources of food and water. Killing animals doesn't just mean EXP (how *does* stabbing rats better prepare you to fight off the king's guard, anyway?), it means getting something to eat, using the hides to craft new armor.

As an added bonus, you could have boss monsters move into the player's favorite hunting grounds.

You don't need some old man with a yellow exclamation mark hat telling you to slay the dragon; you slay the dragon because he's camping on the only clean water source in the whole damn forest, and the sooner you do something about it, the better.

I... umm.... yes.

Kodex Approved.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Survival.

I always hated the inevitable starvation/dehydration death in labyrinthine dungeon crawls. But take the player out of the dungeon and the concept suddenly becomes appealing.

Exploration doesn't just mean finding a treasure chest hidden in the weeds, in means securing sources of food and water. Killing animals doesn't just mean EXP (how *does* stabbing rats better prepare you to fight off the king's guard, anyway?), it means getting something to eat, using the hides to craft new armor.

As an added bonus, you could have boss monsters move into the player's favorite hunting grounds.

You don't need some old man with a yellow exclamation mark hat telling you to slay the dragon; you slay the dragon because he's camping on the only clean water source in the whole damn forest, and the sooner you do something about it, the better.

:rpgnazi:

 

[Fucking Quality Poster]

Survival.

I always hated the inevitable starvation/dehydration death in labyrinthine dungeon crawls. But take the player out of the dungeon and the concept suddenly becomes appealing.

Exploration doesn't just mean finding a treasure chest hidden in the weeds, in means securing sources of food and water. Killing animals doesn't just mean EXP (how *does* stabbing rats better prepare you to fight off the king's guard, anyway?), it means getting something to eat, using the hides to craft new armor.

As an added bonus, you could have boss monsters move into the player's favorite hunting grounds.

You don't need some old man with a yellow exclamation mark hat telling you to slay the dragon; you slay the dragon because he's camping on the only clean water source in the whole damn forest, and the sooner you do something about it, the better.